Enterprise Surprise

Author: Susan Greenawalt
Date of Trip: February 2008

My report is about Enterprise Car Rentals. We arranged the car ahead of time by internet and made a phone call to verify. We were flying into John Wayne airport and going on a Carnival Cruise. We were informed that the port was about 26 miles from the airport and the car could be dropped off at their “convenient lot by the port”. We got to our hotel about 1:00pm and decided to do a little sight seeing since our cruise wasn’t until the next day, Sunday.

My husband decided we better find this drop off spot for the car before we did anything else. We had a GPS so drove right to the spot. The sign on the door said they close at noon on Saturday and are closed on Sunday. It also said for security reasons do not drop cars off when they are closed. We made a phone call back to the airport Enterprise and the guy that rented us the car and gave us the info was gone. So in talking to a different person they suggested that we bring the car back to the airport the next morning. We checked that out and a taxi from the airport to the port was $80. Again we called the airport Enterprise and got, of course, a different person. They gave us another address of a nearby drop off spot. Our GPS took us right to that address. It was in a residential area and no office. After another phone call the next person told us Oh that address is in another town (don’t remember the name) also 25+ miles away from the port. There was also a $25 drop off fee for not bringing it back to the airport. We had now wasted three hours of our sight seeing day. We returned to our motel so we could try to straighten this out. My husband talked to the clerk at the front desk of the Long Beach Best Western motel which, by the way, was the most helpful employee we have ever dealt with. She said Oh, we are a drop off for the downtown Enterprise. You leave the car here and take our free shuttle to the port and they pick all the cars up Monday morning when they open. So another call to the airport. This employee told us they had no record of that being a drop off point. Back down to the front desk and she assured us that they do this all the time. They have an agreement with Enterprise and she was more than happy to take our car for us and make sure Enterprise got it back Monday. Finally we got an employee at the airport that was aware of the motel drop off and he agreed that we could do that and said he was recording on our account that was what we were going to do. WE called back a short time later to find out what the fee would be for leaving the car there and were told there was no record of us dropping the car there and that would just not be acceptable.

By now our WHOLE day had been spent trying to figure out what we were going to do with this car that we wish we had never rented. My husband returned to the front desk and the clerk assured him not to worry. She would personally make sure that the car got to Enterprise on Monday. Their agreement was with the downtown office and apparently no other office knew anything about it. Our final call to Enterprise for that day was We are leaving the car here whether you like it or not. They finally agreed that we could do that. We had a nice cruise as we always do with Carnival.

After returning home my husband checked our credit card account and we were charged $187 for the car because they didn’t pick it up until Wednesday. Also a $25 drop off fee. Needless to say the final phone call to Enterprise was not a pleasant one. My husband explained the whole above situation and they dropped all the extra charges. We have rented from Enterprise before and have been pleased with the results but we will never rent from them again. Its worth the few extra dollars to rent Avis or Hertz and not have the hassle. Susan Greenawalt [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected])