The NRMA’s car rental division, Kingmill Pty Ltd, formerly operating as Thrifty Car and Truck Rental Australia have since been rebranded as SIXT Car Rental Australia upon expiry of their original Master Franchise agreement with Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group (DTAG) in the United States.

This change includes some of their network of sub-franchisees throughout Australia including, Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd and Pacific Automotive Holdings Pty Ltd which have followed their franchisor to rebrand as Sixt Car Rental Australia, while some other now former franchisees have either stayed on as Thrifty, changed over to other car rental brands or are in the process of establishing their own independent car rental brand.

Whether there will be any real material operational change with SIXT Australia (from how they usually did things under the Thrifty brand) or whether it’s essentially just a brand change (in the form of “same pig different lip stick”) remains to be seen. It is sincerely hoped that certain franchisees will take this opportunity of a clean slate in which to substantially improve their conduct and move on from some of their former practices (Including charging of fees outside of the written legal documentation and deliberately trying to deceive customers such as myself through the posting of multiple false testimonials pretending to be happy customers).

The Thrifty brand in Australia under it’s new structure has now been returned back to it’s parent Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group (DTAG) / The Hertz Corporation and now appears to be largely hitched in together with the Hertz branded locations through out Australia. In a nutshell, the people running Thrifty Australia as of now is not the same people running Thrifty Australia as of a few months ago.

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Regarding Thrifty car rental in New Zealand… Motoka Rentals Ltd who operated the New Zealand arm of Thrifty Car Rental on behalf of Kingmil Pty Ltd has apparently been sold off to NZ Leisure Ltd trading as Ezi Car rentals with the former Thrifty Locations to be re-branded as Ezi Car rentals. If your head isn’t already spinning, then perhaps it should be.

On that theme as a side note, does corporate branding even really mean anything any more? In terms of renting a car, it is often a crapshoot. Vast majority of hiring experiences regardless of the brand will often be uneventful and smooth, but on the occasions where the experience does turn sour, then often it really goes pear shaped.

With that I close with… Brand loyalty, regardless of the industry, is often misguided.