I was referred to a Budget promo coupon by another FT'er (thank you). Using BCD U010736, one can get up to 20% off of a car rental (regardless of class of car) and a free upgrade (for class C-E cars).

The promo says you can book online - it gives a link to the booking page and auto-enters the BCD number. However, when I tried booking (SAN, pick up 5/26 at 11AM, return SAN 5/29 at 12NOON), it wouldn't price anything out. I called the reservations line - because the promo will also work over the phone - and the pricing (with the supposed 20% discount) is more expensive than pricing it out online is without the discount. I asked why this happened and why is it more, they told me that it's an unadvertised fact that you automatically get a discount (up to 10%) if you book online and booking over the phone is always much more expensive (not true, given past experiences with Budget, but I haven't rented from them in 6 months, so maybe things change). So I went back and tried pricing it online with the promo-code & again, no luck in getting anything to price out. Called Budget back & got transferred to the web assistance desk so someone could "walk" me through the booking process (they were certain that there was user error involved here).

I go through the booking process online with a web-support guy and he prices it with me - enters the BCD number & he runs into the same error. I says that the offer is probably not available at this location & that they probably don't participate - I reply that they participate if you call it in - he says "well call it in then". I explain to him the pricing difference and he says that this must be one of the promos that you can't book online. I'm thinking to myself that that's not right, especially since there's a promo code to book it on line and a link that fills out the form automatically with the BCD number.

I question that and he says that since booking online already provides a discount, no other discount can be applied - meaning no 20% off the prices. I don't have any other BCD numbers to try, but doesn't that practically defeat the purpose of renting from them online?

If you use a discount online, it won't be applied & if you call on the phone, you will be charged more than online?

So basically, the discount is no discount at all...right?