Day 4

Guten tag,

Every adventure has its share of hiccups and dramas, silly things that weren’t in the plan. Today was one of those days.

The day was another stunner. Clear blue skies, temperature in the high 20’s. Another great breakfast at Aroma Kaffeebar, one of the few places we’ve found in Europe that serve a proper Kiwi style flat white (the Flat White coffee was invented in New Zealand, although some dopey Australians are also claiming they invented it).

After breakfast we jumped on a train and headed off to the airport to collect our rental car.

Weeks before we left New Zealand, Koro had booked our rental car through Hertz. We wanted a Ford Mondeo station wagon, or similar, for 48 days. We booked it, and the price was €1,111 to be paid at the counter at the airport.

The airport was very busy this morning, and the rental car area was packed with people wanting to hire a car. It is always a slow process, because there are forms to fill in and contracts to sign. Rather than queueing in these places, the rental companies ask you to enter you name into a touch screen, which then issues you a ticket with a number. That is your number in the queue. So then you wait until your number comes up, exactly like waiting for your order at McDonalds.

We had to wait for an hour for our turn in the queue.

When it was our turn the Hertz people had all of the details. But, then there was a problem. Sorry, we don’t have the exact car you booked available, and sorry, we don’t have a similar car that size. All we can offer you is either a Fiat 500 (a Bambino!) or, what the man described as a “Ford People Mover”.

“Ford People Mover” translated into “Ford Transit”; basically a delivery van, although it did have seating for 8 people.

We looked at the Ford Transit, but it was just too huge. It would have been like driving the camper van all over again, a scenario we did not want to repeat on this adventure. Oh, and by the way, the Transit will be €3,200 thanks very much, because it is in a different vehicle class. That’s after a significant discount to compensate for the inconvenience.

As for the Fiat 500, well, it would have been great fun, but simply not big enough for all of our luggage.

So we went back to the counter, which was just as busy as it was before. This time we waited until the guy who served us was free, then we just pushed in, and explained that we were not happy. He goes and talks to someone else, and they come up with a Renault Clio hatchback. About the same as a Toyota Corolla, perhaps a smidge smaller. It will do the job, but if that’s all there is, well it is what it is.

It was still very much more expensive.

This is a picture of our Clio whilst sitting in the Hertz parking area. Notice the station wagon in the background? Oh, it’s a Ford Modeo, the exact car we wanted but were told it was “unavailable”.

Anyway, we took the Clio, and drove it back to the hotel.

It was then that we actually read the bill properly. The Hertz people had, without telling us, charged us for the upgraded insurance cover. It basically reduces your excess to zero. It is very expensive (€1,400) and our travel insurance also covers this, hence the reason we did not want it.

€1,400 is a decent chunk of money, and we wanted it back. So the afternoon was spent getting it back. We tried to do it at the Hertz office in the city, but the guy there said it can only be done at the office where it was issued. He also told us that there have been numerous issues with the Airport office of Hertz not properly explaining all of the charges to customers, particularly the optional insurance upgrade. He was very helpful, and gave us the details of whom we should contact to lay a complaint.

We decided there and then to take a train back to the Airport and get the insurance credited.

Thankfully the airport was not nearly as busy as it had been in the morning. We were served by the same man again, and he was not happy about crediting the insurance. In fact he was very grumpy and rude, which only served to wind Grandma up.

But we achieved the discount, and as a result our rental for the whole time will only be €894.

A Renault Clio actually handles pretty well and it will have enough space for our luggage with the seats down. It has a little turbo charged petrol engine and a six speed dual clutch automatic. We haven’t tried doing a skid yet, but Koro has made the types squeal.

By the time we got back to the city it was 7:00pm, so we went straight to dinner. Grandma was very tired and she faded fast.

Tomorrow we are leaving Munich, heading for Innsbruck in Austria. It will be nice to start moving.

Love from Grandma and Koro. XXX OOO.