“Welcome to Town, USA! Please stay seated till the aircraft has parked at the gate, the temperature outside is 69 Freedom Degrees, the local time is 6:19 PM so good luck leaving the airport with any amount of haste and no there isn’t an air-rail link, we thank you for flying with us, enjoy spending almost as much time in traffic as you did on the plane!”
Don’t forget that if you rented a car, they don’t actually know how to do fucking reservations and there’s a really good chance you’ll show up and the car you’ve reserved “isn’t available.”
Happened to my partners sister when she visited her mom. They didn’t have the car she rented and only had EVs left. She’s not against EVs, but she’s in a city she’s unfamiliar with, and an EV charging station isn’t as easy to find as a gas station. She ended up having her mom drive out to pick her up because it was such a mess.
Like, Seinfeld made a joke about how car rental companies don’t understand what a “reservation” actually is nearly thirty fucking years ago and jack fucking shit has changed. It can be talked about all throughout American society and derided as terrible, but because there’s no legal repercussions, nothing will ever fucking change.
Betting that car rental companies also overbook the hell out of their fleets which is why this happens.
Abso. Lutely.
I have to assume the data car rental companies have shows that spending money on customer satisfaction does not make up for the cost of not renting out a reserved case when somebody is standing there with money in hand.
They’re in a market where people usually shop online ahead of time on price, or automatically go to them based on loyalty programs or corporate policies for work travel. So by the time they interact with you, you’re essentially locked in to the transaction and one of their low level employees gets to try to placate you for the negative results of company policies.
I mean you’re just describing capitalism at this point.
Well yeah, though keeping your customers happy actually matters in many other industries, whether that is a quality product, or customer experience, or both.
Just goes to show that in industries where customers are used to everybody sucking ass, spending money to not suck ass hurts you. It’s like natural selection where such a weakness likely means you won’t stick around. Or, more likely, you’ll adapt.
It sucks, but that’s why I think it happens. Every transaction is a vote with somebody’s wallet, and many people just want their shit cheap and don’t care how it got that way.
Seinfeld made a joke about how car rental companies don’t understand what a “reservation” actually is nearly thirty fucking years ago and jack fucking shit has changed
Not only that but holy shit if a lot of customer service interactions aren’t just like that now. They use doublespeak to get around customers and look for ways to give people indirect answers so no one ever gets any real help.
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Not just car rentals, it feels like the whole travel industry has no idea what a fucking reservation is. Every other time I fly they’re asking for people to give up seats because they “overbooked”.
Just a tiny amount of common sense legislation would make reservations actually fucking work, but it’ll never happen because all the travel companies have to do is spend like $50k to
bribelobby half of congress and then make millions continuing on with their shitty practices
I don’t think Town USA has all those roundabouts.
Canberra, Australia pictured.
All cities are fucking car dependent. May as well just say “flying into a city”.
Tokyo, London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, New York?
They all have over 50% non-car mode share. Wouldn’t call those dependent on cars.
Many cities are not car dependent. Even in the US there’s some where you can get around entirely without a car.
Yeah right. Thanos snap cars from a city and everything is perfect?
nobody said that? its about supporting other modes of transit not banning cars. banning cars is not helpful if i still have to deal with several acres of parking lots and 8 lane stroads between every location.
?
I’ve been to quite a few cities here in Europe that aren’t car dependent.
That’s sounds just as pretentious as this post does. I’ve been to plenty of cities that are more or less dependent on cars for commuting, that’s it.
This cultish attitude feels greasy and unhelpful though. Zespecially from ze Europeans whov are perfect!
???
What are you even trying to communicate?
That you suck and fuckcars sucks hahahahaha
I could waste my time more typing it all out but it would just bounce off the dinner plates you have instead of a skull.
You’re a silly goober aren’t ya?
I’m not European, I’m a British cunt
Indeed.