So, after the fiasco at Enterprise, we headed back to my house. Browsing through the Passbook, I found a wide variety of rental car places. However, from my initial checking, I knew that many of the smaller local branches would be closed on Saturday, and the nearest place to pick up some types of rental cars on Saturday was all the way out at the airport (25 miles away). So I called the toll-free number for Budget shown on one of the coupons.

The lady that answered the phone was very nice. She asked for my ZIP code and told me they had a location about 2 miles from where I lived that was open until 3:00 on Saturday. Thinking she's just give me their phone number, she instead asked me what size car I wanted, and when I wanted it. I told her an intermediate size, and immediately, for a week. She gave me a price that was less than what Enterprise had quoted (even without the fictional extra $105 for unlimited mileage), and asked if I wanted to reserve it. This might turn out to be easy.

I asked questions - about mileage, about driving out of state even beyond neighboring states, and was given all the right answers. She asked me for my name, phone number, and type of credit card, gave me the address for their local office, and told me there'd be a car waiting. Wow. So Lisa drove me to the place, and we walked in about 12:45.

I'd just taken in the Passbook and after they'd pulled up my paperwork and copied my credit card and driver's license I asked the gal if it was better to use the $20 off coupon or the free upgrade coupon. She said "Well, I don't have any intermediate cars available right now, so I'm already going to give you a free upgrade to full size, so use the $20 off."

I drove off the Budget lot in a loaded 2006 Ford Taurus at a little after 1:00 with a smile on my face. The folks at Budget know how to do customer service, and they'll get my future business.

We drove both cars to a restaurant for a quick lunch and then Lisa scooted back to work.