JasonWDC

A friend of mine has an AmEx black card but he rarely travels. I, however, travel weekly. We recently went to Philly for a one day trip and decided to make use of his President's Club membership rather than my Avis First. I figured for a 24 hour rental, we'd just see what's different.

I dialed the Pres Club number, made the res for a Cadillac, and was quoted some outrageous amount, like $150 total with taxes, etc. I said "what class do we need to reserve in order to be upgraded to the Cadillac?" and was told full size so we reserved this. The price dropped to $63 total. When we arrive, we had been given the Merc Grand Marquis land yacht. Of course, this car is freakin enormous so we went inside and asked for something else. We asked if the Cadillac was available (it was) and could we be upgraded to it via Pres Club (no). So, we asked for anything else that would be smaller but still nice (Hyundai Sonata), perhaps a Volvo (no), Infiniti (no), or Mercedes (no). We also needed to add me as a driver ($10/dy fee). Finally, when we receive the contract and go to our car (Sonata), it is high miles (22k+), not the limited edition, and in no way an upgrade of any sort. On top of that, we still paid that "Premium" class rate of the Merc Grand Marquis even though we'd actually been DOWNGRADED based on our request, and still paid an extra driver fee. Total amount for 24 hour rental was $74.

In the end, the Pres Club membership (both mentioned at counter and in the notes of the contract) got us absolutely no where.

There were avenues of recourse, such as calling AmEx and complaining (which typically results in swift and immediate action for Centurion members) or calling Avis Pres Club line, but in the end we just wanted to go to where we needed to go and not waste time whining.

My point: Pres Club, at least in PHL, was worthless.