Moral of the story is everything worked out well, thank goodness, however there were a few bumps in…read morethe road no pun intended, along the way. I booked the U-Haul online over a week in advance and there were no issues, there was an 15 foot truck available, the day I needed it, at the time I needed to pick it up and it seemed everything was copacetic. Background info, I was packing up my apartment on the very last day of my lease and driving my stuff 500 miles away into my new place; a new tenant was moving in the following day so it was so essential to have everything out of the apartment this day and I had tons of furniture. This was all supposed to go down on a Monday morning and on Sunday, late afternoon, we received a phone call from U-Haul to let us know they did not have any 15 foot trucks but they were going to accommodate us by upgrading us to the 20 foot truck for free and that our rental would be ready to be picked up no later than 6 pm that Monday night. PANIC MODE STARTED THERE. First things first, I hired a moving company to load my U-Haul and they were scheduled to arrive at 8 am Monday morning, U-Haul was scheduled to be picked up at 7 am that morning so the phone call letting us know we wouldn't be able to pick it up until after 6 pm that night was 12 hours TOO LATE. I had already received my confirmation e-mail stating that a 15 foot truck would be ready and able to be picked up at 7 am so this was a huge mistake. In addition, I did not want a 20 foot truck, again, we were driving 500 miles over bridges and busy turnpikes, 5 feet extra was not a desirable feature.
So U-Haul strategically called us to let us know about this change in vehicle size moments before they closed for the day, so when I called them back to fix this mistake, there was no one at the facility to speak with. Therefore, I had to call the main U-Haul line and speak with automated systems for several minutes before reaching an actual person, who still had no affiliation with this specific U-Haul location. I expressed to the person on the phone what had happened and why it was absolutely pertinent that we pick up the vehicle by 7 am Monday morning due to the fact that I had scheduled movers coming to load everything into the truck at 8 am. U-Haul told me that they do not see why there was a discrepancy with my original order and that there were plenty of 15 foot trucks able to be picked up at 8 am Monday morning. This entire ordeal was confusing and because I was speaking to a representative who was strictly basing their information off of computer inventory I was skeptical. If there were 15 foot trucks available at the time I booked this, why did I receive a phone call saying I couldn't pick the truck up until that night and why was I told I needed to pick up a 20 foot? The person on the phone assured me I would be all set but without having her at the specific facility, looking at my truck again, I was nervous.
When we arrived at U-Haul at 8 am Monday morning our truck was luckily there waiting for us and ready to go and the process to pick it up went fairly smoothly. We had paid $12 or so for some furniture pads and it is not clearly stated online but these are only rentals, you cannot purchase these pads. They were very large and did a good job protecting my furniture while in the truck. Just to give some insight on the sizes of the trucks; I had a 15 foot truck which fit a queen size bed, frame, headboard, large dresser, desk, bedside table, lingerie chest, three area rugs, tv stand, 60 inch television, a sofa, large television stand, coffee table, pub table, at least 6 plastic bins, a bike, four fold up tables, a few duffel bags and some other small items and we still had a little bit of room in the truck, it fit a TON and to be honest the strategic packing job was done by the moving company that I hired.
The truck did not run great, and that was very nerve-racking while being on such a long trip, lets just say we were very excited to make it into my driveway. The cost of the rental was by no means cheap, over $300 and we did purchase insurance for around $50, so worth it considering the cost of repair any damage had been done. Really the only hiccup was receiving that call with the wrong time and the wrong truck, luckily I was able to straighten that out with a phone call to the main U-Haul line but if they weren't successful this would have been a very different post! Happy Moving!