Posts Tagged ‘rental car’

Better customer satisfaction from car rental firms

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

A recent survey examining how happy car rental customers are with the service they are given by particular hire firms suggests that things are improving after the recent global economic troubles. All of the major names scored better in this year’s poll than they did last year. Enterprise, for the seventh year in a row, scored the highest points with 786 out of a possible 1,000.

The survey is conducted each year by JD Power and Associates and looks at six key factors which are important to the overall satisfaction of the consumer. These are: quality of the rental car, the cost and fees, the process of picking up the car, the process of returning the vehicle, the process of reserving that vehicle and the quality of the company’s shuttle or bus service.

The survey was conducted in the US and polled customers using rental facilities at airports. The survey was conducted over the year ending in September.

In second place came another firm under the umbrella of Enterprise Holdings, National Car Rental. National scored 10 points higher than a year ago with 767 points. In third place came Hertz, up 15 points on last year with 762.

Andrew Taylor, chief executive of Enterprise Holdings, said he was pleased with the results, but added that car hire firms were still operating under some extremely challenging conditions. He went on to say that Enterprise took a great deal of pride from the fact that its customers rate its customer service as highly as they do.

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Alamo and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts extend alliance

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Car hire firm Alamo has extended a multi-year agreement with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts to be the official car hire brand at its theme parks in Orlando and California. The extended agreement means it will also continue to be Walt Disney Travel Company’s official rental car provider.

Alamo’s parent company, Enterprise Holdings, said the partnership would continue to provide customers at Walt Disney World and Disneyland with the superior service they have come to expect from the brands. Enterprise’s vice president of travel industry relations, Ron Cerko, said the firm was proud to be able to offer the speed and efficiency provided by its self-service kiosks to individuals and families taking a holiday at the resorts.

The kiosks operate on award winning technology which means the need to join long queues in order to collect a rental vehicle is a thing of the past. As well as being available for customers’ use at the on-site car rental stations at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, Alamo has kiosks at 67 airports in the US.

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts’ senior vice president, Alliances and Operating Participants, George Aguel, said the continued alliance with Alamo would mean all aspects of a holiday with Disney would remain seamless for guests of its resorts. He added that the wish by both companies to provide a superior service to customers made the partnership an obvious one.

Alamo’s website will provide those wishing to holiday at Disney’s resorts with a link to ticket sales. Alamo will promote its ongoing partnership through adverts both on the television and online.

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Blue Valley Car Hire expands service in Spain

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Blue Valley Car Hire is now offering its customers car rental in Alicante, Spain. The U.K. based company has decided that its new operation will capitalize on the success of its rental services in Malaga and Faro. The company’s director, Matt May says that he wants to extend Blue Valley’s reach into Europe by increasing partnerships with other car hire firms on the continent.

For a year now, the company has been successfully operating an Internet booking service in both Malaga airport in Spain and Faro airport in Portugal. It now wants to increase its reach in both countries. The online service will allow customers to book their car hire in the English language and collect their car from Alicante airport when they arrive.

Operations manager for Blue Valley Car Hire, Rute Oliviera, explains that the company offers customers the opportunity to discuss their needs before deciding on the car that would be most appropriate for them. Oliviera goes on to say that customers are welcome to talk to them about any of the issues that may affect their decision, such as whether they can add an extra driver to the agreement, how much the insurance will cost and whether or not child seats are available in the vehicle. The websites have been designed by Blue Car Valley Hire and allow customers to get a comprehensive quote before proceeding to the booking page. Blue Valley Car Hire says that they will not take any payment from a customer prior to the rental car being collected from one of the airports.

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Bogus rental car owner runs up petrol bill of £3,000

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Police in the West Midlands are hunting for a man who used a cloned petrol card to pay for petrol nearly forty times at the same BP Supermart petrol station over a period of six days.

The man, who was Asian in appearance and had a black goatee beard according to police, told employees at the BP Supermart that he was the owner of a car hire firm and that he liked to top up the tanks of his rental fleet at night.

The bogus rental car owner would pick up drivers in Birmingham by offering them the chance to fill their cars up with half-price petrol. He would then lead a convoy of vehicles twenty-six miles out of the city to the petrol station in Bilston. The drivers would allow the man to fill up their cars and the con man would pay for the petrol on his cloned card, registered to a haulage company in Tamworth. Drivers of the ‘hire cars’ would then pay the man half the fuel value in cash.

Over the six day period the man managed to run up a bill of £3,000. Police have said that they are looking for a heavily built Asian man between the age of thirty-five and forty. They say that all offences took place at the BP Supermart petrol station which is located on the junction of Mosely and Willenhall Roads in Bilston. The offences by the bogus rental car company owner took place between May 14th and May 19th this year.

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Porsche joins the Avis car rental fleet

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

As of 1st October car rental company Avis will be offering the Porsche Panamera to its car hire customers in Germany. The Panamera was unveiled in April last year at the Shanghai Automobile Show and Avis is the only car hire company in the world at present to be able to offer it to its customers. As part of the Avis Prestige Rental Car Service the new Porsche model really will allow customers to travel in both comfort and style.

The four-seat, four-door Panamera is unlike many other high performance sports cars in that it is no longer built just for two. The Porsche will now sit alongside Avis’s Ferrari F430 F1 Spider, the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster and the Jaguar XKR 5.0 Cabriolet in the prestige category. However, unlike its neighbours the new Porsche was built with fuel efficiency in mind meaning that it will be far cheaper to run.

The Panamera has a 4.8 liter, 400 bhp direct injection V8 engine and is designed to be a little lighter than other cars of similar performance. It has optional aerodynamics and PDK dual clutch transmission. The result of these and other innovations, according to Avis, make the Panamera extremely attractive as it means that car is designed to keep fuel consumption down.

The price of hiring a Panamera will start at €189 per day and €567 for customers who wish to take one over the weekend. Although Avis will only rent the Porsche to customers in Germany at the moment it says it will be monitoring demand to see if it will roll the model out over the rest of the network some time in the future.

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Car rental giant, Europcar, solves delivery problem

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Europcar car rental has come up with an innovative way to save themselves a lot of money on delivery expenses and keep customers satisfied at the time. The majority of the company’s business requires rental cars to be picked up and delivered directly to customers who never see the rental counter. These customers are mostly corporate clients.

Europcar, like all the other car rental operators this year, has had to come up with ways to cut costs. They wanted to find a way to cut down on the travel expenses of their delivery drivers. The number of miles logged by delivery drivers is staggering.

According to their Operations Manager, ““We drive 13.5 million miles a year just delivering and collecting cars,” adding “Logistically, it’s a tall order.”

What they came up with is both economical and environmentally sound at the same time. The company has procured a fleet of five collapsible motorcycles that can literally fit into the trunk of a rental car. Whenever a driver has to make a delivery of more than 2 miles, he just throws one of the collapsible motorcycles in the boot of the car he’s delivering and away he goes.

For deliveries of less than 2 miles, Europcar has a similar fleet of folding electric bicycles that drivers take along for the return trip.

Thanks to www.bbc.co.uk for the above quote. For more information on this article please visit their website.

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Couple return rental car with suspected pipe bomb

Monday, August 17th, 2009

When a couple of holidaymakers in Newport Beach, California didn’t like the sounds coming from under the hood of their rental car they turned around and went back to the car rental agency, Vanguard Rent A Car,  to complain.

Mechanics from the car lot checked under the hood and discovered what they thought might be a pipe bomb. The astute mechanics immediately called in Orange County Sherriff’s Department to investigate.

“They heard a clanging in the engine and brought it back. Mechanics looked in the engine compartment today and discovered the device.” said Evan Sailor of the Sheriff’s department.

According to police, the car had previously been driven to John Wayne airport all the way from Los Angeles. After it was left at the airport the car was transferred to the car rental lot where it was rented to the couple that discovered the alleged bomb.

The Sheriff sent out the bomb squad who spent most of the morning using a robot to remove the suspected device from the engine compartment of the rental car. The entire area had to be evacuated before the mission began.

It turned out that the device did not contain any explosives after all, but police are continuing to investigate.

Thanks to www.ocregister.com for the above quote. For more information on this article please visit their website.

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Aspect car rental adds Bugatti Veyron to its fleet

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Considered by many to be the classiest high performance car on the road today, the Bugatti Veyron is being offered for hire by Aspect car rental for the first time anywhere.

The Bugatti Veyron with its 1001 HP engine has an amazing top speed of 400km per hour. The body is specially engineered for high speed driving. At such high speeds engineers had to figure out a way to literally keep it on the ground. Its high-tech aerodynamics feature a back spoiler that is fully adjustable depending on speed. The spoiler regulates the ground clearance and down force of the car, keeping it hugged to the road.

The car only takes 2.5 seconds to get up to 100 km per hour and it can stop in even lees time. Specially designed ceramic brakes enable it to come down from the 100 km per hour to a dead stop in just 2.3 seconds. Driving such a vehicle is not for the faint of heart.

“We want to supply the experience of a lifetime for all the responsible drivers out there who would otherwise never be able to get behind the wheel of such magnificence. We hope that by making these cars available, our clients will share their exciting experience with friends and family and encourage them to also take their dream for a drive.” commented Jacqueline Cooper of Aspect Car Rental.

For safety sake, the rental car has been installed with a tracking device that monitors the customer’s speed. The price of a one-week car hire is 70,000 lira.

Thanks to www.24-7pressrelease.com for the above quote. For more information about this article please visit their website.

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Car rental mogul acquires magazine

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Clive Jacobs, the rental car mogul and Holiday Autos founder, has purchased the TW group from publisher Reed Elsevier. TW publishes such trade magazines as Travel Weekly, Gazetteers, and Travolution. The purchase price remains undisclosed.

Jacobs is vice-chairman of Lastminute.com, a website acquired by Holiday Autos in 2003 in a £39.7 million deal.

Reed Business Information was TW’s parent company which failed to attract a buyer last year when it was put up for sale. Now, with the divesting of TW, it looks like RBI may be better positioned for the spin off.

Jacobs is bringing back Simon Ferguson for the position of CEO at TW. Ferguson was formerly one of Reed’s publishing directors for its travel magazine portfolio. He left Reeds back in March.

“The travel portfolio has been a valued part of RBI, but we recognise that, under Clive’s independent ownership, the team will be able to integrate completely into the industry they serve,” said Jane Burgess, of RBI.

This division actually only accounted for 1% of Reed’s overall revenues last year.

Besides Ferguson as CEO, other directors that were named were Ian Findly, formerly of Emap, Michael East, an industry consultant, and Colin Morrison formerly of RBI.

Reed is still looking for a buyer for the Business Information branch of its business as it continues to dump media assets dependent upon advertising revenue.

Thanks to www.telegraph.co.uk for the above quotes, for more information on this story please visit their website.

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