My son and I are currently nestled deep in the St. Louis suburbs so he can play in his first out-of-state soccer tournament. He’s been looking forward to this trip for two months, nearly giddy with the prospect of a weekend of games plus hotel pool and hang out time with his teammates. While St. Louis might not have been my first choice of a spring destination1 , I’ve been looking forward to watching him do the sport he loves and to get some one-on-one time with my increasingly busy teenager.
The trip has been largely a delight so far. We went to the St. Louis Zoo (a fine zoo), we’ve taken a look at the Gateway Arch2, he’s played well so far … I’m enjoying myself… as long as I don’t think about our rental car.
Please note that there will be now be some complaining.
TLDR: Thrifty Rental Car is now my mortal enemy.
When I started planning for this trip, it was immediately clear that I’d need to get a rental car. Our assigned hotel and the soccer complex have zero public transit options and I didn’t want to have to rely on Uber for a weekend with multiple destinations and lots of back and forth to the hotel. So, I went online to reserve a rental car and was surprised to see that the prices were almost double what I’d paid for a rental car in San Francisco earlier this year. This was perplexing until I realized that the soccer tournament coincided with the solar eclipse and St. Louis will a popular airport for people flying it to be on path of totality.
I sucked it up and used Expedia to reserve the lowest cost car at the lowest priced rental place. I honestly didn’t care what kind of car I got and endeavored to accept the fact that the rental car was just going to cost more than usual.
The day before the trip, I got a cheerful reminder from Thrifty to save myself time and check-in early. I read the email, followed the directions, and did so.
The day of the trip, our flight got delayed by several hours, so instead of landing at about 5pm, we landed just after 8pm. We quickly hopped on the shuttle to Thrifty and were the only customers when we arrived. I said hello to the woman at the counter, gave her my name, and then had the following conversation:
“And are you late, ma’am?”
“Yes, our flight got delayed”
“And did you call us to let us know, ma’am?”
“Um, no? I didn’t know I needed to?”
“Well, your reservation has been cancelled.”
“What? I confirmed it yesterday”
“Well, if you are two hours late, the computer cancels it, the computer doesn’t know about flight delays”
“You automatically cancel all reservations after two hours?”
“No, Thrifty doesn’t cancel them. The computer does.”
“Um, okay…”
“And with the eclipse, we are sold out of cars.”
“So, what are my options?”
“Well, I can get you into a car—”
“So, you aren’t sold out then?”
“Well, we are showing as sold out online…”
“But you do have cars on the lot you can rent me? Because there was one reserved for me until 45 minutes ago, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. So I can get you into a car but it will be a lot more expensive.”
“There is no way you can honor the price I reserved for, confirmed for, and would have paid for 45 minutes ago?”
“No, ma’am, the computer canceled that reservation.”
Now, at this point, I was tired, hungry, and angry. I was also very aware that I did NEED a car. I should probably have walked out and just called an Uber to get to the hotel. Instead, I agreed to the rental and winced when she quoted me a price that was double what my reservation was for.
As I was filling out the rental form, the woman at the counter whispered “I’ll give you a complimentary upgrade” which honestly just annoyed me more. The fact that there is an upgrade available is basically just confirmation that they did, in fact, probably still have the economy model I’d reserved.
By the time I left, I was equally split between not letting this be a bad start to a good trip and figuring out how to tap into my petty side and figure out how to get some kind of a refund.
I spent my first night in the hotel looking for any evidence that I’d been informed about this two hour window and could find nothing on their website, in my confirmation email from Expedia, or in my reminder email from Thrifty. I messaged with a completely useless customer service rep3 and got nowhere. I resolved to figure out how channel my most annoying white woman self to complain when I got home.
The next day I was driving the rental when I noticed that the tire pressure light was on and that one of the tires looked low. I called Thrifty and was told that I should “act like it is your car and put some air in the tire”. If that didn’t work, bring it back to the lot and they would swap it out but “you probably won’t want to do that because all we have is mini-vans”.
Thrifty, you wildly overestimate how much I care about looking cool while driving. I love a mini-van. I’m here for a soccer tournament and am fully willing to go full soccer mom.
After my son’s games, I stopped to get air and discovered a nail in the front tire. I decided to take the car back and swap it. Reasonable, yes?
Well, I called first and was told that I should “take it to a car dealership or tire place to get it looked at”.
At 6pm on a Saturday night, in a town I don’t live in, for a car that I don’t own.
Yeah, there is no universe where I’m doing that.
I limped the car back to the rental car place and then got scolded for not filling the tank with gas on my way in (it was over 3/4 full).
I’m now driving a minivan and have no idea what they’ll charge me for the tire and I hate how powerless all of this makes me feel. I fully believe that the woman at the counter could have honored my original reservation. None of this feels fair4and it just galls me to waste so much money just to be able to drive from the hotel to the soccer field. I’ve tried to calculate if we would have been better off just Ubering everywhere and it probably would have been cheaper, so I’m basically just hurting my own feelings via math. Very high school geometry of me.
I’m still trying to shake it off, with mixed success. I’m trying hard not to complain too much about it to my kid, because I know how easy it would be for him to feel guilty for being the reason for the trip and thus the reason for the expense. I’m doing a lot better on that front.
(When I was in 4th grade, a kid threw a rock at me and broke my glasses and I still have a visceral memory of how much more upset I was by the fact that I was costing my parents money they didn’t have than I was about getting hit IN THE FACE with a rock. Money guilt is a feeling I know well.)
I suspect part of what bugs me is knowing how frustrated I am and how absolutely nobody else involved in this situation cares. Being predatory and using the eclipse as an excuse is a business decision for Thrifty. Having shitty ass customer service is a feature, not a bug.
Part of me feels very stupid about all of this. There are obviously so many bigger problems in the world and this is so small and easily solved with money. And yet … and yet.
Argghhhhhhhh.
****
Okay, on to better things. Here’s some stuff I liked or thought was interesting this week!
I’ve recently started the Maisie Dobbs series of books and am flying through them. I appreciate how smart the main character is and how seriously the author takes the long term impact of surviving war. There are 18 books in the series, which makes me happy to know that I still have lots of time in this world ahead of me.
Okay, is it just me or does this house listing give off real “sister wives situation” vibes?
This is apparently owned by a church and Jesus wept (at the purple carpet). 33.5 bathrooms??
Technically I do not need a new bag for work and yet… I want it.
No shade to St. Louis, it just isn’t San Diego
Declined to go inside because I am far too claustrophobic for that elevator ride to the top.
Confidential to Tiffany at Thrifty: you suck. I hope your socks are inexplicably damp and your milk goes chunky in the fridge.
I know… I am a privileged white lady complaining about fairness, feel free to find me annoying
When I was a kid I used to dream of buying the mall and living in it. The staircase on that Texas house tells me I am not the only who dreamed of this. Glad I grew out of it though! And why is there a loft overlooking a bedroom?!
F car rentals. I don't even use Uber/Lyft but I would lean more towards that over renting a car at the airport if public transit isn't an option. Avis at O'Hare tried to charge me double because my plane was delayed by a few hours due to mechanical issues. And at 3am! I woke myself up enough to tell the woman that I wasn't late, my plane was, and take that extra charge off now. I might have scared her but it worked. Shame on them.
Holy cow, that Utah house! Eight BRs, and you still had to double/triple up the occupancy (some with mattress on the floor)?? AND someone is living in the garage? And still can’t afford to update the 90s cabinets.