MilesBuzz! - Beware of Car Rental FF Fees

Avis, Hertz & National are all charging a $.50 per day FF fee if you want FF miles on the rental.

Personally I use Thrifty who has a real money saver for CO OP FF members. Call 1-800-THRIFTY & give them your CO OP # & save! I did for 2 weeks Hawaiian rental & saved $100 a weeek over other care rental companies. $168 midsize per week.

Thrifty also charges $0.50/day if you want FF mile. I just rented a car last week and the agent mentioned it.

Just read my contract & it isn't on it......

There is no chage it get hotel points. I was told by hertz that only the airlines are charging.

I thought it only applied to American FF mile programs - so if QF then no charge?

abit of a hassle but save the fee. dont give them your FF#, after you return the car call customer service and they will put it in for you and since the contract is closed they wont charge you. I just tell em it seems they forgot to put my # down.

There is poetic justice in a strategy that saves you an unfair fee and simultaneously costs the company extra money. But we can look forward to a $2 service fee to credit missing FF miles...

Hertz doesn't charge for their own in-house points. ("ZE1" points)

If you rent often and have a need for stand-alone Free Day certificates, this is by far your most lucrative option. I use them all the time to turn a one-day $45 rental into a FREE rental.

(If you never have ONE-day rentals, ZE1 points won't be worth quite as much to you. But...they still might be your best option for Hertz rentals. Do your own math based on your rental needs.)

I take ZE1 also.

I think that Hertz doesn't charge any surcharge for AAdvantage miles either.

-David

There is no fee for Worldperks miles with National at present either.

FF fees only applies to domestic airlines. For Hertz and Avis, I get Virgin Atlantic miles. At 1,000 miles per rental, not too shabby.

With National, there is no fee for Northwest airlines and other non-U.S. based airlines.

If you want domestic, then credit it toward NW, which also grants you one partner credit for the "Fly Free Faster" promotion that is currently being offered.

Otherwise, credit the miles to AC or BA and get 500 miles per rental, regardless of the number of days rented.

National recently sent an e-mail and a postcard to their Emerald Club card members indicating that the service charge will take effect on 07/13/03. Your profile needs to be updated with the affirmation that the new charge is accepted otherwise no FF miles. Do nothing and no charge and no miles.

I had 2 Thrifty rentals in HI as well. The agent refused to enter my PL/GP number. GP customer service asked me to send in the rental receipts. Now, do I get charged retroactively? Maybe, this is a way to AVOID the FF charge??

Hertz continually denies me AA miles when I book a "discount" rate, which is all the time.

Is there any way to pay for the mileage charges w/o being posted on the credit card? OR must I, for example, return my car at National and get the printout from the individuals who check your car. Then go to the customer service counter pay $2 and thus it will show up on my credit card as the carge and -$2 credit? Has anyone been able to go directly to the customer service counter, pay the $2 and have the credit card statement reflect only the charge for the car?

I recently used Alamo and they did not charge any fees.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JKFlyer:
I recently used Alamo and they did not charge any fees.</font>

I recently used Alama and they DID charge me a fee (very minimal) for my half credit on Southwest. About 50 cents or less.

What I don't like about Alamo is that they put the charge through immediately, rather than at the end of the rental. NO, not just an authorization, but the charge.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by theawesome1:
Avis, Hertz & National are all charging a $.50 per day FF fee if you want FF miles on the rental.

Personally I use Thrifty who has a real money saver for CO OP FF members. Call 1-800-THRIFTY & give them your CO OP # & save! I did for 2 weeks Hawaiian rental & saved $100 a weeek over other care rental companies. $168 midsize per week.</font>

In the case of Hertz, for example, my understanding is that while it's $0.50 a day, it's limited to $2.00 a rental. (Meaning for rentals longer than 4 days it works out to less than $0.50 a day on average.)

If you're worried about this, perhaps you should check whether the frequent flyer program you use for rentals is worth enough. For each rental I do at Hertz, I get mileage which is worth up to $19. (And that's NOT counting any double/triple/quadruple miles promos, which I often can't use but sometimes can.) It may be harder to evaluate at Avis (because of the different FF program I use there), but it can vary from somewhat less to even more (depending on how I use those FF miles). (And again, that's not counting bonus miles offers which I may or may not be able to use.)

In view of that, what's $0.50 or even $2.00??


[This message has been edited by Stefan Daystrom (edited 07-04-2003).]