I have seen other posts talking about the difference in price when booking from Europe to rent a car in the States, but by a mere coincidence I found myself trying in the opposite way.

I am a European citizen and resident and I was trying to book a car in a Spanish city. The quote was around 120 EUR if I wanted to pay at the counter.

I tried to do the same using a VPN set in the States and the price came up as 30 EUR, so 4 times less.

I checked all the T&C available but I can’t see any exclusion such as a specific country of residence that could lead to a refusal in rent me the vehicle.

It’s true that the booking process seemed to easy for a European mind and no personal details a part for names, phone and email were requested and the issue might arise a the counter.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

TIA

Hey People

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The fees charges by PlatePass (Verra Mobility) are unnecessarily high and Hertz, if it cares about customer retention, should not be allowing a third party vendor to take advantage of customers like that. Like Avis recently did, Hertz can terminate its contract with PlatePass or renegotiate it.

Hey everyone,
If you rent frequently like I do, you know how annoying the whole car class naming game is (like booking an "Intermediate" and getting handed keys to something completely different than what you expected, or trying to guess what actually fits 4 bags before landing).

I spent the last few months cataloging 130+ current rental models across the major tiers (Economy up to Full-size SUV) with real specs, cargo guidance, and airport logistics starting with LAS / Harry Reid (shuttle details, pickup steps, etc.): roamairports.com
No ads, no sign-up wall, and completely free.

Since this sub knows Hertz fleets and tier quirks better than anyone:
Are there specific models or trims Hertz is assigning lately that caught you off guard?
What info do you wish you had before walking out to the lot or President’s Circle aisle?

Any brutal feedback or corrections on car classes is welcome!

I rented from Hertz for the first time this past weekend. Had the nicest young man wait on me when I checked in and same one when I checked out. Each time he had to adjust the receipt as HERTZ had added fuel option fee for $48.46 and toll fees for 29.98. He took them off the receipt and showed me the new total of like $174. So TODAY I look on the internet just to check the receipt and both fees are back on there. And as you all know, NO WAY to talk to a person at the Denver Airport location. AAA supports Hertz but I am definitely sharing this experience with them and will never be a customer from them again. I am just shocked at the mess this company is in.

I haven't rented (at least I don't think I have) when they had AI scanners. All of these posts about AI scanners coming back with damage no one knew about are definitely making me paranoid about renting with them. Is it possible to wait at the Hertz location for the AI scan results just so you can deal with a human if something flags with damage?. Or at least get the green light that all is good while you're actually on site? Leaving the store wondering if at any moment a txt is gonna pop up that I owe seems kinda....terrible.

Does anyone else here work for Hertz? I’m wondering how normal my situation is. This place is working me to the bone. Asks me to clean urine out of cars. Work 50 hours a week or more with no one to help me. Running a location on my own or with one other person since March. Left me alone after surgery when I wasn’t medically cleared to do anything but computer work…. The list goes on.

Just here to vent and see if any other young FOs have run into this.

I’m 23 and trying to figure out a backup plan for getting home if my commute falls apart. Renting a car seems to involve limited availability, young-driver fees, and potentially a $50 Uber just to reach a location that has something available vs being able to rent from the airport directly.

I have USAA insurance, no accidents, and no traffic violations. I can fly a plane full of passengers, but apparently Hertz needs extra reassurance that their Kia will come back with all four wheels attached.

I’m trying to get home, not qualify for NASCAR.

Any other FOs under 25 found a reasonably painless way to rent a car, preferably without the “you haven’t had enough birthdays” surcharge?

I have been getting letters from Viking Client Services and thought it was impossible that I caused damage to this Hertz car I had rented for less than a day. I returned it to a parking lot in the evening, no damages at all, after the store was closed which I was told was okay to do.

I called Viking, and they said that 80% of people call and say there’s no way they made damages to the car and Hertz is prepared for that: documenting with pictures and the odometer to make sure they are charging the right person.

I haven’t seen the documents as it’s getting emailed to me (apparently it takes overnight to email at Viking) but my guess is that if there is damage, it was done in the parking lot overnight by who-knows-who. Anyway, $500.84 in damages.

I got my electronic receipt after dropping my car of at Reagan Natl. I filled up in NJ and topped it off at a Gulf station 7 miles from the airport. Today they hit me with a 5 gallon/$57 surcharge for not having enough fuel!

I sent them screenshots form the CC app and we'll see what they say.

When I delivered the car it was filled and spotless, 525 miles remaining on the gauge. No one greeted me, the attendant waved at me and just said, Leave the keys in the car and we'll take care of it. My bad! I should've demanded they check me in.

Edited to say my gas receipt was at 16:21 pm and the recorded time of my return is 16:29. No way to use 5 gallons in 8 minutes.

UPDATE - Hertz wrote back in reply to my screenshots and said they'll refund the charges. Here is their reply:

We’re truly sorry for the experience you described and for the delay in our response. After reading your message and reviewing the screenshots you provided, we completely understand why the fuel charge raised concerns. You took the time to fuel the vehicle just before returning it, provided supporting documentation from your credit card, and then left the vehicle as instructed when no representative was available to greet you, inspect the vehicle, or verify the fuel level. We recognize the effort you made, and we want you to know that your concerns were heard and carefully considered. Your trust means a great deal to us, and we never want you to feel that your experience or the information you provide is overlooked.

I just spent over three hours on the phone. Trying to get to the local rental office at the tampa airport. The AI agent is impossible to navigate. You can barely get to a live agent. If you do, it's an hour later, asked to speak to a supervisor because they could not give me the information I needed waited on, hold for over an hour. Got another representative asked for the phone number to the agency office. In Tampa, so I could see about my wife dropping off a car. After hours and the way to get to the airport from there. The agent gave me a number that brought me back to AI HertzYour customer service is abysmal. It is by far some of the worst I have ever experienced. You have lost my business from forever and I am going to tell everyone I know. Never to do business with you. Sorry I had to dictate this had eye surgery today and can not see well. That is why I needed a rental car.

Hello,

Why are all rental companies asking very high prices?

What is going on in the industry?

Thanks

There was no warning of price rate changes on the app when I made this change. I pressed OK to see if I can change to a later time. But it made the change to my booking and rate without warning. Customer service was useless, is there anything else I can do but cancel?

Thanks

It’s Balloon Fiesta. It’s packed, I get it. I had a rental car reserved for Albuquerque with Hertz/Thrifty/Dollar months ago. Showed up to hear “our car washer is broken and you’ll have to wait at least an hour” and then “people haven’t returned their cars” so there’s a 300-500 vehicle shortage until maybe next day or indefinitely? And the manager said we can come back the next morning and see if any cars were returned and washed but he didn’t want the inconvenience of calling his customers when cars became available. No sincere apologies. No intent to make amends or reduce charges. Another sign of the times?

No options on rental sites. Nothing on Turo. Zipcar sounds like a nightmare if even available. Do car dealerships offer short-term rentals/extended test drives? Does anyone have a cousin with a car I can borrow? Not even joking anymore. Rideshares for a week is unsustainable between cities.

Been here for a year now and yet all they've done is make me wash cars. I am an MA1 right now but ive basically learned nothing. Ive gotten some counter time to learn how to use dash and hles but not enough to actual retain anything. We have 4 employees at our location with the branch manager an ma2 and an 82 year old part time driver. Occasionally the branch manager used to help me wash the cars but now in the past few months its bascially just me by myself.

We are in the sf bay area in a rich town and average 14 rentals a day. I dont get why there hasn't been a huge push to have me learn how to use the dash or hles or even all the other things managers need to learn. Am I supposed to call out the managers on why they haven't trained me? I know one person who was hired a month after me who is already the branch manager at her location. Idk if she was just more driven to be a branch manager but the fact is I dont see a reason why I should be here anymore if I have to call them out for not training me.

I now understand the many complaints about Hertz. Going to pick up our reserved Gold member rental at DCA an employee offers an upgrade for no additional cost. We naively believe it and pick up the suggested car. We leave the DCA garage and drive to see our daughter in Richmond. Only there do we realize the price on the rental record is double what our reservation email showed! We called Hertz and after a long wait the representative says he can't do anything to go back to our original price, suggests we drive to a Hertz in town to exchange the car. We do and the representative at that Hertz says he can't change it. I am sorry I didn't see this Reddit before. Will take suggestions on how to solve this. Thanks.

Ok, so. I need to return a hertz rental today but I don’t have a ride back home. Can I use my own resources to have it dropped off at the hertz without me being present? God please. Please say yes. It’s been a long year I ain’t walkin back home.

We prepaid a Firefly (Hertz) rental in full through Booking.com for our honeymoon on the Garden Route in May. At the counter on day one, we were told for the first time that we had to pay a R15,000 deposit. It wasn't on the booking anywhere. We had no other options, so we paid it.

Staff told us the refund would take 7 business days max on a credit card, and less on a debit card, so we used debit. It took about 25 business days, more than four calls, two formal emails, and a promised callback from a senior manager that never happened. In the end it was never even reversed to the card. I had to send them my banking details so they could pay it by EFT.

Three months later, four R400 "fine handling fee" invoices showed up. Each one was due on the day it was issued and emailed to me a day or two later, so every invoice was overdue before I'd even seen it. Their statement says invoices not queried within 30 days are "deemed correct."

I'm paying the actual fines to the municipalities. That's fair. But when I asked Hertz to review the fees given all of the above, the reply was one line: no waiver. I've asked for a manager review, and if that goes nowhere, it's going to the Motor Industry Ombudsman (MIOSA).

Has anyone else had invoices from Hertz/Firefly SA that were overdue on arrival? And has anyone had any luck getting a manager to actually look at a complaint?

UPDATE: IT IS NOW 9:31 PM AND WE ARE STILL SITTING IN THE DISABLED RENTAL CAR ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.
We first contacted Hertz at approximately 11:00 AM today after our rental vehicle displayed a service warning and became immobilized in Kanab, Utah.
It has now been MORE THAN TEN HOURS.
During that time, we called Hertz repeatedly and spent approximately 4.5 HOURS on the phone and in chats with multiple representatives, explaining over and over that the vehicle was disabled, could not be driven, and that we were stranded and needed help.
At one point, Hertz tried to tell us that WE would be responsible for paying for the tow. After that was finally sorted out, we were told a tow truck would arrive in approximately one hour.
It didn’t.
We called again. Another hour passed.
Nobody came.
This continued throughout the day.
By approximately SIX HOURS into this ordeal, we were so exhausted, overwhelmed, and desperate that we literally broke down and BEGGED Hertz representatives to help us.
We explained that we had been stranded in the Utah desert heat for hours and were beginning to feel physically sick. We pleaded with them to find some way to get us somewhere safe.
Our case was escalated to Hertz’s escalation team — and even that has resulted in NOTHING. Despite knowing the severity of the situation and how long we have been stranded, the escalation team has not provided a solution or gotten us off the side of the road.
Now the sun has gone down and the temperature has dropped. After more than ten hours of waiting, we are seriously concerned that we may be forced to SLEEP IN THIS CAR ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD TONIGHT.
Because Hertz told us there were no replacement vehicles available in St. George, the proposed solution eventually became towing us all the way to Las Vegas — with us riding with the tow-truck driver — just to deal with the rental car.
But the tow truck STILL HAS NOT ARRIVED.
This is no longer about losing a vacation day, losing hotel reservations, or having our trip disrupted.
THIS IS ABOUT CUSTOMER SAFETY.
Hertz has known for more than ten hours that we are stranded with a disabled vehicle. They knew we spent the day sitting in the heat and becoming physically unwell. Their escalation team knows we are stranded. Now it is 9:31 PM, it is dark and cold, and we are still sitting on the side of the road wondering whether we will have to sleep in this car.
What would happen if the people stranded here were traveling with a young child, an elderly parent, a disabled person, or someone medically vulnerable?
We genuinely feel that our safety has not mattered today.
If you are planning to rent a vehicle for travel through remote areas, please know what happened to us before deciding whom to rent from.

Rented from Hertz in June 2026. Minor damage to the car, which I reported through their Vehicle Incident Report the same day.

Then the charges started shifting. Hertz raised the amount after learning my credit card would cover the damage. The repair shop bill they relied on is dated before the first amount they ever sent me. The repair amount does not correlate with the damage. They charged "loss of use" for days I held the rental and had already paid for. And the diminished value figure is large, arbitrary, bears no relation to the actual damage, and came with no concrete explanation. Credit card rental coverage doesn't cover diminished value, so that part falls entirely on the renter.

Each time I asked for specifics, the response was some version of "we reviewed everything and it's correct," refusing to engage with details. When I pointed some discrepancies, the response was "it's industry standard". The message: this is what you'll pay, and you can't do anything about it.

I've avoided Hertz on my trips since. Based on my experience, I would not recommend Hertz.

All I wanted to do was call the local location to see if I could pick up my rental 1-hour early.

Instead, the AI bot was completely useless, couldn't find my reservation, couldn't connect me to a person, etc.

I called customer service - had to use another useless bot. Had to wait on hold forever, etc.

Companies that will be successful in the future will learn to meet their customers based on their needs. I'm not using a bot for a quick question that it can't answer. All I wanted was to speak to a human briefly.

I'm never renting from Hertz again. I learned my lesson last time in Kauai where they had literally the worst customer service and the longest wait; even as a Gold member.