How Bad Was The Hertz Points Devaluation? And How Dumb Are People Who Live Near Airports?

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About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. I removed my Hertz number from my corporate profile last year so they’d come up less preferred in our travel system searches. No way I’d rent from them now. Not at all.

  2. There are constant issues in general aviation where airports servicing small planes are in time surrounded by developments which then have residents who complain about the noise. Sometimes accommodations are worked out, sometimes not. But really, for a big airport like Dulles the county officials never should have allowed this housing development to occur, and the corporation involved (now likely long dissolved) should have gone somewhere else. As in many other cases, such as when homeowners discover their residents are on top of old dumps full of methane, downwind from polluters, or (in what one person tried to sell me) next door to a huge prison, they are left holding the bag. The only immediate answer before signing is to consider in depth both a property and its surroundings.

  3. @ Gary — Is anyone surprised by Hertz? I anticipate a merger with Marriott any day now. Maybe Hertz could house their arrested customers at a POS Marriott somewhere?

  4. Ankle tat and ugly, stubby feet. There’s a winner.

    No sympathy on airport noise. Check a map. (Although it sometimes is possible to buy to the side of an smaller airport. But never in the landing path.) Also, don’t buy near a highway or major road. There’s a reason those houses are cheaper. Got kids, don’t buy on the street that all the cul-de-sacs connect to. Avoid a north facing house in a snowy climate. (The driveway never melts.) And never buy in the Dowisetrepla District.

  5. No sympathy for the homeowners. IAD is pretty easy to spot and didn’t just appear. Blame the city for approving the development and, perhaps, blame the developer for not disclosing (though the article said there was a disclosure, albeit one sentence, but that’s why you pay a lawyer to review your contract and advise you of those one sentences – the disclosure doesn’t have to be 10 pages long).

    And at least one homeowner was very aware of the issue as they kept coming by to check on sound levels, so she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on.

  6. For those who still rent from Hertz enough to belong to its loyalty program, they must not care about the arrest issue. And, if they don’t care about the arrest issue, why would they care about point devaluations?

  7. Airport homeowners are probably not as dumb as you think. There are plenty of homes near airports that do not have major noise issues because of takeoff and landing patterns, and/or curfews, that are favorable to homeowners.

  8. All Hertz has to promise is free bail for their loyalty customers-instant popularity!

  9. Jets Fan (I feel your pain): the developer had to disclose there was an airport nearby!!?? A huge airport!!?? It wasn’t obvious when buyers toured their property?

  10. Hertz isn’t in business. It is the new “Rent a Wreck”. It is a shadow of itself, renting cars that wouldn’t have been fit for Thrifty.. high mileage, old, shabby and some, not fit to be on the road. Any complaints about car conditions is met with a shrug…if you can find someone to listen.

    Hertz devaluation of their program is the least of the problems for the former top rental car company…

  11. I’ve seen the airport noise issue play out enough to be convinced that, at least for some, it’s intentional. I saw this with PDK in Atlanta and SUA in south Florida. People would buy homes in expensive regions whose values are depressed due to the airport noise (PDK is in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Atlanta and SUA is pretty much on the intercoastal). Then, they complain about the noise and try to get the airport shut down because that would cause their home’s value to skyrocket. I’m pretty sure it was something like this that caused Chicago to shut down Meigs field.

  12. There should never be any devaluation in a revenue-based system. Period.

    As much as I can understand some changes with mile-based systems, a devaluation on a revenue-based system is a bait and switch and an outright steal from the customer.

    Bloggers like yourself should call them out for what this is.
    Who is going to use 900 points to rent a Hyundai Elantra and then sent to jail by Hertz because their IT is buggy anyhow?

  13. They are not angling to shutdown the airfield, rather, trying to create enough of an uproar to get the airport to pay them. Watch for a lawsuit latter. I know one case where homeowners got an airport to upgrade all their windows and other soundproofing in a settlement.

  14. @JorgeGeorge Paez – Are you telling me you are unaware of New York’s hottest new housing location? Imagine getting in on the ground floor of SoHo! Or TriBeCa! Nolita or DUMBO! An apartment in Dowisetrepla could be yours! It’ll be, wait for it, Legend-GARY!

    It’s a HIMYM reference. Dowisetrepla stands for “downwind of the sewage treatment plant”.

  15. There is this thing called Google maps you look to see where the house is and what is around it. If you see a airport runway pointing towards your property there is a 99.99% chance you are in the runway pattern.

    If you do not look at the map then your an Idiot.

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