WARNING! Read that Thrifty contract or get cheated!

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

I'm not certain if it was this one particular franchise or if this has become the norm throughout Thrifty but, after several years as my prefered rental car company, they've lost my business. Why? Because I got scammed by them.

The first thing I noticed was in their fine print, if you cancel your reservation less than 24 hours in advance, they hit you with a 1 day rental charge anyway. OK, not to bad but it was something burried in the fine print that the typical renter isn't going to look at.

But that's not where I was scammed. We were members of Thrifty's Blue Chip prefered renters program. In Blue Chip, you select the options you want.....or don't want, you reserve, you sign and drive. No worries about extra fee's like damage waivers or pre-purchased gas right? WRONG!

This past month, I reneted a car, had my rental reservation with the estimated cost, picked up my car and drove off. I should have read the contract. This Thrifty location tacked on a new extra called Trip Saver for an additional $4.99/day.

My first thought was, what the heck is Trip Saver? When I looked it up, it's nothing more than road side assitance. This is something I have not elected on our Blue Chip prefered contract and it was NOT in the estimated cost for the rental. Thrifty simply slipped it in for an additional charge at my expense.

Since I signed the agreement I've choosen not to fight about the charge or challenge it on my credit card. I did send Thrifty an E-mail that basically said, fool me once, shame on you........but it won't happen again. I've since cancelled our Thrifty reservations and have moved them to other rental car companies.

This past year, I caught Thrifty trying to charge me a higher rate from a cancelled reservation. It seems Thrifty was hanging onto any/all reservations made and, rather than automatically giving their Blue Chip member the lowest cost reservation, they were trying to stick me with the highest cost reservation.

I had thought at the time this was odd and maybe just a mistake. Shame on me for letting Thrifty eventually get into my pocket by not reading what I was signing. But after all, isn't the pre-approved contract suppose to end the nightmare of upcharges and upsells? Not with Thrifty it doesn't. Oh well, goodbye Thrifty and Dollar rent-a-car. I'll move onto someone who treats their prefered customers with a little more respect.

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

Good to keep an eye out if one company does it the others tend to follow. BTW next time try priceline no BS and you do save about 40-60%

[billymach4 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close billymach4]

Good to keep an eye out if one company does it the others tend to follow. BTW next time try priceline no BS and you do save about 40-60%

Frank,

Do you bid on the price and prepay? I have done that and I do get good deals.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

I bid on Priceline for a car rental last year on the Big Island Hawaii. The lowest bid that was accepted was higher than I could have gotten not using them. Not only that, Hertz said because I used Priceline, I would have to pay $10 /day to put my wife on the rental and and I could not use my AAA free upgrade. They said if I had used any other means to rent it then I would gotten the free upgrade and no charge for my wife.

I will never use Priceline again.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

I bid on Priceline for a car rental last year on the Big Island Hawaii. The lowest bid that was accepted was higher than I could have gotten not using them. Not only that, Hertz said because I used Priceline, I would have to pay $10 /day to put my wife on the rental and and I could not use my AAA free upgrade. They said if I had used any other means to rent it then I would gotten the free upgrade and no charge for my wife.

I will never use Priceline again.

Your overreacting Jim.

The baisc thing to remember with Priceline is that they are an outlet for surplus inventory. Vendors give Priceline (and Hotwire) discounted inventory when they foresee that they will have inventory that will otherwise go unused. In those circumstances it works great.

***

But when there isn't a surplus of inventory there is no reason for vendors to provide discounted inventory to PL and HW. The vendors are not stupid; at times when they think they can fill inventory on their own, they only release inventory to PL and HW at rates that are higher than what they could get for it themselves.

The various PL and HW advice sites have plenty of examples just like yours where people paid more using PL and HW than they would have booking directly. The people assumed that PL and HW are always cheaper; not so.

Whenever you use PL or HW you always need to first find out what the best rate is that you can get by booking directly. Using that info, you then decide what the maximum amount is that you're willing to pay using PL or HW, factoring in items such as not having a cancellable reservation, loss of frequent user perks, etc.

At that point it's a straightforward economic decision.

******

I've been using PL and HW for over a dozen years now, and I estimate that I"ve saved close to $10,000 by doing so. That's based on what I've paid using PL or HW versus what I would have paid had I made those same reservations at the same time using the best rates I could find otherwise.

If you only travel during peak times to popular locations, PL and HW are not realistic options. If you have flexibility and can take advantage of off-peak discount pricing situations you can save tremendous amounts.

Just like with timeshares - if you only travel to popular locations during peak times, you're going to pay a peak rate. But if you can travel off-peak, you can probably find some owner who is willing to rent for just the cost of annual fees.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Your overreacting Jim.

Who is Jim????

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

Apparently, they don't really read their E-mail. I sent them an E-mail letting them know I was a Blue Chip customer, that trip protector wasn't an option I had elected and that I found their practice of putting an option onto a Blue Chip contract that wasn't selected to be less than honest. I also told them I was finished with Thrifty as my prefered agency for car rentals.

This is the responce I received.

Thank you for contacting Thrifty Car Rental. We appreciate the opportunity to assist.

Please accept my personal apology for the misunderstanding or lack of a proper explanation of this valuable option on your rental. We recommend the purchase of this coverage as it offers the customer peace of mind in the event of unexpected roadside problems during the rental.


Again, thank you for contacting us. We look forward to serving your rental needs in the future!

Sincerely,

Kelly Russo
Customer Service Representative

Apparently, they thought I wanted to know what Trip Saver was, not that I was complaining that it was added to my Blue Chip contract without my permission.

The next e-mail was to let them know I didn't appreciate a canned responce, they obviously don't read their e-mails and that I had cancelled all future reservations with Thrifty.

Sure I might be paying $10 or $20 more going with someone else but, it's better than having to go over the fine print of a contract that is suppose to be pre-aproved with only the options I select, not the options Thrifty believes are important. In the end, it's cheaper to pay $20 more than get hit with an add on that runs $4.99/day.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

Good to keep an eye out if one company does it the others tend to follow. BTW next time try priceline no BS and you do save about 40-60%

I've used Priceline on occasion but, the advantage of Thrifty's Blue Chip program is that you're suppose to have a pre-authorized contract, skip the line and just sign and drive. No haggling over options you don't want or need.

Recently they've been putting Blue Chip customers in the same line as everyone else, so there's not been a lot of time saving involved. That alone had me thinking it wasn't worth the extra cost and I needed to be re-considering Hotwire or Priceline. Now, they apparently believe they can add an option that wasn't selected on the pre-authorized contract. If I have to stand in line AND go through the contract rather than skip the line, sign and drive, Thrifty's of no value to me. In fact, if they're going to just stick whatever they want on a pre-authorized contract, even if I don't select that option, then they're wasting my time by making me stand in line AND having to haggle over options I don't want.

All I can say is goodby Thrifty. After their canned answer yesterday, I've cancelled all our future reservations with Thrifty and gone to other companies. If I'm going to have to stand in line, I might as well be using Priceline or Hotwire. As you've said, it's pre-paid so I know the price. Unfotunately, it doesn't stop them from trying to upsell you on CDW, pre-paid fuel or any other expensive options that pad their profit margin. At least I get to tell them no rather than have them add it on without my permission.

[Luanne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Luanne]

I've used Priceline on occasion but, the advantage of Thrifty's Blue Chip program is that you're suppose to have a pre-authorized contract, skip the line and just sign and drive. No haggling over options you don't want or need.

This is kind of what you get with Priceline. It's prepaid so you know up front how much the rental will be. No contract, no haggling, just pick up and car and drive away. Of course the downside is, even if you have status with the rental company you usually have to stand in line for the pick up.

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

This is kind of what you get with Priceline. It's prepaid so you know up front how much the rental will be. No contract, no haggling, just pick up and car and drive away. Of course the downside is, even if you have status with the rental company you usually have to stand in line for the pick up.

Blue Chip use to have a special line for Blue Chip members, have the contract waiting for you and have you're car parked in a special section waiting for you. Over the last few years, it's changed to the point where I'm standing in line and, this time, they didn't even have a car in my class and tried to pawn a mini-van off on us, which was unexeptable. When we returned the car a little after 6:00 AM, there wasn't even an attendent to check us in. Just a note to park the car in any stall but, all the stalls were full. While we were unloading the car an attendent finally showed up. He was somewhat disinterested in doing his job.

All in all, nothing impressed us about Thrifty this time. Getting cheated out of $35 was just icing on the cake.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

This is kind of what you get with Priceline. It's prepaid so you know up front how much the rental will be. No contract, no haggling, just pick up and car and drive away. Of course the downside is, even if you have status with the rental company you usually have to stand in line for the pick up.

Sometimes you can go to the car rental website and add your status member ID information, and get recognized as such in the rental company's reservation system. I found that out one time when I waited through the line for a PL rental, and when I got to the counter the clerk informed me that I could have gone straight to the rental lot and picked out my car. (I think that was with an Avis reservation, but I don't remember for sure.) In that case the reservation system recognized my information and automatically put my PL reservation into the preferred customer queue.

[Luanne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Luanne]

Sometimes you can go to the car rental website and add your status member ID information, and get recognized as such in the rental company's reservation system. I found that out one time when I waited through the line for a PL rental, and when I got to the counter the clerk informed me that I could have gone straight to the rental lot and picked out my car. (I think that was with an Avis reservation, but I don't remember for sure.) In that case the reservation system recognized my information and automatically put my PL reservation into the preferred customer queue.

And this has also happened to us. Priceline reservation with National. Went to the counter and turns out dh is an Emerald Club member. So the gal tells us to just go out and select out car. We do, and then when we try to leave the lot (again in ABQ) the guy there asks us for our contract (don't have one the gal at the desk said we were all set). Turns out she must have somehow overriden the Priceline reservation. The guy at the gate was finally able to get it cleared up, but we must have sat there, in the car, for almost 1/2 hour.