Travel Tools - Tracking vs. Booking on Autoslash

http://www.hertz.com/rentacar/q-7105384/save-up-to-$40-on-a-weekly-or-weekend-rental-special-offer

Save Up to $40 On a Weekly or Weekend Rental
at the Airport

Save $10 per Day, up to $40 on a Weekly or Weekend Rental when PC#159493 is included in your reservation of an Economy through Full Size car.

Offer is valid for vehicle pick-up through 8/31/11.

You rock! I just applied this my MDT rental for next weekend and the a/i price went from $40 to $20 for a two day weekend Compact rental. Under those circumstances, I decided to splurge and spend $30 a/i for a full size for two days. :D

AutoSlash, you need to fix something. I was tracking my previous Hertz rental with you guys, but you didn't apply this coupon. :td:

You rock! I just applied this my MDT rental for next weekend and the a/i price went from $40 to $20 for a two day weekend Compact rental. Under those circumstances, I decided to splurge and spend $30 a/i for a full size for two days. :D

AutoSlash, you need to fix something. I was tracking my previous Hertz rental with you guys, but you didn't apply this coupon. :td:

Hmm, was this a rental you booked with us or one you booked elsewhere and were tracking with us?

Hmm, was this a rental you booked with us or one you booked elsewhere and were tracking with us?

The latter.

The latter.

There's a significant difference between booking and tracking with us. When you book with us, we automatically apply coupons and discount codes as well as track the rental for rate drops. When you track a rental made elsewhere, we're only checking for rate drops. It's a small but important distinction.

Understand that we only make money on rentals booked with us. The tracking service is provided for free. We need to have some incentive for people to book directly with us as that's what pays the bills! :)

There's a significant difference between booking and tracking with us. When you book with us, we automatically apply coupons and discount codes as well as track the rental for rate drops. When you track a rental made elsewhere, we're only checking for rate drops. It's a small but important distinction.

Understand that we only make money on rentals booked with us. The tracking service is provided for free. We need to have some incentive for people to book directly with us as that's what pays the bills! :)

I wasn't aware of that distinction. I've been using AutoSlash for some time and even wrote a blog post (http://mennodeals.com/2011/06/finding-a-cheap-rental-car-at-under-25-years-old-or-anyone/) about it. I would strongly suggest that you make that distinction clear in your marketing and outreach as people will get frustrated when this kind of thing happens and AutoSlash doesn't work. Why can't you just cancel old reservations and book new ones when you find a coupon code?

Edit: Please set up accounts so that people can store their info with you! The reason I've been booking straight with Hertz and then tracking with AutoSlash is because it's so much more difficult to re-enter my info each time with AutoSlash: first off, my Hertz # and CDP, then all my name and contact info. Also, you don't take CC info, so I guess I can't use the #1 Gold feature and have to provide a CC and have that run?

I wasn't aware of that distinction. I've been using AutoSlash for some time and even wrote a blog post (http://mennodeals.com/2011/06/finding-a-cheap-rental-car-at-under-25-years-old-or-anyone/) about it. I would strongly suggest that you make that distinction clear in your marketing and outreach as people will get frustrated when this kind of thing happens and AutoSlash doesn't work. Why can't you just cancel old reservations and book new ones when you find a coupon code?

Thanks for covering us in the blog. We truly appreciate it.

You're absolutely right. We need to do a better job to explain how tracking works vs. booking direct. It's on our to-do list. We do however send an email to everyone who tracks a rental with us that contains the following text:

"Also consider booking your next rental with us directly. Not only will we track the price of your rental, but we'll also apply coupons and discounts to lower your rate. "

As far as cancelling reservations, well we don't want to cancel a reservation that someone made on their own else. That could make some folks angry (trust me). We do however in some cases email people and make them aware that they can save by booking with us when we find a discounted rate. The rub is that the process of ingesting a rental made elsewhere, checking for discounts and then notifying people is still a partially manual process on our end. To be perfectly honest, we'd had such a huge response to our service that we're completely overwhelmed right now. Due to the great press we've been receiving (thanks to blog posts like yours), as well as the word-of-mouth referrals from our happy customers, we're struggling to keep up with the volume. We're staffing up though and improving our processes every day, so we hope to give the reservations being tracked with us the same attention that direct-booked reservations get today. We're not quite there yet, but I promise you, it's not for a lack of trying.

Thanks for sticking with us and being patient while we work through our growing pains. :)