Originally Posted by RustyC
To add further insult, some companies are trying to turn it into a profit center with the per-day "service charges" instead of just passing on the 6-cent tax....I think it'd be more valuable at this point if car companies just exited the FF business and had more generous loyalty programs of their own for free rental days. Alamo's defunct True Blue seemed the closest thing I've seen to that.
Thrifty employee here. My location doesn't charge any "per-day service charge," but I can tell you that miles are not a profit-making thing.
Each mileage transaction costs our franchise $5. (That's a flat fee regardless of whether it's 50 miles for one day or a two-week long rental with a 700 mile transaction.)
And, those taxes are capped: airlines which incur a $0.50-per-day FF surcharge are capped at $2.00, and airlines which incur a $0.06-per-day FF surcharge are capped at something close to $1.50, I think. So, even if a renter keeps the car for a month, we're still losing anywhere from $3 to $4.50 on a customer who requests miles.
The only reason we do it is because a) we're required to by Thrifty corporate and b) customers will sometimes rent from us because we give miles.
As RustyC expressed wishes for, Thrifty does have an in-house rewards program. It's attached to our BlueChip express rental program (which is free to sign up for -- frankly, I don't know why everyone doesn't do it, since it makes everything much quicker). When creating your BlueChip profile, you have the option of selecting either an airline frequent flier program or BlueChip Rewards. With BlueChip Rewards, you receive a free rental day after every 16 rental days. Currently, Thrifty is offering double credits so you can get a free rental day with every 8th rental day (promotion valid through December, I believe). Why 16 instead of, say 14 (two weeks), I don't know, but that's what they do.
Before we started BlueChip Rewards last spring, we participated in GoldPoints, a collaboration between Thrifty, TGI Friday's, some flower delivery company, and some other places, but it wasn't very popular and probably cost us too much money.
Besides, BlueChip Rewards will (hopefully) draw more people into the BlueChip program, which is nice for us because a) it kind of brings a little bit of loyalty to Thrifty and b) summertime lines go a lot quicker when you're dealing with BlueChip customers! Of course, BlueChips tend to be more snooty and always come back to haunt us later ("My car wasn't completely clear of snow and warmed up for me. I demand a free day!" which, of course, we have to give them as "service is guaranteed." Oh yeah, like we're going to idle a car unattended for 3 hours while we wait for a BlueChip who's more than likely going to arrive late or even no-show on us. And sorry the walk to the cars is so confusing and long. Blame the airport, not us! We can't control where they tell us to park the cars....Sorry, I'll get off of my soapbox now, but I do have to say that working in the travel industry has made me cynical.).
Jackal