Rental Cars and Crime

Prior to the last couple of months I had never rented a car of my own. It seemed like such a fun and simple process.

My first experience was in Phoenix, Arizona at what my mom and dad believe to be the worst airport for renting a car. I had been warned but I was determined to keep a positive attitude. After gathering my luggage I headed to the shuttle for a long ride to the rental car building. After a long line (well only 1 person was ahead of me but it took over 20 minutes to finish their transaction) I was so annoyed and tired (it was after 3 am by Indiana time) I just signed wherever they told me to speed the process up. There was never any indication that I was signing for extra services or fees. After waiting in a different very slow line to get the car I pulled away thankful that the experience was over. 3 days later when I attempted to return the car I learned that I had agreed to pay an extra $75 for insurance on the junk car. So $200+ later I leave Phoenix pretty annoyed with the rental car situation.

Fast forward a month when Tara and I rented a car in Phoenix. I made a reservation with a different rental car company and warned Tara that it could be a frustrating experience. Upon arrival at the rental car building we waited for 20-30 minutes for our chance to rent a car despite the fact that they had 4 workers "working". We quickly learned that Tara would have to be the primary driver, a role she did not wish to play simply because my credit card had been canceled due to fraud . After waiting in a different line to get our car we were given a yellow 2-door banana car. It was ridiculously small- especially since we had reserved a 4 door and had all of our luggage for camping, interviewing,etc.... At this point I had surrendered- I was ready to fit our junk in the little car and just leave, but Tara was ready for a "discussion". So we walked up to the agent (whom I feel very sorry for- really, his job would be awful!) and began to complain about the many problems we had encountered. End result- free upgrade to 4 door Hyundai and a discount on adding me as a second driver(I later learned that this was unnecessary, but they threatened that it would be considered a stolen car if I was caught driving it). While we were working this out a family arrived with a father angrier than just about anyone I had ever seen. He was enjoying the process even less than us! As we try and leave with our larger car, the man at the gate (supposedly an employee of the rental car company) tells us that we have the wrong car and that we need to go get new paperwork at the counter. I ask him if he could call the counter since after all, he is the employee and he works for us, the customers (and there was no way I was going to the end of another line). He didn't have a phone or any way of communicating with him. At this point Tara, being the bigger person, went and got the paperwork and they allowed us to leave.

Because of this debacle we missed watching the sunset on the grand canyon on New Year's Eve.

I'm over it now, but seriously, there is something wrong with the rental car system in Phoenix. When I rented a car in Orlando last week I never had to wait in a line and I got to pick my own car. Why is Phoenix's system so horrible? I have seriously never seen one customer in Phoenix who didn't get angry while trying to rent a car. It must be rough to work for one of those companies in Phoenix.