Category Archives for car rental.
Yes, it was real. On Sunday I wrote about a Hertz customer being charged $10,000 for driving his rental car too much on a month-long, unlimited miles rental. And when he questioned the charge, he was threated with arrest.
A Hertz customer rented a car for a month and drove it 25,000 miles or about 800 miles per day which is genuinely impressive and might be some sort of world record. He had an unlimited miles rate, but Hertz was not happy – they were going to charge $10,000 miles for the excess driving.
Darren Lynn Bousman is the director of Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, and several other horror films. So when he went to rent a car from Hertz – over Halloween week – well, you know where this story is going.
I’m not certain that bidding for a driver is a tip, exactly, since tips does not actually stand for ‘to insure prompt service’. But it’s just another way that Uber has lost the plot since picking Expedia’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to run the business.
My hypothesis was that Uber seemed to be picking a higher price because I had credits in my account. I might be willing to spend more because my ‘real’ out of pocket cost was less, and those credits were trapped anyway.
I decided to use my Uber credits for Uber Eats instead. That pricing seemed normal.
Consumer group Travelers United has sued Avis Budget Group under the Washington, D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act for egregious junk fees charged on top of advertised rental car prices, characterizing the practice as “bait and switch” and “drip pricing.”
At the beginning of the year there was consternation over the ‘end date’ for Hertz benefits for Capital One’s suite of Venture cards. The Venture X card in particular offers Hertz Presidents Club status, while the Venture offers Five Star.
People keep renting cars from them. So here’s finally some advice on how to do so without ending up in jail as their next victim, or at least one way you may be able to see an early warning signal that this could happen to you.
A Budget Rent a Car customer was pulled over by police, and had their Chrysler Pacifica confiscated. Police said that it was unregistered, and had fake plates. They were left on the side of the road for hours. Budget had no new car to offer at Newark airport where they rented (or anywhere else nearby), so they had to scrounge to come up with another vehicle to make it to their daughter’s college graduation – paying for both. The original rental was one-way, with a return in Canada. They couldn’t replicate that with another agency, so had to drive the car back to the United States taking up extra time, effort and $2,913 in expense. The original Budget rental was for $1,391 They had to change their flights to return the second car where they…
I’m not even sure what advice to give to this reader who redeemed Hertz point for a free rental but found that they charged his company credit card for it anyway.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
