I spent ~10 years in the rental car business (although the very very high end of it.) Let me say, it's a weird business with LOTS of quirks.
Here's one: One of the biggest frustrations people have is that it seems impossible to actually get the car you reserved. Seinfeld even has a whole schtick about this - why is it called a "reservation" if it's not actually....a reservation?
Reservations never work because the rental car companies don't enforce them. You can book any car with any rental company and cancel up until the minute of the rental or just not show up and there's no penalty. (Everyone forgets this part.)
If a rental car company actually treated reservations like reservations, then they'd hold your Toyota Camry for you and not give it to someone else. But then when you decide not to show up for your rental, the rental company would be stuck because they planned for you to show up and you didn't.
So they have two choices: Either assume there's only an X% chance you're going to show up and use that to roughly plan fleet availability for that given day (the current state of affairs which results in your not getting a car you reserved when X+10% of people show up that day instead of X%), or start penalizing people for not showing up so they can actually honor reservations.
And why don't they do that? Good 'ol competition. Everyone is afraid to start enforcing reservations because if Hertz does but Enterprise doesn't, people are going to book with Enterprise ("Book w/ us and never pay a penalty when your plans change!").
You will notice that they are tip-toeing into this -- lots of companies now offer discounts for pre-paid (non-refundable) reservations, but the no-penalty-for-no-shows-pay-at-the-counter option is still there. And until it vanishes, the reservation issue will still be there.
Here's one: One of the biggest frustrations people have is that it seems impossible to actually get the car you reserved. Seinfeld even has a whole schtick about this - why is it called a "reservation" if it's not actually....a reservation?
Reservations never work because the rental car companies don't enforce them. You can book any car with any rental company and cancel up until the minute of the rental or just not show up and there's no penalty. (Everyone forgets this part.)
If a rental car company actually treated reservations like reservations, then they'd hold your Toyota Camry for you and not give it to someone else. But then when you decide not to show up for your rental, the rental company would be stuck because they planned for you to show up and you didn't.
So they have two choices: Either assume there's only an X% chance you're going to show up and use that to roughly plan fleet availability for that given day (the current state of affairs which results in your not getting a car you reserved when X+10% of people show up that day instead of X%), or start penalizing people for not showing up so they can actually honor reservations.
And why don't they do that? Good 'ol competition. Everyone is afraid to start enforcing reservations because if Hertz does but Enterprise doesn't, people are going to book with Enterprise ("Book w/ us and never pay a penalty when your plans change!").
You will notice that they are tip-toeing into this -- lots of companies now offer discounts for pre-paid (non-refundable) reservations, but the no-penalty-for-no-shows-pay-at-the-counter option is still there. And until it vanishes, the reservation issue will still be there.