Category Archives for car rental.
Hertz is in bankruptcy yet last year their stock was a favorite of Redditors on the Robinhood app. They’ve been sending customers to jail when they fail to mark rental agreements as extended, or fail to mark a car back into inventory and rent it again.
Now they’ve sent out a message seemingly at least as customer-friendly as everyone else: that they were pausing points expiration through December 31, 2021. But their fingers were crossed.
Hertz is accused of falsely reporting cars stolen on a number of customers – and the customers wind up in jail. This appears to have been going on for a couple of years at least. Hertz has been sued for the practice. And yet it seems to continue.
The stories have a common thread involving switching out of the originally-assigned vehicle, or extending a rental, where Hertz employees didn’t properly complete the paperwork for the transaction.
Silvercar was my favorite company to rent cars from. They rented only Audis and had a generally all-inclusive model. For $5 they refilled your gas at market prices. You paid actual cost of toll tracking, no extortionate daily fee. However the Audi-owned rental car company is shutting down all airport locations in the U.S. in early December. They will retain Audi dealership locations.
At the end of April Hertz was looking at a large payment on $17 billion in debt. Their loans are backed by their fleet of vehicles, but the plummeting value of used cars meant Hertz had to make up the difference in cash. Lenders didn’t want to force them into bankruptcy, though, believing debt would have a better shot getting paid if the rental company continued as a going concern.
Hertz has a deadline of May 22 to develop a financing plan – but the lack of financing is an own goal, since their CEO walked away from up to half a billion in cash back in March.
Normally I’m against vehicular theft. I imagine reduced traffic from the coronavirus pandemic made the trip somewhat safer. Ultimately I feel like a boy this industrious needs to be encouraged, not punished.
Airlines are offering travel credit for cancelled reservations. Hotels are letting customers with prepaid reservations cancel without penalty. It’s frequently not possible to travel, either because of a government ban or an employer’s policy. The events or activities you planned to go to may not be happening – all of the world’s Disney theme parks are closed, even. Yet Hertz is keeping your money from prepaid car rental reservations.
Fortunately there is a hack to save some money if Hertz won’t offer a refund.
National Car Rental will give their top tier elite status, Executive Elite, to new members who enroll with an(y) American Express card. Enrollment needs to be via this link by February 29, 2020.
Status is supposed to last through February 2021 but some reports suggest that it actually lasts through February 2022. And there’s a bonus free rental day offer, too.
Thrifty is offering a free rental day each time you rent. This applies even on one day rentals. The free day can be earned up to 5 times through end of 2019.
Silvercar quietly rolled out a loyalty program, and enrollment is automatic. If you’ve had a recent rental (as I have) you may already have points. This is in effect a 9%+ discount on your future rentals that stacks with various promo codes and makes Silvercar rentals incrementally more attractive.
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 »
