Zipcar: Revisited

My last blog post was a bit of a rant against Zipcar. In addition to the blog post, I also did some complaining on Twitter. Lo and behold, all that complaining did some good. A Zipcar rep saw my tweet and sent me an email. The key portions:

Our new policy will be that you can make a reservation and then cancel it within 30 minutes (as long as you don't start the car) and there will be no charge for the reservation.

With the new policy if you realize you've forgotten something in a car, you can make a reservation, walk to the car and retrieve your item, then walk home and cancel the reservation. Or you can make and cancel the reservation via your cell phone if you're standing next to the car.

Awesome, I say. Zipcar is back in my good graces.

Zipcar

I could spend a whole post talking about the things I love and appreciate about Zipcar, but screw that. Time to vent about the bad stuff.

1) No 30 minute reservations. Minimum of one hour. If Rachel Ray can cook an entire meal in 30 minutes, then surely I can run a quick errand in 30 minutes as well. LAME.

2) Lost item policy. Forget your gloves in the car? Don't realize it until the next morning? You have to reserve the car for another hour (again, not 30 minutes) to retrieve your gloves. I know I screwed up by forgetting my gloves, but it's a perverse incentive when it's about the same price to buy new gloves as it is to make a reservation for an hour to retrieve the gloves. Plus, the car just sits there for an hour now, unusable by anybody else.

3) No cars near my house. What more can I say?

I place blame for 1) and 2) on Zipcar, since Flexcar never had these problems. I'll cut them some slack on 3) because Flexcar had the same problem. It's mostly my fault for living in a neighborhood where everyone drives.

Venting complete.