WARNING : Budget

[Lindaelaine]

Originally Posted by JoJo88

Expectations have a lot to do with it too. If you’re expecting a ride line to be 90 minutes and you’re on after 60, you’re happy. Expect your wait for a car to be 30 and it takes an hour, you’re raging. Same wait! I used to stress about these sort of things, immigration, delays etc, but ultimately, we always get there and a bit of hassle along the way is to be expected. Keep your expectations low and it’ll keep your stress levels low too

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Completely agree with this Jo .
I was expecting a long wait in JFK when we were ushered to the immigration desk with our big black ✖️On the machine print out , so what a nice surprise when we got through quite quickly 😀
The Ihop breakfast , I was not expecting 😡 I’m learning now though 😉😂

[Mr Tom Morrow]

I have a very clear expectation when I am collecting/buying/renting something.

It's my money and it's been paid for already or will be at the counter. I'm not paid to wait and if you haven't got enough staff to deal with me then there is a very real possibility that will be the last time you see me.

I don't queue for an inordinate length of time in John Lewis or M & S etc so I don't see why I should queue for a rental car. 5 or 10 mins yes, any longer then no.

[toonarmani]

Originally Posted by Mr Tom Morrow

I have a very clear expectation when I am collecting/buying/renting something.

It's my money and it's been paid for already or will be at the counter. I'm not paid to wait and if you haven't got enough staff to deal with me then there is a very real possibility that will be the last time you see me.

I don't queue for an inordinate length of time in John Lewis or M & S etc so I don't see why I should queue for a rental car. 5 or 10 mins yes, any longer then no.

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Agreed, although shopping queues are unlikely to be hit by large volume of people at once like a plane (or multiple) full arriving and Alamo (or others) only have a finite amount of staff.

[JoJo88]

Originally Posted by Mr Tom Morrow

I have a very clear expectation when I am collecting/buying/renting something.

It's my money and it's been paid for already or will be at the counter. I'm not paid to wait and if you haven't got enough staff to deal with me then there is a very real possibility that will be the last time you see me.

I don't queue for an inordinate length of time in John Lewis or M & S etc so I don't see why I should queue for a rental car. 5 or 10 mins yes, any longer then no.

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Not everyone can live up to these expectations all the time, so I guess it’s a good job you have plenty of choice or I suspect you’d run out of suppliers eventually.

I can’t remember the reason for the hold up we had at Budget, we were told but it wasn’t important. What was important was that they were doing all they could to get the line moving quickly. I’d also paid my money, which is just as good as yours, but my choice is to not sweat the small stuff.

[w513mfs]

We have used budget many a time and one of the worst was also in Miami. We were in Que just over an hour. I had an ill wife and a three year old.

But you know what faecal matter happens. There were seats and they both sat down. I waited. I could have stamped, huffed, cursed under my breath or have a full blown melt down but for what purpose. Any way were British queuing is what we do.

In the end i was rewarded with an upgrade two sizes larger. Now this might have been because they were out of cars and just allocating what ever was cleaned and available next, or because i was patient and polite.

I've never worked in retail but i cant imagine the people who are serving you are responsible for what goes on in the garage or the software which predicts busy times , People returning cars late or even how an airport schedules the flights landing.

So unless they are directly rude to me i suck it up and get on with it. I like to think of paying the karma forward as i am sure i can be an idiot some times and hope people would give me a break.

I think budget are brilliant and cant be judged by one location and experience.

Now dollar different story.

[lesley1960]

Its the downside of the customer wanting everything as cheap as possible , to compete companies have to cut costs , and the easiest cost to cut is staff
Tbh I have always found it to be a bit of a wait for care hire , the first time we went to Florida was over 30 years ago and it was a faff even then

[lesley1960]

Originally Posted by Lindaelaine

You cannot predict queues , it’s the same with immigration it’s all part and parcel of travelling to America , you might hit lucky and sail through, on the other hand you might not ,we have encountered all sorts of situations . I don’t think we have waited so long to pick up a car as we did in Miami with Budget but there was a line of people waiting to be seen and you just have to deal with it , seeing as we had come from a hotel stay and not off a flight I wasn’t expecting a queue , I have no idea why I was thinking that way as flights are landing constantly 🙄 unless there is some sort of priority queue that you pay for you just have to suck it up . My worry about a car rental company would be how they deal with any problems once you have the car not the queue to get the car .
We were stuck a few times in long traffic queues during our stay , cannot remember it being as busy as that ten years ago , we waited nearly an hour for breakfast in IHOP one morning , we actually asked for the bill when the waitress brought our food so we could exit the establishment quicker 😂 queuing / waiting just seems part and parcel of holidaying in Florida , we don’t do the parks now so I have no idea what queuing is like in the Disney stores but we did venture into Goofy’s Candy Store in DS and you guessed it ... it was a long wait to be served , I think people were in there using up all their dining credits 😊

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One year we had an 8 hour delay flying out of Gatwick , when we landed we were rushed through immigration , in about 5 mins as they wanted to shut the airport ... then we arrived at the car hire , and it took us about 2 hours , as others have said a plane load of people wanting a car isn't going to be moving very quick

[JoJo88]

Originally Posted by w513mfs

We have used budget many a time and one of the worst was also in Miami. We were in Que just over an hour. I had an ill wife and a three year old.

But you know what faecal matter happens. There were seats and they both sat down. I waited. I could have stamped, huffed, cursed under my breath or have a full blown melt down but for what purpose. Any way were British queuing is what we do.

In the end i was rewarded with an upgrade two sizes larger. Now this might have been because they were out of cars and just allocating what ever was cleaned and available next, or because i was patient and polite.

I've never worked in retail but i cant imagine the people who are serving you are responsible for what goes on in the garage or the software which predicts busy times , People returning cars late or even how an airport schedules the flights landing.

So unless they are directly rude to me i suck it up and get on with it. I like to think of paying the karma forward as i am sure i can be an idiot some times and hope people would give me a break.

I think budget are brilliant and cant be judged by one location and experience.

Now dollar different story.

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Funnily enough, whilst in the queue, I gave a sympathetic smile to one of the agents, who ended up serving us. When giving us the sat nav for free, she mentioned me smiling at her, so perhaps it does pay to just be patient

[w513mfs]

Originally Posted by JoJo88

Funnily enough, whilst in the queue, I gave a sympathetic smile to one of the agents, who ended up serving us. When giving us the sat nav for free, she mentioned me smiling at her, so perhaps it does pay to just be patient

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I like to believe it helps. The little nod or smile which says i know its not your fault and i feel for you. Especially when they are being shouted at.

By all means i would understand a good rant at the senior management who are making the decisions. But having a go at the ground staff I've never seen the point. Like i said unless they are unnecessarily rude of the bat.

[Lindaelaine]

Originally Posted by lesley1960

Its the downside of the customer wanting everything as cheap as possible , to compete companies have to cut costs , and the easiest cost to cut is staff
Tbh I have always found it to be a bit of a wait for care hire , the first time we went to Florida was over 30 years ago and it was a faff even then

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I don’t understand why people expect not to have to wait at service desks, especially car hire , they are not going to hand over a car to you without going through all the paperwork, several flights landing and you are going to be lucky to not have two, three or more people in front of you in the queue , my daughter seemed to be with the agent ages when she got to the front of the queue, I thought there was a problem but it was simply all the paperwork involved, her being polite and smiling at the agent could have been the reason she was upgraded , I would like to think an upgrade is due to politeness rather than being impatient and bolshy 😊