Cheap Car Hire in NoMa, Washington, D.C. from $189

Hertz did not honor the rental reservation and then when I called the main customer service line they lied to me and told me another location would honor it so I relied on that information and wasted time only for them to fail to honor it again.

Car I reserved was not the vehicle available. Car I rented ended up being much smaller. Vehicle also was obviously smoked in. Even turning on the vents blew stale cigarette smell at us. Vehicle was quite dirty and not in a satisfactory condition to be rented out. This was never supposed to be our rental and the branch manager was very apologetic about it. To clean the vehicle to a higher standard would have taken much too long. It really needed to be deep cleaned and hooked up to an ozone machine to remove the smell. 11 hours of driving and to say we were nauseated would be an understatement.

I’d made a reservation well in advance, but a few hours before I was scheduled to pick up the car, I got a text saying that there weren’t any cars and I could opt into a waiting list or cancel my reservation. I called Hertz to see if they’d switch the reservation to the airport, where there were many cars available. They refused to do so at the price we’d agreed. They wanted to increase the price by 125%. When I asked if there was a supervisor I could speak to, the representative hung up. In the end, I had to buy an Amtrak ticket last minute, at great expense. The lesson from this story: don’t use Hertz, perhaps try to pay in advance, or just stay home.