usrentacar.co.uk ® Car Hire USA Blog

Hi all,

It seemed only a matter of time that other suppliers would follow Alamo Rent A Car’s lead and introduce a one way rental fee for pick up’s from the San Francisco area. A one way rental is any rental where the vehicle is returned to a different location than the one its collected from.

What we understand here at U.S. Rent A Car is that all suppliers are having difficulties keeping up with the demand of hires taking place in the San Francisco area, and when vehicles are then dropped off at a different location those vehicles are removed from the San Francisco allocation.

We hope that this new surcharge will only affect peak season bookings going forward, however as you can see from the information below provided by Hertz Dollar Thrifty no end date is sighted. This new one way rental charge applies to all Dollar and Thrifty bookings regardless of where the booking is made and affects anyone who sells Dollar and Thrifty including booking directly.

Due to fleet restrictions and strong demand for one way rentals, we will introduce a new one way fee for rentals collecting from the San Francisco area and returning to Southern California and Las Vegas valid for rentals from 1^st August 2014.

This fee will be applicable on all rentals, all rate products and all vehicles from all source-markets. This fee will remain in place until further notice. Please see below the specific rental and return locations.

Dollar

Rentals collecting from SFO SFD SJC OAK and returning to LAX SAN LAS ONT SNA PSP BUR LGB will incur a one way fee of $450.00 payable locally and subject to taxes and fees.

Thrifty

Rentals collecting from SFOT SFDT SJCT OAKT and returning to LAXT SANT LAST ONTT SNAT PSPT BURT LGBT will incur a one way fee of $450.00 payable locally and subject to taxes and fees.

This new fee will not apply to bookings made before the 01/08/14 which is a relief. We hope that the charge will only apply over peak season but as you can see the information we have received doesn’t confirm when the charge will end.

We’ll keep you updated when we know more.

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

Hertz Dollar Thrifty are on a bit of a roll at the moment, not only have they provided us with some cracking 2014 rates and the free GPS offer but today they’ve confirmed that our Thrifty product will be give an all important boost for 2014.

For the majority of 2013 Thrifty have only offered our customers the basic Silver rate, which although is a great product for customers with only 1 driver it really prevented them from gaining any business from renters who required more than 1. The cost locally to add an additional driver is approx. $10 per day plus tax far more expensive than the difference between their silver rate and a competitors gold rate.

However for 2014 Thrifty Car Rental will be offering a gold and platinum rate, meaning additional drivers can be pre-purchased in the UK. This automatically makes them more competitive and if that wasn’t enough they too have agreed to honour 2013 rates for 2014 (this can change without notice).

Thrifty Gold Rate now includes

• Unlimited Mileage.
• Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) which is a combination insurance of both Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) and Theft Waiver. As long as you adhere to the rental policy of the supplier you will not be held responsible for the cost of replacement or repair to your hire vehicle.
• Uninsured Motorist Protection (UMP) up to $1m Liability Cover. Offers an Uninsured/Underinsured/Hit-and-Run Motorist Protection (UMP) that provides the renter and family members travelling together in the rented vehicle with up to $1,000,000 of non-stacked coverage for bodily injury sustained while driving the rental car, and caused by another driver who has no insurance, minimal insurance, or is a hit-and-run driver.
• Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI) up to $1m Liability Cover. All drivers included on the rental agreement will not be held liable for third party claims for bodily injury or property damage resulting from an accident.
• Basic Roadside Assistance
• All Taxes and Airport Fees.
• First tank of fuel
• Additional Drivers

The Platinum rate includes the same as the Gold plus;

Reimbursement for any physical loss or damage to the Rental Vehicle for which You are responsible under the terms of the Vehicle Rental Agreement, including: (Total section limit: GBP 2,000.00)

• Physical damage to windscreens, tyres, and undercarriage.
• Towing costs relating to the loss or damage.

If unintentionally locked out of the Rental Vehicle.

• Our supplier will pay up to GBP 100.00 to open the Rental Vehicle.

Pay to replace a lost or stolen Rental Vehicle key, including replacement locks and locksmith.

• charges up to a maximum of GBP 300.00 for each and every claim.

Please note that the additional Platinum insurance is exclusive to usrentacar.co.uk and is not provided directly with the supplier but through our third part insurers, for more details please see our terms.

Great to see Hertz Dollar Thrifty being so proactive. Its a refreshing change and most certainly points to the new ownership looking to push Enterprise for the spot of number 1 in North America.

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

Since Hertz purchased Dollar Thrifty last year I’ve been keeping a close-ish eye on what Hertz have been up to and how it may affect Dollar Rent A Car.

As USA Car hire companies go, Hertz is one of the more forward thinking companies and so we were interested to see the redesign of their new rental offices at San Diego Airport.

From the outside Hertz have given their new building a fresh, modern look which is much more welcoming than the previous incarnation.

On top of this, they’ve refreshed their shuttle bus design to give the same fresh, clean design and added a friendly forward facing giraffe possibly from San Diego’s popular zoo.

However its inside the Hertz office that houses the really interesting parts, gone are the old style queuing system to be replaced by a row of  self service kiosks similar to the type used by Alamo Rent A Car in Orlando. The idea behind the kiosks is to speed up the customers collection time and overall user experience.

The part I love the most is Hertz’s new “Road Trip” offering, which include iPads and apps to help customers do a bit of trip planning even before they’re in their motor. Hertz will also supply charging stations for customers benefit and sell additional items such as sun cream, suit cases and treats, pretty much everything you’d require for a road trip.

Here at U.S. Rent A Car we think its great to see Hertz offering something a bit more than the tired old traditional collection offices. We hope that this type of office is rolled out in all Hertz owned locations including Dollar and Thrifty.

What do you think?

regards,

James

Hi all,

2012 was an interesting year for Hertz, they cemented their position as the second largest car rental supplier in the USA by finally completing the long drawn out process of purchasing Dollar Thrifty and sold off their value brand Advantage Rent A Car to FSNA but what effect did this have on their 2012 results?

Yearly Results

Car rental revenues for 2012 increased 7.8%  to $7.6 billion compared to 2011. Global revenue was also up to around $9 Billion (Hertz don’t just offer car rental you know) that’s growth of 8.7%.

For USA car hire, which is the part we’re most interested in Hertz reported a 9.6% increase to $4.9 billion compated to 2011. The company reports that this was driven by strong off-airport revenue and a double-digit increase in Advantage revenue and one-and-a-half months of Dollar Thrifty.

Fourth Quarter Results

Hertz’s fourth quarter results were again very positive with an increase of 15.1% for global revenue to $2.3 Billion.

Car hire USA revenues which included 43 days of Dollar Thrifty ownership increased 24.5% for the quarter.

One slight blip on the Hertz radar was the performance of European car hire which saw revenues declined by 9.8% in the fourth quarter.

2013

Mark Frissora, Hertz Chairman & CEO

We continue to make significant progress reducing fleet expenses, our largest operating cost, and we are encouraged that Dollar Thrifty synergies are likely to exceed our earlier forecasts. Additionally, we are off to a fast start this year with January 2013 car rental RPD at U.S. airports up 6% for Hertz and 2.6% for Dollar Thrifty.

As a colleague of mine quipped “Dollar thrifty synergies means redundancies” but obviosuly that is the nature of the beast, you don’t need 2 people to do 1 persons job.

What Hertz have planned for Dollar Thirfty is still anyone’s guess but you’ll be the first to know when we do.

regards,

James

Hi all,

It’s official; finally Hertz have confirmed the purchase of Dtag (Dollar Thrifty) for  $87.50 per share in cash, Hertz have snapped up 99.6% of the shares.

Hertz Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mark P. Frissora said

In the 94-year history of Hertz, our employees and business partners have never been this excited. Over the past six years, we have competed successfully with only one global premium brand in place while our competitors have had multiple brands to work against us. Starting today, we now have two additional, popular brands to compete across multiple market segments, with plans to offer them to our many partners and customers. That’s why we are pleased to announce that the transaction is complete, and we look forward to working expeditiously with Dollar Thrifty to integrate the strengths of our two great companies.

Dollar Rent A Car tweeted

When we announced the deal had gone through on our facebook page within 15 min’s a facebooker raised concerns that they believed this would lead to a price increase.

So Hertz have a bit to prove to customers who are concerned that the deal could harm the consumer.

Here at usrentacar.co.uk we have been assured that this wont be the case but I guess only time will tell…

What are your thoughts?

regards,

James

Hi all,

Back in 2008 if you’d said Dollar Rent A Car would be sold to Hertz for $87.5 a share people would have laughed at you,  Dtag (Dollar/Thrifty) were in a bad way, the were in default of their loan agreements, they had a share price of 97 cents and were headed towards a yearly net loss of  appropriately $350 million!!

So how did they turn it around? Well a lot of the praise lies with Scott Thompson who was made CEO after only 6 months of joining the company. Scott who had been part of a very successful fortune 500 company had actually retired back in 2005 but like most entrepreneurs became restless and initially joined Dollar as CFO.

As soon as Scott became CEO he was forced to make some very hard decisions he believed that the company had too many top level managers which was detrimental to the company so he quickly removed half of them.

He also looked closely at the profitability of each location and closed those locations that fell behind his expectations and also looked for new ways to sell ageing fleet.

His trickiest moves would come in convincing Wall Street to invest in the company and bringing in new car manufactures to help offer a competitive edge.

A few years on down to good leadership and very hard work Dollar Rent A Car is the jewel in the car hire crown, so much so that Hertz are willing to get rid of their own value product for a loss of $17 million to help capture the brand.

In a great article, found here, Scott Thompson reveals his 10 key points to running a successful business 

1. Realize that people are your greatest asset.

2. Understand where you have to go and how long you have to get there.

3. Remember the other side of risk is reward. Do not shy away from risk.

4. Focus on the substance of issues and ignore politics.

5. Trust each other.

6. Tell everyone inside and outside the company the absolute truth.

7. When you make mistakes, admit them, fix them and don’t look back.

8. Hire the best advisers.

9. Work hard while supporting each other during the ups and downs.

10. Make sure employees know they should not allow the CEO to do anything stupid.

When someone with a proven track record offers this kind of advise I would imagine you should pay attention.

regards,

James

Hi all,

The buzz around the Hertz Dollar Rent A Car deal hasn’t really died down yet, yesterday both companies released statements confirming the deal at $87.5 per share equating to a buyout of $2.6 Billion, Hertz also confirmed that they have a buyer for their low cost brand Advantage Rent A Car who equate to about 1% of Hertz’s overall sales.

So what is Hertz’s plan for both Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental? 

USA car hire is basically split in to three sales tiers, Premium, Mid and Value. At present Hertz are competing in the Premium tier and through their Advantage brand, the value tier.

With the purchase of Dollar and Thrifty I believe they will attack all three markets.

The example above only includes suppliers that have made an impact in the UK outbound market it does not include value brands such as Fox Rent A Car, Payless Car Rental or Mid-Tier companies like Enterprise.

As you can see from the example above Hertz’s three pronged attack really allows them to compete in all tiers while at the same time protecting their Premium brand.

I also found it interesting that Hertz CEO Frissora confirmed they will position Thrifty as a “Spartan brand”, I assume this mean competitive?

Do you think the Hertz/Dollar deal is good for the consumer?

regards,

James

Hi all,

Nobody knows who will be the owners of Dollar Rent A Car come 2013, the heavy favourite is Hertz who have been courting the company for coming up to 2 years.

Some have stated that within this courting stage Dollar slightly lost their way, and attention was taken from growing the business to selling it. However back in March Dollar confirmed their stand alone plan which included opening new locations across the U.S.

Today Dollar have confirmed they will be opening 9 new offices, 8 of which will officially open in July. They are set to be…

• Maui Coast Hotel in Kihei, Hawaii
• A local market Dollar Rent A Car at 339 South End Ave. (Battery Park) in New York, N.Y.
• A dual-branded Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental location at the Crowne Plaza Orlando-Downtown Hotel in Orlando, Fla.
• A dual-branded location at the Ramada Maingate West Hotel in Kissimmee, Fla.
• Another dual-branded location at 1291 Cobb Parkway South in Marietta, Ga.
• Lastly, in August, Dollar Thrifty plans to open a local market Thrifty Car Rental at 1066 U.S. Hwy 1 in Vero Beach, Fla.

We haven’t had confirmation if these offices will be available for usrentacar.co.uk customer but we assume that the Florida Car Hire locations definitely will be.

regards,

James

Hi all,

The soap opera that has become the race to purchase Dollar/Thrifty took another turn yesterday when Hertz re-entered the race with an equity bid of $2.2 Billion. The offer is based on Hertz’s May 6th stock price of around $72 total per share.

Hertz’s ambitious plans for discount brand, Advantage Rent A Car could be shelved to help gain approval from the FTC which appears to have been a stumbling block for the Avis/Budget offer.

A Hertz spokesman stated that the next steps would be

we will complete the divestiture of Advantage and work toward FTC approval. We will enter into discussions with Dollar Thrifty to reach a consensual deal and look to secure support of Dollar Thrifty shareholders.

Hertz new offer eclipse’s its previous offer by 26% and Budgets by 24%, Hertz stated that improved conditions within the market place, driven by a buoyant second hand market has resulted in the improved offer.

It will be very interesting to see where this saga goes and the FTC ruling regarding Avis/Budgets proposed purchase of Dollar/Thrifty will have a massive bearing, the outcome of this is already a month overdue.

Who will benefit more from the purchase, Hertz, Avis/Budget or the consumer?

regards,

James

Hi all,

Some great news today, usrentacar.co.uk® the UK’s leading Car Hire USA specialist has been able to extend their portfolio of suppliers in Boston, Salt Lake City, Portland and Seattle by securing a deal to offer Thrifty Car Rental from these airport locations.

From today, for rentals collecting from the 01/04/11 onwards, usrentacar.co.uk customers can take advantage of some great fully inclusive rates on vehicle categories including Economy, Compact, Intermediate, Full Size, Convertibles, Sport Utility Vehicles and Minivans.

About Thrifty Car Rental

Thrifty Car Rental is one of the largest car rental companies in the world and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE: DTG).

Through corporately-owned and franchised stores, the company operates more than 1,000 locations in 70 countries.

Thrifty is one of the most widely recognized brands in the travel industry that caters to cost-conscious business and leisure travelers.

We are looking forward to working closely with Thrifty and hope you will enjoy their service.

regards,

James