Our hertz nightmare

After checking out of the hotel we took a taxi to the airport (12 Euros) and went to pick up our hire car from Hertz. Easier said than done! First we went straight to the car hire office in the car park, but were told that we had to pick the car keys up from the terminal building. I stood with the cases in the sweltering hot sun while Stuart picked up the keys - easy enough.

Unfortunately when we found the right number in the Hertz parking lot, the space was empty - no car! Stuart went back to the Hertz office in the parking lot to ask the woman where the car was. She came out of her office and wandered aimlessly around the parking lot for the next 15 minutes looking for the car, without success. She then told Stuart that he would have to walk back to the terminal building again and speak to the staff there. So he did, and came back a few minutes later with some new car keys.

We had booked the car through Expedia and selected the second car size up, which had room for two adults, two children and two suitcases. Much to our dismay, the keys that Stuart had been given were for a Fiat Panda - with a boot barely big enough to fit one suitcase.

The next half hour was spent with Stuart arguing with the Hertz staff, who refused to budge and wouldn't give us a car of the size that we'd ordered, despite the fact that there were a couple of hundred other Hertz cars in the parking lot and some of them weren't due to be picked up until the following day. Hertz refused to take responsibility for the car that they had lost.

In the end we had to make do with the pile of s**t known as the Fiat Panda . The Hertz guy actually had the audacity to tell us that we should think ourselves lucky, as this car was an upgrade from what we had previously ordered. Nothing like putting the customer first!