Thrifty Rental Car has been good to me…or so I thought after having rented cars from them for years. Upon looking at my last few rental agreements, I noticed they had been charging me $1.95 a day for a “frequent flyer” fee.
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This seemed odd considering it was a rental car I had, not an airplane. Upon calling Thrifty Blue Chip Member customer support, I was told other rather revealing and disheartening news. Not only did “Mandy” (rep id – 4115 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) inform me that I was being charged $1.95 per day by Thrifty, but when I asked for a refund told me that is my problem for signing the contract and not reading the fine print.
When I said it was unethical and hidden within the fees, Thrifty’s Mandy did not care and when I asked to speak to the manager (who I was told was named “Bobby” and conveniently in a meeting at 4:56pm on Friday afternoon), I asked to be transfered to Bobby. Of course I was put on eternal hold and nobody ever picked up the telephone, nor did the voice mail ever come through to Bobby’s phone at Thrifty.
The main takeaway for consumers here is not to sign up for frequent flyer miles with Thrifty Rental Car’s Blue Chip Rewards program because it basically is a money making scheme for Thrifty and not designed to benefit you as the consumer. This is a first for rental car companies as I use them all as a road warrior and globe trotter traveling throughout the planet.
Maybe Thrifty should change their name to “Crafty” and clever because Mandy told me the 11 points I had also accumulated with Blue Chip Rewards at Thrifty (before I changed it over to air miles), well those 11 points got cancelled because they have to be used within a year.
I don’t know about you, but most people don’t rent cars more than 16 times a year. Hence you could never take advantage of the promised benefit of the “rewards” as Thrifty would cancel them before you ever got around to accumulating and using the reward points. If you opt for frequent flyer miles, you will be charged $1.95 a day for doing so.
A Thrifty scam for sure!
Renter beware!
Save real money without hidden fees and ripoffs here when you need a rental car: http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=121566&U=306947&M=17176
Paul F Davis – world traveler, consumer advocate, author, and minister
wwww.PaulFDavis.com
