It was an odd turn of circumstances, really, but completely on purpose. If that makes sense. Because of an open-jaw trip and a one-way rental on a recent trip to the midwest, we had the opportunity to sample the vehicles and services of three major car rental agencies: Thrifty, National and Hertz. This is our story.

Thrifty: St. Louis in the summer and all you need is air conditioning, because, with the traffic, you ain't goin' anywhere fast. Thrifty accomodated us in a little blue Dodge Neon ($25/day) for a few days while we puttered around town before a wedding. Josh was the designated driver and had a little too much fun driving a small car -- it certainly was a step down from his SUV. The kids revving their Corvette's engine at a stoplight certainly got a laugh when we began to make ours scream. They left us in smoke. All-in-all a straightforward rental, and the shuttle driver was able to drop us off right at National for our second rental car of the day.

National Emerald Aisle: We picked up the second car ($58/day) for the one-way leg of our trip. Rental agencies charge more for one-way rentals, so we wanted to get in-and-out of this one as fast as we could. As an Emerald Aisle member, I strolled up to the Aisle, chose the car I wanted to drive -- in this case an Oldsmobile Alero -- and drove it off the lot. It couldn't be much easier! This is why I rent from National whenever I can. The 6-hour trip up to Milwaukee was quick, if not tedious. What awaited us was pure horror, however: a $236 bill. You've got to be kidding me! Sure enough, they wanted to charge us $0.40/mile on top of the $58/day rate. As politely as possible, I refused to budge -- there was no way I was paying $0.40/mile when that was not clearly communicated to me either via phone (where I had asked specifically about additional charges) and on my contract. With no manager on duty, the agent's hands were tied, but I refused to sign off on any such charge. She suggested we accept the charge and call customer relations. So we called customer service (closed), St. Louis (refused to help) and the Emerald Reservations number (could not help). Finally, we got ahold of a manager in St. Louis. Thirty minutes into the phone call, she at last agreed to waive the ludicrous charges and we were on our way. My words of wisdom: never accept charges to be argued later... always resolve issues on the spot in all and any manner of way possible.

Hertz: Even though I'm a Hertz #1 Gold member, those benefits are not available when booking through Priceline ($15/day). The desk agent offered us an Alero -- remarkably similar in every aspect to our last car. The rental was an easy find and we were off to see the Brewers cream the Cincy Reds at Miller Park. All in a day's work.