When you need to rent a car from Hertz, you can expect to pay a decent amount of money.
The average cost of renting a car from Hertz for a week is between $150 and $325.
For some people, that’s about the price of owning a car.
Considering its high price, you may wonder what factors into the rental price of a car from Hertz.
Here are 10 reasons renting from Hertz is so expensive.
Why Is Hertz So Expensive? (Top 10 Reasons)
1. Hertz Gold Plus Rewards System
One of the reasons Hertz is expensive is because they have a Hertz Gold Plus Rewards System.
It costs nothing to join their rewards program which means they have to get the money to fund the system elsewhere.
The Gold Plus Rewards System offers many benefits like complimentary upgrades and free rentals.
Renters earn them by renting a car for a certain number of miles.
At each milestone, they’re given reward points.
Once they have enough reward points to redeem a reward, then they get something for free.
It costs Hertz money to give those rewards.
Whenever someone gets a free rental, that’s money that Hertz isn’t earning.
As a result, Hertz has to make up the money elsewhere to fund their rewards program since their members don’t have to pay an annual or subscription fee for it.
They do so by having higher prices on their rentals.
Those higher prices allow the company to funnel some of its earnings to support its rewards program.
According to Hertz’s website, they have an estimated 11 million members for their rewards program.
That’s a lot of free upgrades and free rentals that they’re giving over time.
To ensure the company can support those rewards and keep their customers happy and loyal to them, they have to get the funds to support the system through higher rental prices.
Hertz is expensive because it has to support its rewards program through its normal business operations.
2. Green Cars
In an effort to help stop climate change, Hertz invested in acquiring several electric vehicles for its fleet.
Electric cars aren’t quite as inexpensive as gas-fueled cars, but they’re getting there.
Since they’re not at that stage yet, however, Hertz likely had to pay a good amount of money to acquire a decent number of them.
That type of investment means they’re in the hole and need funds to get out of it.
You’ll find that the price for electric car rentals tends to be a bit higher than some of their other cars.
Part of the reason they’re expensive is that it helps recover from the investment that Hertz made.
Another reason electric cars are more expensive is that they’re in higher demand.
Although someone may not be able to afford to buy an electric car, they can likely rent one.
Given the chance to drive a car that doesn’t impact the environment quite as much as gas-fueled cars, renters may prefer to choose the greener option.
With higher demand for electric car rentals and not as much supply, the price for electric cars increases.
Maintenance on electric vehicles is also more expensive.
Since they’re a relatively new type of car, there aren’t that many seasoned mechanics available to service them.
Those who can perform maintenance on them likely have higher prices on their services.
The mechanics know that Hertz can’t rely on too many other people for help.
As such, the cost of maintenance on electric cars is a bit higher.
To cover those costs, Hertz has to place a higher price on their electric vehicles.
Finally, while the cost of fueling or powering an electric car isn’t quite as expensive as a gas-powered car, Hertz still needs to buy the electric power stations.
Those aren’t cheap either.
Since they may have several electric cars powering up each day, it also means their overall electricity bills are higher.
All these costs demand higher prices to cover them.
Hertz is expensive because of the price of electric cars and the costs of keeping them running.
3. Pickup Trucks
Another reason Hertz is expensive is that they offer pickup trucks for rent.
Pickup trucks are large vehicles with specific purposes.
Although some use them like they would a normal family car, pickup trucks are typically best used for work.
They have a lot of hauling power which makes them ideal for carrying heavy loads or pulling boats or trailers behind them.
Renters might want to rent a truck to pull a boat or a camper trailer for vacation.
Hertz is aware that their pickup trucks are most likely going to be hauling or carrying stuff.
That means their trucks are going to need maintenance more frequently than their other cars.
While trucks can take care of heavy loads, they do have their limits, and it’s not too surprising that some renters might try to push those limits to get done what they need to get done.
As a result, the trucks end up becoming a little worse for wear.
Hertz, in turn, has to spend more money to keep trucks as a part of their fleet.
Since the trucks take on more maintenance costs, the company needs to put higher prices on them to cover those costs.
Trucks are also in high demand with not as much supply as some of the other cars that Hertz provides.
Since they don’t have as high of a supply, the price for trucks becomes more expensive, especially when demand grows.
For example, during the spring and summer seasons, people are moving or going on vacation.
They’re more in need of pickup trucks during those two seasons than during the winter, for example.
As such, the price to rent a truck from Hertz increases during that time since the demand is higher.
Finally, on the driver’s side, renting a truck is expensive because you can expect to pay more for fuel.
Trucks are larger vehicles and don’t always have the best fuel efficiency.
As such, you can expect higher fuel costs which can make the overall renting price more expensive.
Hertz is expensive because of the costs associated with its pickup trucks.
4. Luxury Cars
If you want to rent a luxury car from Hertz, then you can expect to pay a high price.
That’s because luxury cars, in themselves, are expensive.
Buying a luxury car can easily cost you upwards of $50,000 and far more.
Hertz has several different luxury brands from which their renters can choose.
Some of those brands include:
- BMW
- Cadillac
- Infiniti
- Mercedes
- Range Rover
These cars feature comfortable seats made of leather, fine wood, and fabric, and they have additional special features like satellite radio and convertible roofs.
These cars were likely expensive to purchase.
Hertz bought several of them to support its many locations across the country.
The company needs to ensure that almost every one of its locations can offer luxury cars to its renters.
Because of the sheer cost of buying so many luxury vehicles, you can expect that they took on a heavy cost.
To cover this investment, they have to put a higher price on renting their luxury cars.
There’s also the fact that it’s a luxury car.
As with anything that associates with luxury, it always has a higher price tag.
People don’t buy luxury items because they need to.
They buy them because they want to and because they want to either flaunt a little or indulge themselves.
When a car is cheap, it’s not flaunting one’s wealth or indulging oneself.
If everyone can do it, then it’s not special.
Hertz wants to make renting a luxury car feel special.
To do so, they put a higher price tag on renting their luxury cars.
Hertz is expensive when you rent their luxury cars.
5. Moving Trucks And Vans
Hertz doesn’t just rent cars.
They also let their customers rent out moving trucks and vans.
This is another reason renting at Hertz can be expensive.
For one, renters have to cover the costs that Hertz took on to acquire these types of cars.
Moving trucks, in particular, are large and expensive to purchase.
They’re also very expensive to maintain.
While they’re more powerful than a pickup truck, they also haul heavier loads.
That’s a lot of stress that the moving truck and van undergo.
As a result, they have to go to the repair shop more often for maintenance.
That means the cost of owning and renting them out is higher.
To cover those costs, Hertz has to place a higher price tag on renting them.
Fuel costs are also higher on moving trucks and vans.
Since they’re larger vehicles, they need more fuel.
They also tend to not have the best fuel efficiency.
Renters will likely find themselves having to pay a decent amount of money to keep their truck or van filled.
Finally, there’s also supply and demand at work which is causing the price for these particular vehicles to be expensive to rent at Hertz.
There are certain times in the year that are more suitable for moving.
The spring and summer seasons are both common times when moving is occurring frequently.
People are moving to new homes, and college students are moving out of their dorms and back home for the summer.
Renters need moving trucks and vans at a higher rate during those times.
In the fall, you also have college students moving back into their dorms from home.
Renters need moving trucks and vans to assist with that project, too.
When demand is high but supply is low, the price to rent moving vehicles is higher.
Hertz is expensive because of the cost and demand for moving trucks and vans.
6. Sports Cars
Hertz is expensive when you want to rent one of their sports cars.
The company has several sports car brands available for rent.
For example, one of the biggest sports car brands, Porsche, has a few models available.
Clearly, Hertz had to pay a good amount of money to get these cars into their service.
Since they have several locations throughout the country, they needed to buy quite a large number to offer them at some of their most popular stores.
That sort of investment costs a lot of money.
To make up for that price, Hertz places a high rental price on its sports cars.
You can also factor in the cost of luxury.
These sports are high-performance cars and come with the idea of driving in luxury as well.
As such, it carries a luxury price tag.
A final reason sports cars make Hertz expensive is the high demand for sports cars.
If you’re going to travel somewhere, you might want to do so in style.
Renting a sports car allows you to drive around in that style.
It can give the impression that you’re wealthy or even that you own the car.
Some people are willing to pay the extra price for that sort of image.
Since there’s a high demand for a sports car but not that much supply, the price of renting one increases.
You may find that the price fluctuates whenever there’s a special event going on in the nearby city.
People looking to impress will flock to car rental services and rent out a sports car to look their best.
Since there’s more demand during these times, you can expect the price to become expensive.
Hertz is expensive because their sports cars are in high demand with only a small supply available to meet that demand.
7. COVID-19 Sell-Off
One of the main reasons that Hertz is expensive is that they had to sell many of their cars during the lockdowns that occurred with COVID-19.
The pandemic hurt Hertz.
With the lockdowns, almost everyone had to remain at home.
No one was traveling.
There weren’t any vacations.
People couldn’t even rent their normal cars to travel to work.
Since no one needed rental cars, Hertz found itself with a fleet of cars to take care of and no means to make money.
They were essentially bleeding cash.
To help bring some money into the business and stay alive, they had to sell many of their cars.
While this helped give them some cash to stay open after the lockdowns ended, it also meant that they were down several cars.
Lockdowns ended a lot faster than anyone expected.
As a result, the sudden return to commuting meant that Hertz no longer had enough cars to serve its customers.
To curb demand, they had to raise their prices.
Not only did the higher prices help them climb out of the debt incurred during the pandemic, but it was also a result of low supply.
Like any other kind of economics, whenever there’s high demand and low supply, the price increases.
That’s because businesses will raise the price to curb demand and only allow those who can afford the higher prices to buy their products or services.
Prices have remained high because car factories also faced labor problems and shutdowns.
Whenever someone became ill, the factories had to close to prevent the virus from spreading.
This meant that there weren’t as many cars produced for Hertz to buy and add to their fleet.
As a result, their supply was low for some time, and it likely remains quite low.
Problems with the supply chain have only made the problem worse.
Since they’re unable to meet demand, Hertz has expensive prices on their car rentals.
8. Interest In Decreasing Carbon Footprint
With climate change becoming more present in everyday life, there’s more interest in doing what one can to decrease one’s carbon footprint.
There are several changes one can make to help reduce how much carbon you put into the world.
One way is to rent a car.
Renting a car helps decrease someone’s carbon footprint because it usually means that they don’t have a car of their own.
They’re doing less driving which helps reduce carbon emissions.
They might choose to walk, bike, or take public transportation on their normal routes.
They only rent a car when they have long-distance traveling to do.
Others have decided to decrease their carbon footprint by renting electric vehicles, in particular.
Since electric vehicles are still quite expensive to purchase, some have decided to rent electric cars to help reduce humanity’s effect on climate change.
The reason this makes Hertz expensive is that it means there’s more demand for their services.
In particular, it usually means there’s more demand for electric cars or fuel-efficient cars.
With a higher demand for Hertz—and these cars in particular—the higher the price is to rent them.
Hertz is expensive because of an increased interest in reducing one’s carbon footprint which has led to a rise in car rentals.
9. Remote Work
One might think that more people working at home would negatively impact Hertz’s business.
It’s actually the opposite.
Because more people are working at home, it means there’s less of a need to own a car.
Without that monthly expense, people can have a bit more financial freedom.
When it comes to needing to travel, renting a car is more cost-friendly for these individuals.
Some remote workers also prefer to practice a nomadic lifestyle.
They might work in one city for a few months, then decide to pack up and live somewhere else for a time.
They’ll most likely rent a car since it makes more financial sense than owning a car that they only use a few times.
Remote work has increased the demand for Hertz’s rental cars.
The problem with increased demand is that Hertz has a limited supply of cars at the moment.
This has driven up the price and made the rental company expensive.
10. Bankruptcy Debts
In 2020, Hertz filed for bankruptcy.
The pandemic had caught it unaware, and the company was not prepared to survive.
While the company remained open due to filing for bankruptcy and selling off many of its cars, it still has an incredible amount of debt.
One of the ways the company has tried to pull itself out of this debt is by raising its prices.
It has a lot of ground to cover and if another pandemic occurs that locks down everyone again, then there’s a chance the rental car company won’t survive.
As such, they’re trying to make as much revenue as possible to cover that debt and prepare themselves for future rainy days.
Hertz is expensive because it filed for bankruptcy.
Conclusion
Hertz is a popular car rental company with locations throughout the country.
It has several different car types and sizes.
These differences, along with the ripples from COVID-19, have made the company increase its prices.
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