Eclipse mania is sweeping the nation from coast-to-coast. Or at least in every city, town, or map dot near or within the 70-mile wide path of totality. Businesses fortunate enough to be located along that strip of land are having their moment in the sun, or shall we say shadow. As part of our eclipse…
Continue reading: Hertz Canceling Some Car Rental Reservations Over Eclipse Weekend
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
What if you do a pre-paid rental? Are those safer or more prone to be canceled as they are usually lower rates
So literally, Hertz knows how to take the reservation, but not how to hold the reservation.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/4T2GmGSNvaM?autoplay=1&FORM=VIRE2&PC=APPL
I live in Boise, and there's definitely Eclipse mania here. It's all that the news has been talking about for weeks, and every store has Eclipse glasses, t-shirts, etc. I think half of my office is taking that day off! I'll be watching the Eclipse during my lunch hour from the work parking lot.
Hertz used to be THE place to rent a car. Someone decided to destroy the brand and nowadays I only rent from Hertz if they are the only option or way cheaper than the competition. That was the case 2 weeks ago in Italy and I had the worst experience ever renting a car. My place to go for car rental is National.
And THAT's why I bust my rear maintaining executive elite status with National. I can still book a car - even in Boise.
If you live in Boise and want to rent your car out, have a look at Turo.com. Someone's trying to rent their 2011 BMW for $500 / day, so there's a nice benchmark. Maybe you can get $300 / day for an old pickup!
I live in Portland and plan to sign up and list 2 of our cars on Turo for that weekend.
Prepaid using Budget from Louisville. I hope that makes it less likely we'll have a canceled reservation.
Going to Hopkinsville to see the eclipse.
@Matt - I immediately thought of this Seinfeld moment (probably only those of us of a certain age would remeber it). Glad you dug up the clip.
I'll be driving from Seattle with my son. I have no idea what to expect traffic wise. A friend from Bend, OR expects complete mayhem. I'm trying to plan our destination along the path based on:
1) Weather (avoid clouds)
2) Road traffic capacity (preferring multi-lane freeways to basic highways)
3) Popularity of destination (the I5 corridor to Portland will be a mess, I assume).
4) Travel time
Right now, I'm looking at Baker City (6 hour drive - not accounting for traffic) or salem (4.5h), both just within the northern edge of totality.
Anyone making the same plans? Any good intel on expected traffic, etc.?
Born and raised in Wyoming. Left as soon as I could; wanted to see the world. Now the world comes to Casper with 2:30min of totality. Will be there to witness a once in a lifetime event.
Hertz used to be my choice for car rentals but like all the other companies,the cost of one way renting is extremely high without an airline reservation/ticket.,™NEWS FLASH...EVERYONE DOSEN'T FLY™
Hertz's website is screwy. Once, I went to reserve a car and the "Pay Now" was significantly higher than the option "Pay when you pickup". I contacted Hertz support about that and their response was to not trust the prices on the website. Odd.
About six years ago, I heard a story from a system administrator who had some close dealings with the IT operations at car rental companies. I do not know if this was Hertz but he told a story of the bunch of minivans were going to a particular agency in Florida. That was not too unusual until someone noticed that their nation-wide stock of minivans was almost depleted for one particular weekend. That is when they noticed that one of their software developers was testing new software on a production system. Idiots.
I guess I am in the minority but I don't seem to be able to develop any interest whatsoever in this event. I can't really imagine taking off work or driving anywhere to see less than 3 minutes of "totality". Around here it gets dark for hours and hours every night and no one finds it remarkable.
We live in Milwaukee. To see the eclipse in southern Illinois, we reserved two rooms at the Hampton Inn-Champaign/Urbana using our Hilton points. (This hotel is now sold out but as of yesterday there were still some Hilton-owned properties available for points in the Champaign/Urbana area.) All available Hilton-owned properties in southern Illinois and eastern Missouri that are within 100 miles of both sides of the path of totality are sold out. I also checked campgrounds and they're all booked. So....we snagged the Champaign Hampton Inn and will drive the 3 hours south to Carbondale-area to view the eclipse.
We plan on leaving extremely early in the morning in case there is crazy traffic jams in rural Illinois. (There are only so many roads in/out of small towns.) We're also bringing our bikes along to give us some flexibility once we get there. Once we park our car, we're staying put. It's a once-in-a-lifetime event for us and we intend to fully enjoy it. Lots of festivals in small towns everywhere.
Hertz is a bit of a mess these days...
WARNING: THE BELOW LINKS BOTH HAVE VIDEO THAT IS SET TO AUTO-PLAY, SO EITHER BE SURE TO MUTE YOUR DESKTOP / LAPTOP / GADGET, OR DO NOT FOLLOW THE LINKS:
I had a similar experience with Hertz a couple of months ago. I had prepaid for a reservation for a 4 day weekend trip. Not a holiday but just an average summer weekend. When I arrived to pick up my prepaid car, I was told there was no car for me. I then had to fight with them for over a month to get my prepayment back. This seems to be a common problem with Hertz that I have not had with other car rental companies.
What a bummer if you spent large, travelled hundreds of miles, and then it was raining with full cloud cover. Then it gets dark momentarily and you stand in night rain. Epic fail.