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Everyone is ga-ga for the urban car-sharing services that have crossed into the mainstream. Now Hertz is fighting back with shorter rental terms at its European locations.
It will now be possible to hire a car for three or six hours for short day trips, or nine hours for overnight trips.
A Hertz survey revealed that 61 per cent of travellers would be more likely to hire a car if they did not have to rent it for a full 24 hours.
The new service – Hertz 369 – is available at over 1,200 city and airport locations across Europe, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.
Why am I reminded of that unfortunate motel experience in 1998, when the front desk clerk asked, “You gonna need the room the whole night?” Why yes, yes we did. But I digress.
This isn’t Hertz’s descent into the equivalent of a seedy motel. This is a good thing.
You might be surprised that a full 61% of travelers don’t want to rent a car a full day. But consider parking expenses and hassle in center-city European cities, and it becomes more plausible. Consider, too, that you could use a short-term rental car to shuttle yourself to the airport, and it makes even more sense.
Of course, it all comes down to rates. But this is a welcome option.
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Posted May 7th, 2008 by Mark Ashley in Hertz, rental cars, car rental | Comment (1)




Flashback to 2001… Enron was making big money trading energy, and (not entirely coincidentally) California was experiencing blackouts. Hotels across the country, but especially in California, were tacking on energy surcharges of $2 or $3 every night, instead of raising the actual rates. 



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