Today I ordered a car from Sixt. I was not able to do it online, as the website did not allow me to order a car for the same day. So I gave them a call. The nice voice on the phone told me to wait, put me on loop aksed me to punch keys and then I got a woman on the phone. She was very kind, but told me, she had no car in my category with GPS.

So I said, well, then I take the next level. Oh no she said, no BIG car is available. The only thing she can offer would be a C-class Mercedes with GPS. I said, ok – I take it!

[Isn´t it strange ... you are a Premium Card holder and they do not want to sell you a large car, even if they would have to send you to the next rental office or drive a car to the office you want the car in?]

At 18:30 I went to Sixt in Frankfurt got my car, all was fine, and then the CD of the Navigation System was not in the car. So I got out of the car again. (Glad I checked before I started to drive)

The women said. Oh yes, the GPS is broken. I said, well then I want another car, as I ordered one with GPS. She said, no you did not! I said, of course. That is the reason, why I ordered a bigger car than I wanted. She said, no you did not book a GPS on top.

I told her firm but friendly I did, and I wanted to have a car with GPS, she said again no, I would be wrong and so I told her that I do not want to have a broken car, and her boss started to say the car would not have a defect. I said, this is exactly what she said and I told him that it is not ok to lend a car that has a defect, without telling me that. He said the car did not have a defect, it would be fully safe to drive.

I said … the navigation system does not work and in my eyes this is a defect.  He only answered that it would be a non issues, as I did  order a C-Class mercedes without GPS, based on their records. I told him that it was not my fault if her college from the call center had not put this into the order, as she had clearly understood, that I wanted a car with GPS. He told me this was not his problem and she is somewhere in x, and he does not know where she is.

I told him him if this is the only thing he can offer me, no refund although I am a Sixt Premium  Card holder and a LH Senator. He said, only if he would have a car available I do have a benefit.

I was telling him, that this was the last time I book a Sixt car and I had to leave driving this car, that I did not want as I needed to be on time for my meeting.

His response was, that this were of course an option I could take.

I learned from this little story that the rental car companies in Germany do not need to satisfy us customers. In my eyes they are obviously still making too much money, if they can afford to send customers away who spent a lot of money using their service in the past.