Kia Soul Hertz
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
Brian Cohen·
Thoughts
··5 Comments·2 min read

From What Company are You Really Renting Your Car?

This article pertains to rental car companies in the United States.

Note: This article was originally published on Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:14 in the afternoon and has been updated.

Some people threatened to take their business elsewhere to other rental car companies when Hertz implemented changes to its Gold Plus Rewards membership program — including but not limited to redemption rates for rewards increased by as high as 81.82 percent; a new point usage cancellation policy; and other changes which became effective as of Monday, January 7, 2019 — but to which rental car companies should they consider patronizing?

From What Company are You Really Renting Your Car?

Hertz rental car
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.

Defecting to Thrifty Car Rental, Dollar Rent A Car, or Firefly Car Rental for their rental car needs may prove little more than worthless, as those companies are part of Hertz Global Holdings, Incorporated.

What you may not know is that the rental car industry in the United States is mostly dominated by only three major companies — chiefly from a series of mergers and acquisitions over the years:

Other Rental Car Companies Operating in the United States

Kia Soul Hertz
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.

Rental car companies which operate in the United States and are independent of the aforementioned three major rental car corporations include:

See also
  • Fox Rent A Car — Privately held
  • ACE Rent a Car — Privately held
  • Advantage Rent a Car — Owned by Catalyst Capital Group Incorporated
  • EZ Rent a Car — A division of Advantage Rent a Car
  • Silvercar — Owned by Audi
  • Economy Rent a Car — Headquartered in Costa Rica
  • Sixt — Headquartered in Germany
  • U-Save Car & Truck Rental — A subsidiary of Franchise Services of North America, Incorporated

Final Boarding Call

Smaller rental car companies may be an alternative for your dollars; but keep in mind that even though they may offer discounted rental car rates which potentially can undercut the competition, they:

  • Will not have as many locations or as large of a fleet as the major rental car companies
  • May have a limited discount program or frequent rental loyalty program — or, perhaps, no program at all
  • May have significantly more restrictive policies when renting their vehicles

All photographs ©2017 by Brian Cohen.

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5 Comments

  2. There’s another ACE car rental company in Australia and New Zealand (which is not related to that other Ace). It’s a part of Hertz. When we visited Australia, we rented an SUV through them. They usually have lower rates, as their specialty is older models of rental cars. Upon arrival at their Cairns location, which is shared with Hertz, they had no SUVs left in the ACE inventory – so we were given a brand new Hertz Nissan X-Trail (which is the equivalent of the North American Rogue). That was a great surprise! We had it for 2 weeks from Cairns to Brisbane and only paid about 160 AUD.

    Reply

  3. Hertz is such a disappointment. I used to rent from Hertz a lot. It was the best of the biggest, sort of like the Singapore Airlines of car rental. Now it is crap, just a little better than Enterprise. The last straw was when they extended points expiration during the pandemic on a case-by-case basis and commonly done. However, they refused to extend it to me despite my request before the points actually expired. Luckily, I only lost the equivalent of a one day reward because I had burned points earlier.

    I now use Avis and am thinking of using National, which I haven’t used in quite a few years. I used Sixt in California last year and they were slow, though I did not have any type of express membership. The BMW was kind of nice.

    Reply

  4. I wish Enterprise would just merge all its companies under National and be done with the whole visiting the counter ordeal.

    There are many other companies worldwide wide of course, but you missed Toyota, which rents cars at most dealerships. While not as convenient as some of the rental companies, many of the ones you list, like Fox, Silvercar, etc., make you go off airport to rent anyway.

    Reply

    1. I did not know about Toyota renting cars, DaninMCI. Thank you…

      …and I agree with you about Enterprise merging all of its companies under National. The same should probably be said for Hertz and AvisBudget…

      Reply

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