As noted last week, I rented a car in San Francisco from AutoEurope after finding significantly lower rates with them than through the normal US channels. The process worked, but the pickup wasn’t a breeze. The voucher wasn’t the issue. The rate wasn’t a problem. But it was the worst car rental experience I’ve had, bar none, because of the interminable wait for both counter service and a car. (And that includes the hours I spent waiting at a Budget counter at midnight at LAX back in 2005.)

One item of background: When you rent with AutoEurope, it’s much like booking with Hotwire or Priceline. You get the rate quote, including taxes, up front. You prepay. And you don’t know who the provider is until you purchase. BUT: You know the exact address of the rental location (which, thanks to Google, lets you figure out who the company is) and it’s refundable up to 48 hours in advance. As theothersimon said in comments, book away, then cancel if you don’t like what you get. Better than the other opaque providers, if you ask me. My reservation came up with Dollar, which has never been my preferred provider, but the price was right. Alas.

Commenters on the original post pointed out the potential pitfalls of this rental. They nailed it. So credit where it’s due: the readers of this site, for calling it before it happened.

To wit:

JeffB noted that reservations on Expedia’s UK site contained the provision that the renter of a vehicle would be required to purchase one tank of fuel at the rental agency’s rate. My rental was with AutoEurope, but this was indeed the case: The voucher that I printed contained a similar provision, requiring the prepurchase of a full tank of gas, within the fine print. And the rate for gasoline was about 15 cents higher per gallon than filling it up yourself at the closest gas station.

As JeffB noted, base-rate savings may not pan out if you only rent for a single day, or for short trips, if you have to pay for a tank of gas. In my case, it was still a good deal, despite the fuel premium. We burned through an entire tank, and then some, during the trip, for over 650 miles. The indicator in the dashboard warned that there were only 5 miles’ worth of fuel in the tank when we returned it. I overpaid less than $3 for gas, but came out ahead since we saved nearly $200 on the rental itself. Hyahh!

So fuel wasn’t a big deal. A bigger issue for us was time. Chris noted that the downtown pickup locations in San Francisco were overwhelmed with customers. We experienced the same thing. It took two hours and twenty minutes to get a car.

As mentioned, our voucher was for Dollar, at the O’Farrell St. location. I met up with my wife, who was already in San Francisco for several days, on Tuesday night, and we were heading up the coast on Wednesday. Luckily, we weren’t renting with National: Their location a few doors down had people lined up out the door. Between National, Alamo, Thrifty, and Dollar, all on the same block, it was a mess. (Primarily with travelers from Europe, most with vouchers in hand, I might add…)

The central problem was car availability. The cause: Dollar’s willingness to accept reservations for times when they consistently had no cars available. To be clear: This has nothing to do with the booking channel — direct with Dollar, via AutoEurope, or elsewhere — and everything with the way Dollar does business.

As the front-desk agent and the location manager explained to me, downtown rentals in San Francisco (and presumably in other downtown locations) are hardest to get when they’re close to hotel checkout time. Travelers want to check out and grab a car ASAP — or grab a car just before checkout and then swing around to load the trunk.

If you thought you might try your luck renting that car first thing in the morning, before the hotel guests wake up, you’re out of luck: Rental companies like Dollar don’t have the inventory then. They’re bringing cars into downtown locations from the airport lots. But that depends on travelers dropping the cars off at the airport first… and how many cars are being dropped off at 7 am?

I admit I’ve typically rented at airports or in less-touristy downtown locations, so this feels like a rookie mistake to me. For example, via e-mail, reader Mark suggests:

Regarding SFO car rentals, I just came from there. The trick is to take a short cab ride to San Bruno (about $12-15) and go to the Avis location at the Tanforan mall, I think it’s called. A lot cheaper and easier than going downtown. Plus, they upgraded my car free and gave my fiance and me second driver for free, too. It was a great experience.

Bottom line: Even after reaching the front of the seemingly interminable line, there was no car available without waiting some more. And when it finally seemed that I had a car, their primitive walkie-talkie car assignment system led to a double-booking of the same vehicle. Another customer drove off in “my” car, literally seconds earlier. I felt like Seinfeld. (“You know how to take the reservation, you don’t know how to HOLD the reservation.”)

The manager of the facility indicated that this was a problem with the Dollar/Thrifty corporate reservation system, which allowed cars to be reserved at hours when it was obvious there would be no cars. Such as noon on a Wednesday.

The lesson, verified by the Dollar agents: If you’re picking up a car in a downtown location near big hotels, plan on picking up after 1:30pm, when hotel checkout is over.

It worked out in the end, eventually — upgraded to a higher class (far more comfortable, albeit with higher gas guzzlage).

So, I learned some lessons here. Don’t rent in urban American downtown locations near major hotels until after checkout time. Give preference to off-airport sites with fewer big hotels nearby. Be aware of fuel fees for vouchered reservations. And don’t trust Dollar Rent-a-Car to actually hold a reservation at a time you’ve specified.