Off to a Rocky Start

UPDATE: 2/18/08: Looks like I wasn't the only one having problems.

I went online this afternoon to try and reserve a Flexcar.  We sold our 2000 Civic late last year, in anticipation of an international move that never occured (stupid immigration laws) and signed up with Flexcar.  The system has been great so far, and we haven't missed our car once since we've been using the service.  In November of 2007 we received notice that Flexcar would be merging with Zipcar, and how this would ultimately be a better deal for all since it meant we would have more access to cars in other locations should we choose to visit them, such as D.C. 

Fast forward to this month.  I get my zipcard in the mail and go online to activate it. No hassle, and I'm given a $25 credit on my new card as a "bonus" (which needs to be used within 60 days of me signing up, but whatever...money's money). The first thing I notice is that Zipcar doesn't have a comparable rate plan to the current flexcar plan I'm on, which gives me the option of $3 rentals in the early evening for certain vehicles on weekends and free nights from 12 A.M. to 6 A.M. on most days. Not a huge loss, since I never really took advantage of the free nights thing. Then I notice that there's a prepayment requirement.  This one's a bit more confusing, since I'm unsure if I need to prepay the amount I'm using the car per month or year or what.  As I understand it, Zipcar requires me as a driver to use a minimum of $50 worth of driving per month on average. I don't know if that one's going to really pan out that well, since there's two of us and we rarely if ever do anything that requires us to use multiple cars.

The final kicker aside from reports that the cards themselves aren't working properly and causing unexpected late fees, is the fact that this weekend, and potentially for the next few days, I'm completely carless. The option isn't even there for me to reserve a vehicle, even though there's one sitting not even 200 feet away from my apartment, I'm not allowed to drive it.  Zipcar has decided that all cars will need to be transitioned to the new system at roughly the same time, and so have placed a lockdown on all reservations until the cars are moved over to the zipcar electronic system (one which, if I understand correctly, treats the drivers like criminals by not allowing them to remove the keys from the car).  When I called Zipcar and asked about this, and about potentially getting a credit since they gave no notice that ZERO cars would be available, creating a huge inconvenience to me and everyone in the city of Seattle, I was told that because no cars were available to anyone in Seattle, no one could get a credit for this, since we were, as he put it, "all in the same boat." Couple this with the other problems we're seeing, plus the fact that I'm not allowed to make reservations for increments of less than an hour, something the Flexcar system ALWAYS allowed, and I'm just not sure if it's really going to be worth the hassle long term.  In any event, they're not really doing a ton to win me over on the customer service front.