Car Rentals Are Back

Almost seven years ago now in August 2009 I wrote a post here taking the piss out of Thrifty Car and Van Rental and, unsurprisingly, I'd forgotten all about it.

Until today¹.

Before I tell you today's tale take a quick look at the original post and follow the links through to the Thrifty site. Not only are the pages still there (which is pretty amazing in itself, deep linking like that seldom lasts these days) but the same howlers still remain.

Anyway today I got an email from Meghan Donovan, Manager of Digital Outreach, Auto Europe highlighting that post. It read:

Hi,

My name is Meghan² and I work in Auto Europe's marketing department. I'm writing because I noticed that you link to Thrify[sic] on your website (http://www.the-hug.org/opus976.html), but don't presently link to us.

We have provided excellent service in Edinburgh for over 60 years and I'd appreciate it if you could add us to this page alongside the Thrify[sic] listing so your website visitors can compare our rates to theirs.

Here is our URL: http://www.autoeurope.com/go/car-rental-edinburgh/

Please let me know if there is anything else you need from me to make this happen. I'll be happy to send you our logo or a short written summary of the services we offer in the Edinburgh upon request.

Thank you!

Meghan Donovan | Manager of Digital Outreach
Auto Europe | Portland, ME

To be honest I almost deleted the email without a thought as I get a lot of these sort of emails, both for my own site and WalkLakes but then I had a sudden thought and delved deeper into the Auto Europe site and if you start on the URL mentioned in the email above and follow the "breadcrumbs", so click on "UK" and on the next page click on the "England" link and from there scroll down to the Popular Destinations in England you get to select Cambridge ...

... and we're off. This is just like Thrifty all over again!

We've jumped to "Car Rentals in Cambridge, New Zealand" which is a screw up in itself given where I started from but at least the description ties up with that:

A car rental in Cambridge is the perfect way to explore the heart of New Zealand's North Island. "The Town of Trees & Champions," Cambridge is nestled in the gorgeous Waikato Region of New Zealand [...]

which is fine as far as it goes but check out their photo, which I reproduce on the right.

That's taken from the top of Great St Mary's and it's The Senate House, with Clare behind, King's chapel to the left and the UL in the distance.

Make up your mind folks!

So Meghan, thank you for providing me with the opportunity to both reprise the original post taking the piss out of your competitors and also take the piss out of your company at the same time³.

1. Touch of the Jeremy Clarkson's there. Sorry.
2. Incidentally I notice a lot of people start emails like this. I never would. After all my name is in my From address and also at the bottom in my .sig. Perhaps it's an American thing?
3. By the way if anyone is thinking I'm helping her even with this post then:
   1. the total readership of this blog is you, me and her. Really.
   2. All my links to her site on this page have the rel="nofollow" attribute set.