Enterprise Rent A Car
The Wizard of Oz

Yes Enterprise Rent a car does have a van to pic you up and drop you off.

Those of us who are used to car rental companies that function as one company with many branch offices are likely to be confused by Enterprise. They seem to be set up like a very loose version of Dunkin' Donuts — lots of independent businesses under a loose corporate umbrella.

Try finding an 800 number for them. The Enterprise website provides one, which routes you to a local office — my call got answered "Oak Harbor". That local office, if you push them, will give you a corporate 800 number to call (it's 800-325-8007). At that number, you get a live human being who wants to know what local office to route you to! She can't tell you anything, because not just rates, but also policy and auxiliary fees, are set by each office independently.

I wanted to fly into Washington DC, pick up a car at National airport, and drop it off at Dulles airport a week later. The two airports are maybe 15 miles apart. The corporate person assumed there would be a drop-off charge, but had to connect me to one of the local offices to be sure.

The local office (Dulles) told me there'd be a $50 drop-off charge for moving the car from one airport to the other, and clearly thought I was a fool for being surprised. I got the impression that each car had to be returned to the office that originally rented it, probably because it is owned by that office — more Dunkin' Donuts stuff, see?

But I continued on with the Dulles guy, and found out rates for a week's rental with unlinmited mileage. Because I had read some of the entries posted here, I went back and specifically asked again about the unlimited mileage. The Dulles guy replied that "unlimited mileage" means "within DC, Virginia, and Maryland" (it's one of those tri-State areas). If I hadn't read this site, I wouldn't have specifically asked, and I would never have known that "unlimited mileage" has a special definition for Enterprise cars. And since policy, and response, appear to be at the discretion of each individual office, I have no idea what would have happened if I'd strayed over the Maryland line into Delaware, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia and had a problem.

I found all this so unnerving that I called up Hertz & Avis, where there's a central booking number that can tell you rates and policies for anywhere in the country. When they say "unlimited mileage", it just means "unlimited mileage". There's no drop-off charge for my rental, because the national company owns all the cars. And on top of that, the rates were cheaper! I don't know why anyone would use Enterprise — certainly I'm not going to.

Bea
Bremerton, Washington

Company: Enterprise Rent A Car
Country: USA
State: Nationwide
Phone: 8003258007

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