Tino

For the second time in five years, Budget has cleared house and will "restart" the program from scratch. Like the two last reincarnations, expect great benefits at the start and then rapid deflation until they put it out of its misery.


Perfect Drive Program Shut Down –
Redeem your points by April 15th.

Over the coming months, Budget Rent A Car will be phasing out the Perfect Drive program and replacing it by directly rewarding your loyalty with free days, upgrades, special discounts and other rewards. You can be sure that we appreciate your loyalty and we will continue to reward you for it.

All of the Perfect Drive points in your account are still yours, and we encourage you to redeem your points by April 15, 2005. Any remaining points unredeemed after 4/15/05 will be forfeited.

thepla

I'm disappointed in this. I've received a full set of golf clubs and several Tumi bags over the last couple of years. I'll switch to Avis now, I'm presidents something or other over there also and do like the free consident upgrades with them. I just always went out of my way for Budget for the points. I did nine Avis rentals for the three free weekends in short order and went back to Budget immediately afterwards. I do not need to be loyal to Budget if they do not have a program.

Vip4me

It just so happens that my travel really doesnt start again until April 20 (where i need a rental) just after the deadline. Are their any alternatives to using up the miles? can we transfer them to AA or Marriott or somewhere?

Dudleydog73

I really don't see the value in Perfect Drive anyways. Because my corporate travel agent always books my car rentals we get .5 points per dollar for our rentals. I have been a member for years and have yet to get enough points for anything decent.

I think I may have enough for a $20 gift certificate at a restaurant or something. Can't say that is any incentive for my corporate dollars. All I can say is good riddance. It can only get better from here.

--DD

HappyTrekker

How did you find out about this program change? I receive no notice about it, and when I logged into my Perfect Drive account today (after seeing this on FT) there still was no notice about this change.

Dudleydog73

I received a latter in the mail letting me know what the deal was and it included a coupon for a free standard peak rental day.

OtownJack

I received my notice via email, as that is how I've asked for statements. It arrived this past Tuesday, just before I was leaving work. Right after the meeting praising Budget prices/services/loyalty vs. Hertz over-pricing for the same rental situation (PS. I'm Hertz G-VIP, with a "charge card" that most agents want to call 911 when they see these rare cards).

OtownJack

Not being a golfer, I thought it was a great way to get into the game with co-workers. I have the un-used White Hot Putter, 3 & 5 Irons, each of which was about 2700 points/miles. The new program charges close to 9000 pts apiece. I guess I'll dump them on E-Bay!

Tino

Actually, a search of old Budget post in FT will show you that the program used to offer weekend packages at resorts for that many points. Then they eliminated that award.

They used to offer free weekend days for 300 points (or $150 spent with double points). Then they eliminated that award.

They used to offer a lot of awards, and then they doubled or tripled the number of points required, if they even continued to offer them.

It's probably good that they discontinued the program. It was so bad I reverted back to getting my 1/2 Southwest credit per rental.

TRVLRZ

After over 15 years with Budget (and only Budget because I was a point hound), many free rentals,Tumi articles, golf clubs, spa visits for my wife and free parking certs I left last September for Hertz and they gave me Gold right from the start.

I honestly felt bad for Budget employee's when I got my letter yesterday. It must really suck to work there knowing that when Cendant purchased them they were finally being driven into oblivion. I got a chance to know quite a few of them through the years and was always given free upgrades.
From talking with them, I have heard a lot of stories of high turnover, bad employee relations and very low morale.

Their “Phasing out Perfect Drive” is a prime example of a once good company with an eye towards promoting customer loyalty die a slow death. It looks like the powers that be have finally brought Budget down to Avis's level. I always hoped it would be the opposite. (Cendant owns Budget and Avis. They even share counters at a lot of airports. )

I have a little over 10,000 points left that I have to use by April 15th. I think I’ll get a few Specialty Prime weekends.

TRVLRZ

In my opinion the slow erosion of Budget can be traced back to when Cendant purchased them. Since Cendant owns Budget and Avis, be prepared for some changes with Avis too.

kdog311

I received both sets of notice . . . the free coupon from Budget for a free rental day was nice - but honestly, it was the straw that broke the camel's back . . .
After a year of rentals and just over three-thousand worthless points later, I for one, have lost all loyalty to Budget.

boilermaker

I've been with Budget for over six years and used them almost exclusively, even with free #1 Club Gold status at Hertz. I'll be hooking up with Hertz, now.

I've been considering scaling back my rentals at Budget since Cendant bought them and reduced the Perfect Drive program. I guess this now seals the deal.

gmwelch

9000 points, I would love to know what to do with them now. I miss the good old days with Budget Express when you just got a sticker for each rental and four stickers = a free day. The start of PerfectDrive was great, double points all around and the awards, as noted in this thread, were great. It was like 1800 points for a non-peak one-week standard car rental, it's double those points now and of course you don't get as many points per dollar, so it's like the award value has been cut 50-75 %

I'm in the market for a new rental car vendor as well, I still rent 2-3 cars per month.

tommya

Great. I joined months ago and now this. I think it might be better to get .5 credit through Southwest Airlines for rentals of 1 or 2 days.