12/22 I rented a car @ CHS. We flew our own airplane in. We made the reservation on the Hertz website to pick the car up at the general aviation side of the airport @ 1.30pm. We land at 1.57pm and it takes until 2.05pm until we taxi over. Car is waiting and we pick up the car and leave about 2.30pm.

12/23 – I return the car to fly the plane down to my vacation home about 55 miles away. The weather was forecast very poor so we landed in Charleston to be safe the day before. I bring the car back @ 2.10pm. The rental is for a day. Pretty much normal.

I get home and see the bill. They charged me $22.00 with all of the taxes and fees and surcharges for the 45 minutes between the reserved time and the pick up time. The bills showed a charge for one day – and one hour. They charged me from the time originally set in the reservation, even though they did nothing and I was over North Carolina at the time set for the original reservation.

I called Hertz billing, and after a 25 minute wait, the billing department was very accomodating. They saw immediately that the car was charged out not when I picked it up, but when they drove it over to the General Aviation side from the main car rental lot. They had NO pick up time in the record [someone dropped the ball]. Hertz first tried to get me to take an upgrade on my next rental. But, when I pointed out that there was no way I could have picked it when they checked the car out of the lot, well, logic actually won out. Hertz originally charged us $53 for the rental and credited $22 to our account, $12 for the one hour fee, and $10, or 83% [!!!!] of the hourly fee in taxes fees and charges.

It’s nice when the service department can provide service, but that was after they dropped the ball three times [not entering the correct checkout time, not catching it when they processed the return and keeping a customer on hold for almost 30 minutes]. I have NEVER seen a car rental company EVER make a mistake in the customers favor.