Early this month I took a trip to New York (not this week, thank goodness!). Since I wasn’t staying in the city I needed to rent a car. My company’s preferred vendor is Hertz so that is who I always rent through. Typically I am very happy with their cars and service. This last time though, not so much.

I flew into La Guardia, where shuttles for each rental car company regularly go by the terminals to pick people up and take them to the car lots. This particular night it was 9:30pm, about 30 degrees, and I was hungry. I figured I could find something to eat once I was in my rental car, and assumed it would take me about twenty minutes to get picked up, get my car, and be on my way. Twenty minutes later I had seen virtually every rental car shuttle, including Avis, National, Budget, and Thrifty. But no Hertz.

At that point I attempted to call Hertz to try and figure out what the holdup was, but no one answered. Just then two enormous buses pulled up in the rental car shuttle lane and stayed for about ten minutes. A few car rental shuttles came through and slowed down to see if anyone was behind the monster buses waiting, but at that point I was the only one (and at this point I was so cold I could hardly feel my toes, and I was starving.) Then a shuttle that looked plain white from the front drove by without slowing down at all. Only once it was past did I see that it said Hertz on the side. Ugh.

Finally, a full 45 minutes after I first went outside to wait, the Hertz bus came back through. The driver slowed down a little bit and since there weren’t any enormous vehicles blocking the way I was able to flag him down. When I got on the bus the driver said, “How’s it going?” I said, “Well, I’ve been waiting for about 45 minutes for you.” Then he said, shocked, “45 minutes?” But that’s it. No, I’m sorry I missed you the last time I came through, sorry for the long wait, nothing.

This may not sound like a long time to some people, but after flying for close to six hours and subsisting on airplane snack food I was done. I had an early start the next morning and just wanted to eat something and go to bed! Not to mention the cold. The Home Warrior asked if there was somewhere inside I could wait but I knew that wouldn’t allow me to flag down the shuttle when it finally did come.

During the time I was waiting for the Hertz shuttle, I saw the Avis shuttle coming through every five minutes like clockwork. So if I ever have to rent another car from La Guardia, I will definitely be renting from Avis.

Readers, have you had any issues waiting for rental car shuttles?

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