Originally Posted by
m907
How much is the amount in question? Arbitration can sometimes be better for consumers in that it is less complicated and time-consuming than court, and companies may be quicker to settle the case. They get charged $2,000 right off the bat by the other AAA and then have to fork over thousands more throughout the process, so they are likely to settle small amounts. Whereas in court, they have to pay attorneys fees, but some large companies will fight in court because it's a matter of public record and they want a precedent set if they win.
This is such a tiny amount, there's no way they'd let it go to arbitration. It's for $75. I think the most likely outcome is that when I ask for the manager when I return the car, he'll fix it when I point out that the terms of the AAA Hertz benefit say nothing about have the same club code on the membership card. This is unless that same guy that denied me Monday is the manager...
As I said, the terms said I have to initiate that informal settlement conference before arbitration can be started and there's no way they deny the $75 if it gets that far. This has to be true when you point out they'd have to pay that much in arbitration fees. This is especially when I'm correct about this same code garbage argument is definitely not in the terms and I've had many rentals where my friend was added for free an an AU with an AAA membership has a different club code.
The next move if the manager denies me would probably be to contact customer care and I assume they'd eventually fix it. Just from reading the threads here, I suspect what might happen is they'll send me some response that doesn't match my problem. Let I wouldn't be surprised they just say what the agents say "You have to book with the AAA discount code.". After a few emails back and forth, I could see them fixing it after actually reading what the problem was.
Maybe I really should skip that step and send the letter saying I want to initiate arbitration so someone outside that locations gets aware of the situation. I'm sure legal will be annoyed by having to deal with this for $75.