Renting a Car in Honolulu

 

Waikiki from Diamondhead

Open Letter to Avis / Budget

I recently (May 2022) traveled from Hanoi to Honolulu and rented a car for two weeks. One week from Budget for work and the second week from AVIS for a small vacation. I secured both vehicles at the Honolulu Airport location. I haven't been doing international travel much due to the pandemic and saw the work trip as an opportunity to have my wife join me for a week of vacation tacked to the back end of my travel. It sounded like a win-win since my air travel was covered by work and I was able to use hotel points to offset the costs of high accommodation rates in Hawaii. Work was work, nothing special there; but our vacation week was darkened by our experience with AVIS. That is the subject of this post; and I hope it is constructive enough that maybe someone who can make changes at AVIS might happen upon it. Otherwise, consider yourselves warned for the four or five people who might happen upon this post otherwise.

Customer Care

I would like to caveat the rest of this post by stating that all of my interactions with the staff at AVIS, with one exception[1], were very positive. The issues that I raise here are systemic in nature and are indicative of those issues an employee is left to deal with even when they probably don't agree with the methods or policies of their employer.

Waiting Time

Of all of my grievances in this post, I consider this complaint the easiest to fix! The Budget and AVIS kiosks at the airport are adjacent to each other and often support each other when receiving customers on their arrival. That is to say, if Budget customers are waiting and no one is in the AVIS line, the AVIS agents will service Budget customers, and vice versa. As it was on the two separate occasions I waited in line, however, even with that sort of support, I waited more than two hours each visit for an agent to process my reservation. I think it is important to add that there were no more than four or five agents for both companies combined while I was waiting. Also worth noting is that there were 12 or 14 positions that could have been used to service customers if enough staff had been present. There are several things to consider here:

• I understand that employing more labor eats into profits and that the lines are not always that long. I also understand that it may be difficult to find enough employees after this pandemic. I read the news. My counter-argument to this is that if you are weighing pros and cons of more employees, there has to be a balance between services rendered and profits earned. If the annoyance of gaining the service outweighs the services rendered, customers will go somewhere else. If you have a monopoly on that service, people may have to accept the conditions, but they will complain and your brand may suffer (this post is a case-in-point). If you pay your employees more, or have a premium pay system for high customer hours, I think you won't have a problem with finding staff.
• While AVIS has an AVIS Preferred Desk on the top floor where they have the car ready to go for premium customers, there is nothing to separate the other customers into more manageable and prioritized groups, i.e., those with reservations, elderly or disabled, and then those walk-ins. With a two hour wait, I found myself especially sympathetic to those older customers waiting for a vehicle in spite of myself.
• In my personal circumstances, when I switched from government-paid transportation to personal expenses on vacation, I was told - after waiting for two hours - that I could have hot-swapped the cars from one expense account to another, and all I had to do was call and let them know. Two things about that, though. The first is that I was unaware of that before getting to an agent after waiting two hours, and the second being my experience with phone wait times lends me to believe it wouldn't have been as simple as the agent stated.

Maintenance

Damian - The Car

Through the friend who set me up with the bargain deal for my second week in Hawaii, he had arranged for a red Nissan Altima. That would have been a great car. I even told the agent at the desk that I should have that particular color, make, and model waiting for me (as assured to me in the text I had received). Without explanation, however, the agent offered me a Jeep Cherokee or a KIA Sportage... apparently the same category of rental. Not wanting to wait any longer than I had, I opted for the Jeep Cherokee. I made the choice on a whim, thinking all things being equal, I had never driven a Cherokee before and it could be good experience. Wow! Was I wrong!

The Cherokee was a 2019 model with 38,000 miles on it. It looked sporty and fine but for a couple of small door dents. It obviously didn't smell new on the inside, and there was an ever-so-tiny hint that someone had smoked in it before. But, I was anxious to get out of the garage and none of that bothered me enough for the delay. It handled fine, and the feel of a larger vehicle was nice for a change. I didn't worry about bumpy roads and speed bumps like I usually do in small compact cars. It wasn't until the next day that I started to notice small issues that were mainly related to dashboard warnings for stuff I didn't care too much about like back-up alerts, skid control, engine light, etc. On the third day, however, I thought I wouldn't be able to get it started after stopping at a café for a little while. After several minutes of coaxing, I managed to get it started and it worked fine for a while after that. On the worst day possible - the day before my departure - a seemingly catastrophic event occurred when I put it in reverse from park. The transmission sounded like it almost dropped out of the car, and then another thunk when I put it in drive. It was still driving fine once in gear, but several warning lights came on, to include the service transmission light. It was also reading that it was in Reverse while I was driving... forward. It was concerning, mostly because traffic lights and constant stops in Waikiki make bad engine issues worse. I drove it with extra care to the hotel (where there is valet parking only) and let the valet know there was an issue so he would know if a tow truck came to pick it up.

I bring this up because I feel very confident that my encounter wasn't the first time the vehicle's issues arose. I know that errors in the dashboard's electronics are harder to detect in routine maintenance but the number of times errors appeared on the dash lead me to believe they were previously reported. The odd thing about the car is that these issues would mysteriously disappear. For example, after leaving the car with the valet and the ensuing frustrations I met with working with roadside assistance, I decided to chance a break down and drive it back to the garage where I picked it up, and where a replacement was reportedly waiting for me. All of the previous errors and alerts remained off all the way to the garage. I'm glad I took a picture of the dashboard with my phone as proof the vehicle was possessed. The lady who received Damian said 38,000 miles on a rental car is well over the mileage they start to see issues like the ones I described. Lesson learned, I suppose. But, I still lay the bear's share of blame on rental company policy that allowed that vehicle to be in the fleet.

Roadside Assistance

After the transmission issue and getting the car back to the hotel, I then spent the next four hours on-and-off with roadside assistance. I usually had to wait 15 minutes every time I called them, though they had promised to contact me with updates. I tried to tell them that the vehicle was drivable, though I had concerns. For possible liability reasons, I let them make the decision to have it towed. That is where the trouble began. Even though I assured the roadside support person that the clearance of the garage could handle a normal sized tow truck, they began searching for a company that had a lower clearance to accommodate an in-garage tow. When they finally found a source, and gave me a 60 - 90 minute pick-up, it still wasn't to be. I got a call from the local towing company who started asking me questions about the vehicle and pick-up/delivery as if I was the private owner of this vehicle, and things that I had no way of knowing. The phone tag that ensued was farcical. Mostly because neither of the service providers had the patience to wait for the other to pick up the phone. In the meantime, I had a drop-dead time of 4:30pm to pick up my covid test results so I could fly the next day. I ended up jumping through my ass to get the test results the next morning before my airport show time. It was a very tight fit. All manner of tomfoolery occurred while trying to effect a tow. No one ever showed up because the two companies couldn't work out amenable arrangements. I finally got so frustrated that I just drove the car back to AVIS at the airport. On the way there, I got a call (the only return call I received the whole time) from a guy named Tim in Florida who was still trying to work out the tow truck issues. I told him what was going on and he promised to cancel the tow (that was delayed until noon the following day... at a time after my flight's departure). Even with him allegedly cancelling the tow, I still got a call at breakfast the next morning to confirm the tow arrival time. Tim was the most helpful in this ordeal, though the others seemed to try hard, and expressed sympathy.

My assessment of the roadside assistance debacle is that the control center is decentralized and you have customer care reps all over the U.S. trying to work assistance with phone calls. That was especially challenging with the off-time zone of Hawaii, as well as the particular way in which Hawaiian islanders work when compared to mainland people (not a slam on the Hawaiians, just an observation. As a matter of fact, the people in Hawaii have an Aloha spirit that shows care, sympathy and pride in what they do that is as good, if not better, than what I have seen on the mainland). All of that being said, specifically in Hawaii, I believe AVIS would benefit greatly by having on island roadside assistance support.

What does this mean?

So, if you made it this far, I would guess you are asking what does this even mean. For me, it is a way to try to express how unfortunate this entire affair was. As I get older, my time mean far more to me than money. When I take a vacation - especially with my wife - it is important to have it as trouble-free as possible. I don't want to spend my vacation time where I am already spending tons of money on hotels, food, and entertainment working and worrying with rental car companies. The whole point of renting brand-new vehicles is that they should be worry free. I don't need a refund or voucher for my troubles with AVIS, I just want them to fix what they can to make the experience as worry-free as possible. Do better, please!

[1]: Having waited in the AVIS line for two hours after greeting my wife on her arrival, I was chastised for complaining about the wait since I had gotten such a good deal on the rental (I got a steeply discounted rate on an allegedly premium model). Two reasons this was annoying: 1) Time is money for me, and if I wait too long in a line, I may consider my discount a wash... the older I get, the more I view my time as a resource oftentimes more valuable than money, and 2) No one wants to hear lip after waiting two hours to receive a service, especially if the rental was reserved in advance. If I was a walk-in, I suppose I deserve what I get.