Don't get your panties in a ruffle about preferred select. Except for one or two upgrades (over the past few years), they really don't reserve the best, low-mileage cars they claim they do. And I've never gotten a newspaper.

They also don't seem to strict about the qualification criteria. While I did initially qualify with more than 9 rentals in a 6 month period, I haven't maintained anywhere near that volume over the past couple years. They use your credit card to track your rental volume, rather than your preferred profile or something else that makes sense. In the past year I've rented a lot of cars, but on different credit cards (both mine, and other people's), so to them it must look like I've only rented 3-5 cars in the past 18 months, when in fact I've rented about 5x as many...

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