First off, a little disclaimer. I am a Hertz renter because on average they have better cars and a more flexible rewards system than the other authorized rental car provider for my employer. However, I was blown away when I saw on FlyerTalk, a link to the new promo, the Hertz Ultimate Enjoyment Challenge. Anybody who has rented from Hertz, or even even looked at their rates knows, Hertz is one of the most expensive worldwide rental car companies. I've found on an average weekly rental, their rates are around $25-$50 more than some of their other competitors, though usually they are nicer vehicles, and sometimes I have been given upgrades that would be classified as extremely generous (Just two weeks ago, reserved a midsize and received a Toyota Prius.) Thus, Hertz has completely surprised me by offering to match the rates of any national competitor on weekly and weekend rates, in addition to giving customers a coupon for $50 off a future rental. And the terms are fairly generous, in including all of the major companies, and only excluding Florida, Hawaii, and NYC Metro area for the month of December, as well as any priceline/hotwire reservations. Better than to be expected, as when I first saw the FlyerTalk post on this, I expected it to be targeted at National and Avis.
What I want to see is if this sparks any sort of rental car war. Rental cars to me have been the last frontier where there were companies focused on service instead of price. National/Alamo with their emphasis on selecting your own car, Hertz with a rewards program accessible to everyone, Dollar/Thrifty with low prices, and Enterprise with overwhelming locations (At least in the US, in Canada I've seen many more Hertz and National local locations.) If we are headed to great price wars in rental cars, we may see more agencies merge (We already have Hertz/Advantage, Avis/Budget, and Enterprise/Alamo/National) as the industry gets more cutthroat, and passengers start demanding the lower prices from these challenges stay.
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I'm not sure when you wrote this post, but as a fellow travel blogger (i'd love to be listed on your site!) I often report on any tricks on saving money or getting upgraded. Only yesterday did I discover a nice trick to get around Hertz' ridiculous prices. I detailed it here: http://hilarioustravel.blogspot.com/2011/07/save-money.html but the basics are; reserve something through hotwire or expedia, make sure it is a hertz reservation, pay the much lower expedia or hotwire rate, then call up Hertz and ask them to add your Gold club account number to the reservation and bam - you're picking up your car like a gold member, and paying half the price.
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