Once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, I headed over to pick up our rental car. I had reserved an economy sized car. Basically a 4-door fuel efficient little car. My favorite. I got up to the counter, gave them my reservation, only to be told that they didn’t have any cars in the economy size, and that they’d have to ‘upgrade’ me to an SUV free of charge.

Beyond the fact that my grandmother couldn’t possibly get into and out of an SUV, please answer me the question, “Why is this an upgrade?”. In today’s fuel economy, why is it still considered an upgrade to shift from a fuel efficient car that gets 30+ miles per gallon to a car that gets less then 20 miles per gallon? The irony of this is before she told me this she tried to sell me their special ‘gas package’ where you don’t have to refill the tank and they charge you only $3.85 per gallon instead of $3.94.

In the end, I got a VW Jetta, but that was after threatening to go to another rental agency and paying more to get the car that I wanted, as opposed to paying less and getting a gas guzzling SUV. Things cannot change in this society until we get over the idea that big car = better car, and people start thinking that fuel efficiency (compared to all cars and not to say a fuel efficient Hummer that gets 18mpg) = better car.

The last part of this rant is about customer service. The lady behind the desk didn’t offer me choices letting me know the different options available. She was just, “I’m sorry, we don’t have any cars in your class, we’re going to upgrade you to an SUV.” Most customers I’m sure would say that anything is fine, but give the customer the change to voice a choice, instead of pissing him off and then having to appease him. Given the choice, I probably would have said full-size car and been fine.

Ahh, you gotta love car rental companies.