Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt) - Getting disgusted...

I rent cars extremely frequently during my business travels (80% of the year), and I've now written off Alamo. I'm tired of repeatedly having to call/write them to get my miles posted, and I'm tired of their emails saying "I'm sorry, we'll get them posted...please look for them up to THREE MONTHS from this email". I have no such problems with Dollar, Thrifty, etc., so why should I waste my time with Alamo. And the real kicker is...they don't seem to care when the above is repeatedly brought to their attention.

Yup, I usually give up on Alamo miles and that is something I rarely do with miles. The option is to vote with your feet, but usually the rental price is hard to beat, so you make your choice.

Ironically my miles are posted accurately and promptly without a hitch

My disgust with Alamo is the amount of time I have to wait to get a car at one of their facilities. I've never seen a place with longer lines such a high percentage of the time as an Alamo facility. LAX has to be the worst of this bad lot too.

Their buses run most infrequent of all chains.

Renting from them is so stressful but you are right, their prices are seldom beat so needless to say on my own dime I'm waiting in line at Alamo.. for biz trips.. never

Just rang to get miles posted to United and was told 30-90 days. Will it actually take this long?

Well, I'm still waiting for miles to be posted from October. What business idiots.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tricks:
Just rang to get miles posted to United and was told 30-90 days. Will it actually take this long?</font>

Tricks, this is SOP, you call, they tell you 30-90 days, you wait and call again after 90 days, they say oh when was your reservation, oh, I see it, we'll get right on it, you wait, you never see the miles posted, you say, 250-500 miles for this aggravation, no thanks.

Of course, once I was calling for a new reservation and the rep said would you like to give me your ff number so you can get miles for your ff account? I said well miles never post for me so why bother, bingo two days later the miles were in the account for a reservation from one entire year earlier. UGH

As they say, YMMV. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Is it possible that its not alamo but the airline that you are transferring them too.

Maybe its UA that is the problem here.

It's Alamo, not the airlines. I started this thread and without doubt, after numerous contacts with their so-called customer service folks, the problem is Alamo's. And my experience has been echoed here by others. I use to rent a car from them 2-3 times per month; now, never. Just amazing how they screw up something so simply as prompt customer service; other rental companies in my experience, have no such problems.

You guys are correct that the miles (almost) never post. I continue use Alamo about 50%-70% of the time because their rates are typically the lowest by $5-$10/day.

MisterNice

I had about 8 rentals that had miles that didn't post.After about a year I called Alamo and they went back and went over each rental one by one and corrected "the problem" My problem was I was not putting in a flight # in the reservation.Ever since I began putting in a flight # my miles have been posting w/out any problems.

Just a reminder too that you get 3X Hh (750 Hh points per stay) points when you stay at a hilton property and say you have an Alamo car rental.

Not that you have to have Alamo, I mean you can just say that you have alamo and they NEVER ask to see your keys or rental agreement

What happened to all the coupon/promo links for Alamo that were here last week?

I checked my UA miles today and much to my surprise the retro-activily requested miles for one of my rentals has posted. It only took about 2 weeks.
I'll see how long the other one takes. I requested them both at the same time so it can't be too long - can it?

ALAMO guys are totalled screwed when it comes to posting. I am still waiting for my aug 2003 miles posting. Sorry MFs. Never ever will I rent with Alamo.

Since I started this thread, thought I'd provide an update...I finally have gotton my miles from back in October of 2003. I did so after writing to the Alamo CEO in Florida and including copies of these threads with my experience as well as the experience of everyone else who took the time to post here, as well as requesting to talk to a supervisor at the customer service center. The Exec Asst to the CEO called me and apologized, thanked me, and yadda yadda yadda.

I haven't rented from Alamo since October. I might, but they won't be on the top of my list. I really have not the time or patience to go through again what I did to get the few thousand miles.

Anyway, that's my update. They're aware of the "problem", but not acknowledging that one exists. But they're "investigating" and "looking into it".

Interestingly, all my recent ALAMO rentals resulted in extremely fast AA miles posting (within 48 hours after returning the car). Also, QuickSilver membership is a solution for long lines, even when machine is broken, I ask for the manager and he/she processes my rental right away (took me all of 5 minutes last week in Maui, with a huge line of non-QS renters).

Eugene:
I have a res for OGG next week. I am a Quicksilver member, and we arrive at
around 10 p.m. Are you saying they have no Quicksilver line there in Maui?
How did you get a manager?

Just curious

Bob

Eugene:
I have a res for OGG next week. I am a Quicksilver member, and we arrive at
around 10 p.m. Are you saying they have no Quicksilver line there in Maui?
How did you get a manager?

Just curious

Bob

OGG Alamo location has a QuickSilver kiosk, thus no separate line. That kiosk was broken last week, and there was a long line of non-QS customers. I asked one of the agents what QS members are supposed to do, and she told me that the manager will help me. She called for the manager who came to the front immediately and processed my rental. The whole thing took less than 5 minutes, just make sure that your reservation is booked as QS, they have a daily printout of QS reservations and cars are pre-assigned.

turned a 3 day rental in on Monday April 5th, and the 150 miles posted to my AA account when I looked this morning (april 7th)..

that was the quickest yet for me

For some reason, Alamo is cheaper than Hertz in BOS. But I'm batting 0% as to ever getting miles from them out of that location. It's not worth it.

MIA, TPA, Alamo seems OK, although you need to ride the bus in TPA, so Hertz always wins there, for me!

For some reason, Alamo is cheaper than Hertz in BOS. But I'm batting 0% as to ever getting miles from them out of that location. It's not worth it.

MIA, TPA, Alamo seems OK, although you need to ride the bus in TPA, so Hertz always wins there, for me!

I think i posted the "end of my story" here, but honestly don't remember and too lazy to look, but just got reminded when you made your reply to this thread...i wrote the President of Alamo in Florida with copies of all my ugly documentation...subsequently got a call from his secretary with an apology, they sent me a bunch of free coupons, and my points for all my rentals finally posted. I honestly haven't rented from them since, i switched over to Dollar. Did just make a Boston reservation and ended up with Budget using their MasterCard 20% promotion which i see is now no longer offered. Dollar has been been pretty good about posting miles without having to bug, and when i do bug, they have been more responsive than in the past, for whatever reason. Alamo made a big mistake (with me anyway) for not posting promptly, and then ignoring all my inquiries. I appreciate the response from their President, but c'mon...

I agree with Eugene QS is the way to go. I rent 3 -4 times a year in HNL with QS and it's a breeze. Hop out of the bus, slide the card into the kiosk and I'm on my way while all the tourists are still in line to get hassled about why they need all the additional insurance on their tour package rentals.

BTW, I have never had a problem getting miles posted to my AA account. Shows up in less than a week after the rental concludes.

Edited to add: I just rented at HNL yesterday and the QS kiosk is gone. It was there last April. There's a nice plant in its place so I don't think its coming back. But there was a seperate, staffed QS desk.