Been a loyal member for years. My status alternates between President's Circle and Five Star with the amount of activity I generate in a given year. Always been relatively happy with the service (it's a car rental business so my expectations are not high to start with). Now get this...

Flying into Vegas on a Sunday leaving on a Tuesday... I decide to finally dip into that huge bucket-o-points I've been building up. I look to get a Prestige rental.

(Quick separate note - The process on the website for redeeming points for rentals is fundamentally flawed - you have to select a coupon - then you are presented with a list of options for your car, 90% of which come back as invalid for the coupon you have selected - why are you showing me options that aren't valid for the coupon I've selected - shouldn't I just make a reservation and then have the system calculate the points required for my request - wouldn't that be much simpler and make a ton more sense...) but I digress....

Back to the story... so since the website is worthless in this situation I need to call in (I call the gold line and the automated system transfers me back to the main line where the automated system takes my gold number and transfers me to an operator who asks me for my number again.... (it's the little things that make a big impression - why bother to ask me for my number in the automated system if the ACD isn't going to transfer that data... I digress again...)

In any case, I explain that I'd like to rent a Prestige collection car Sunday though Tuesday. There is a pause, and the very friendly operator explains that she can't help. Apparently, the weekend coupon only works if you leave by Monday.

"No problem," I say... "just give me the coupon for the entire week... sure I'll spend a bit more, but hey... that's why I've been saving these points all this time... to use them when I want them."

Another pause... "that won't work because to use the week coupon your rental needs to be at least five days" she tells me.

Now I'm really confused. I'm offering to pay more (in points) to get what I want, but because 'the coupon' doesn't want me to, the system won't allow the rental. I kindly ask to speak to a manager (I understand it's not this woman's fault - she is much a victim of the crappy back-end systems here as I... I just need to talk to someone empowered to do the right thing.

The manager comes on and I explain my dilemma. She too explains that because the coupon system is so flawed, she is unable to help. At this point I'm dumbfounded. I ask her to check my account just so we are clear on my long history with the company... she says she is simply not empowered to help - that the company understands there are issues with the points and they are hoping to fix them - but she can't help.

Now I'm a little irritated (again, not with the woman on the phone - even though she is a manager and should be empowered to help - she clearly is working for a bunch of idiots and is again a victim in this like me).

I ask, "How can I file a complaint?"

She indicates that I should go to the website and use the contact us form. I explain that emails to that form are likely routed to a call center where the respondents are just as un-empowered as she to make real change. I ask if there is a place I can send a comment that will actually be reviewed by someone who can fix problems. She responds telling me that the management reviews response metrics from the contact submissions... in essence telling me that my case would add a digit to a monthly report on the number of complaints filed per month... who hoo... they obviously care about my specific feedback - they just want to keep an accurate count of how many people they've pissed off.

So I thanked her and started researching alternate car rental companies. As far as providing feedback, I'm doing that here in hopes that one of two things will occur...
- someone who actually cares at Hertz will read it and try and fix their broken processes
- more importantly, someone might read my experience and realize early that the Hertz point program is a sham and avoid spending years building up points that can only be used in ways that Hertz finds acceptable.

thanks for reading my rant -