I work for another rental car company and can assure you that the counter does not exist to upsell you. It is there as a convenience to customers that want to rent a car without a complete rental agreement in place (think travel agents, tours, third party discount sites, etc). Frequent renters have a much simpler experience akin to Uber via the loyalty programs and company apps.
You're lying to at least one of us. Of course the counter exists to upsell. That may not be its sole or even primary reason for existing, but since the business exists to upsell, by attempting it every single time, how could the counter not? Tell you what, I'll believe you just as soon as your company stops all upselling everywhere. You don't even have to say which company. I'll notice, I promise. I'll start holding my breath now.
This "it is there as a convenience" is also embarrassingly intellectually dishonest. How convenient is it if I can't do business at all without it? Way more convenient for me than you, I'll just go to your competition, which I do, and I'm not the only one.
The rental car industry needs a Southwest analog. One that still plays the patronage games with airports in order to actually be where the customers are, but cuts out industry standard BS practices that all the incumbents keep imposing on passengers simply because they can.
My rental car should be waiting for me with the rental car agent IN the driver's seat, AT THE CURBSIDE PICKUP LANE, where he or she then drives to the rental car center to drop him- or herself off and hand me the keys. You've already lost me when you make me ride some loud smelly dirty bumpy overloaded community rental car shuttle that adds 15 minutes minimum to my trip, especially when I get to now wait another hour in line behind your counter and am basically captive in a bad neighborhood if I don't like the terms of the deal because you changed them at the last minute.
BTW, ever been upsold by a NASTY agent, happy to lie to you about what you're giving up by saying no to a size upgrade or extra insurance, and turning derisive for the inevitable rest of the 15 minute encounter? I have, too many times, too many companies. A smart tablet or smartphone isn't going to make me feel bad or unsafe for not giving you extra money you didn't earn.
My message to the car rental industry as a whole: stop lying. You're not as good at it as you used to be.
You can't believe how bad car rental companies what to reduce reliance on counter. It's real. We want that to happen. But it gonna take some time.
Upsell is just one of the reasons, but there's also fraud, car availability, etc. What holding the industry back isn't the profits, it's bad technology. No one is lying, it's just horrible execution.
I work for a car rental company and can assure you that it is not some evil ploy to upsell you. It comes down to this: you are renting a really expensive ($30K-100K) asset and they need to make sure you are not trying to steal it. This can take a few minutes if you are unknown to the company. If you think about it this way, 5-10 minutes to make this decision is pretty damn quick.
Why do they need to re-do this process every time someone rents a car? With the equivalent programs from companies I've rented with, they check your info at the counter once and from the on its just a cursory glance as you leave the lot. It doesn't seem like there's anything stopping them from making the quick one-time check the default.
I know it feels that way, but we don't redo anything if you have a valid license and card on file. The lines are long at airports because planes deplane at similar intervals and there are a lot of travelers that come to the location without this information on file (think cruise ships, travel agency bookings, discount site bookings). If you download the rental app and take advantage of loyalty programs then you can skip the craziness.
It shouldn't be more complicated than selling alcohol to an adult, really.
Sixt gave me the car I reserved in 3 minutes time, half of which was me walking to the car, no upsale attempts, just a quick driver license check, some instructions regarding EV charging and here's your key sir have a nice day. That's how it should be.
If I were to steal the car, I'd bet they'd have no trouble tracking it down, as the technology involved is trivial nowadays.
This same experience is provided by every other brand via loyalty programs. The counter does not exist for loyalty (or known) members, it exists for all the other customers that come to the company via third party vendors (travel agency, third parties, etc). Most of those people do not have a license or credit card on file.
