Why the traditional car rental market won’t survive the next 10 years

In the past 4 years as a digital nomad millennial, I have used a car rental service a total of 3 times (3.5 times if you consider the most recent experience where I returned the car within a

few minutes of checking it out of the rental agency). In the same time period, I have used car-sharing services like Zipcar (in the US) and Drive-Now (in Europe) over a dozen times, and

ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft hundreds of times. I’ve also signed up on P2P car-sharing services Turo and GetAround but have yet to pull the trigger and book a car. I have a habit

of checking online reviews for car rental agencies before I book cars from them. I check Google reviews, facebook, yelp and other similar services. This helps me weed out the local rental

agencies in favor of the larger “professional” rental agencies. In some cities I’m lucky if I can find a rental agency around me with a 3/5 rating. There’s always an unexpected element —

fuel surcharges, extra driver fees, “additional insurance” for damages that don’t seem to be covered by the existing daily insurance and numerous other add-ons (who actually rents the GPS

devices anymore?). 9 out of 10 times that you check-in to a car rental agency they will NOT have the car that you wanted and they expect you to be okay with this. Despite all the above

issues, the single-most infuriating aspect of renting from car rental agencies — is the customer service (OR LACK OF IT). I recently booked a car from Lisbon’s Centauro Rent a Car. I had

booked an automatic Fiat 500 with them last September and in order to avoid any unexpected incidences on my coast-to-coast trip I paid full-insurance at the maximum daily rate for an entire

month. I had a great experience. They even bumped me up to “GOLD member” — whatever that means. A few days ago I booked a different car for a shorter timeframe (1 week) and decided to

decline the full insurance in favor of my credit card insurance. After unsuccessfully trying to guilt-trip me into buying insurance, the agent checked me in. He offered me a different car

from the one I wanted (Nissan Qashqai instead of the Fiat500X). I accepted but I didn’t notice that it had a manual transmission (it never said so on the contract as they sub-group all their

cars in mysterious alphabet codes like E4 and F2 when it would have just been easier to say Manual or Automatic). I am licensed to drive manual so I drove the car around the block but

decided that it wasn’t for us and returned it back to the agency with a request to switch to an automatic car. Disgruntled, the manager Mario told me that I should have told him this before

and that it would be almost double my reservation amount to upgrade for an automatic car in the same class. I declined and said I would like to cancel my reservation. The normal policy is

that I lose one day’s car rental amount which I agreed to. But rather than go about this process smoothly Mario decided to give me a hard time. At first he said that I would lose the entire

amount since I booked the car online and the policies for refunds online and in-store are different. After I pulled up some documents on my phone he retracted that statement and said that he

could cancel the reservation with zero refund and that I can take it up with my credit card company. I disagreed as I didn’t want this to continue longer than necessary. After an hour or so

of an unnecessary (and heated) conversation, he made a feeble attempt to give me a “discount” of 50% to upgrade to the automatic car that I originally wanted. When I declined yet again, he

proceeded to give me a regular cancellation as per the terms (total amount minus one day’s rent). As we walked out, I saw a garage full of cars and this agency had just lost another

customer. 30 minutes later, I rode on an electric bike (booked on my phone through the eCoolra app) to a nearby Drive-Now location. Drive-Now only carries the latest BMW car models including

my favorite — the MINI Cooper. I reserved the car with free-cancellation 15-minutes in advance, knew exactly which car I was going to pick up (and the location), how much fuel it had, the

transmission type (manual vs automatic) and how much I was going to pay (€.25c a minute). It included fuel, full damage insurance, parking and unlike Zipcar in the US I can actually pick-up

and drop-off anywhere in the Drive-Now Zone which actually covers a significant portion of the city. By syncing with my phone, the car had my destination address pre-programmed into its

on-board included GPS navigation system so I was ready to roll within minutes. The difference in convenience, cost, peace-of-mind and quality of service between traditional car rentals and

new-age car-sharing services is simply staggering. The only limitation that I see with car-sharing services now is the coverage area which I am sure they can increase once more people start

using their services. I hope I never have to see the inside of a car rental agency ever again. _Update 10 April 2018: After reading my blog post above, the Customer Service team at Centauro

reached out to me to refund the full amount. ‘We fully understand why you may feel so disappointed, but as always we can resolve the matter without you having to make the accusations that

you make on your post. Please note as a goodwill gesture we are going to refund you the amount charged for your rental, you should receive this within 7/10 days.”_