fti

Looks like the party is indeed over. What I just booked this morning for $3.20 is now $200 for two days. When SD or FW get these deals, it inundates the system and raises red flags. Oh well, I saved quite a bit on several rentals. Thanks.

mk1

^ Booked two weekends (Fri-Sun) for $6.18 each at DCA.

Edited to add that since this deal appears dead, I booked these weekends late last night.

Hope they are still honored.

keishashadow

don't underestimate the pixie dust effect either

drzoidberg

See, that's why all of FlyerTalk needs to be restricted to members only with certain post counts. Grrr, just like the MR forum.

travelismylife

And just like that, the deal is dead. Could it have been Pam or the Emerald Club Insider or was there some doofus here who called to make sure the deal was legit? Fess up. We gotta start an omerta group.
Here's my theory on the deal. The crack Nationalcar.com team inadvertently entered this coupon as a two free days coupon instead of the generic free weekend day coupon. It works exactly like the two free days coupon from Hilton Honors- which also (starting this year) only works up to midsize- no fullsizes. That's why it worked every day of the week (unless blacked out by the location) instead of only on a 3 day weekend- just like the Hilton Honors coupon. Somebody caught on and has fixed it. Now we're gonna start with the hundreds of posts about whether successful or not. My plan- print up a bunch of these coupons and use them innocently. "Here's the coupon that's on my reservation. I have no idea how/why it gives such a big discount". Real innocent.
Btw- after explaining to the Nationalcar.com website team, how their website works and what's wrong and what bugs there are (including the differences between the Canadian and the US Sites) - many times, I have lost faith in their abilities. And times like these make all that aggravation melt away. Praise the stars for idiots running things (including the ones at AA last year that gave me round trips to SBA for $10 after taxes- got almost 20,000 EQM that way ), that's how we get these deals. Remember, once in a while, it's a mistake. All the time- incompetency. And next time you get messed over, look at the big picture at how many hundreds/thousands of dollars we've saved b/c of their incompetency. I know mine is well over... well let's just say a lot, a lot, a lot.

drzoidberg

No, it was the 10,000 views apiece on FW and SD that killed it. You're right, we need to form a secret National-code-club, no cross-postings on other threads, on the pain of a horrible internet death.

EDIT: ** What's this Hilton coupon you speak of?

drzoidberg

NVM, since the vote to restrict the MR forum failed, I guess it will have to be PMs only.

arollins

How can you control that someone in the group is not passing the information out? Who is at fault here, that is debatable, it appears to have been an error in programming for the code, someone will eventually catch it and pass the info around to others, who in turn passed it to more people, like a pyramid. At some point sooner or latter Nat'l will find out that there has an unusual increase in web traffic that will trigger an investigation.
I actually changed 2 future reservations that I had and got the discount, I booked then a third reservation for a weekend trip I planned on doing on my car, but I figured I rather spend $15 rental for 14hr drive and save all the wear and tear on my vehicle. When I was going to do a 4th reservation for a friend of mine, the website crashed and I was offered a $20 discount code to use on a phone reservation. My account with National does not have a Visa, but made the reservation anyway, I do have a Visa card just not on my profile, I can always add it to pay for it. Once the website was up, I added the Visa card to my profile, and decided to modify the reservations to add the Visa and got the error message that coupon is not valid. Will National honor the reservations they have? who knows, we should see, I suggest to others to do another similar reservation with their own discount codes etc, in case Natl does not honor the cheap/free reservation, you can at least show the other one and don't get stuck paying for their own non discounted rate.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose, but as long as you at least break even in the end, you are ahead of the game.

keishashadow

my money's on the inexperienced traveler who stumbled across the deal & called National to make sure it would be honored...true kiss of death

what irritates me is these peeps then have the nerve to post back & say they did call...cause they wanted to be honest about using it

yeah & im cindyrella

Mrp Alert

Passing blame is not the proper way to continue this conversation. Any number of things could have killed it. It was live for over 24 hours. This is where you say thank you for whatever you were able to book and move on. FWIW, I picked up my car in the EA and drove through security without an issue - I even had another FTer on the phone while I was driving off the lot.

I was looking for a way to maintain my Emerald Executive Status for another year and earn some 12Free days. This deal allowed me to do so in a huge way. Mega thanks to drzoidberg, a NEW poster who put this up here and proved I still have much to learn about this game.

chemist661

I usually rent from Hertz. I priced a one day/one way ONT-LGB with Orbitz and it was $26 base, ($42 all in) for Alamo & National. I have Emerald Club (hardly used anymore). I decided to book one day with National. I looked on this thread & saw about the current deal. I book a 2 day one way for about $12 all in. ($10 contract fee plus tourism taxes). Hope they will honor that.

I have one reservation very soon for 2 weekend days for cheap. Hope they will honor that. Came out to $2.

At least, I will get a free day or two on the one,two promo.

I may guess that someone booked something with the promo putting in the wrong dates (like 2 days instead of 3 and getting it almost free). They then posted to SD/FW and the bookings flew in. With just FT, it would hardly be a blip.

The party is over. Even with legitimate dates, the free weekend day code doesn't work. Tried the electronic free weekend day code with a 3 day weekend. You get the page with prices but when you select the car size, it says coupon not valid. They went too far with not allowing legitimate use of the free weekend day with 3 weekend days. I haven't tried the free weekend day Entertainment coupon but it would be interesting to know if the legitimate use of that coupon would work.

Hope that I will not have any problems with them honoring my low priced reservations. One or two are not on weekends but the other two are.

drzoidberg

Hey, I'm not a new poster, I'm a 5 month old new-ish poster.

But I do think we need to pass the blame- if it hadn't been posted to mass deal sites like SD, perhaps it could have had a longer happier life.

travelismylife

Let's form a posse. Then we track down the ....... and chop it into thousands of pieces and mail them to all the National flyertalk members/readers as a warning. I'm starting a list. If this ....... should die a real painful death real soon- I couldn't be happier. May all such .......s die soon and rot in hell. Make the world a better place for us all. Maybe with less of these .......s in our country we wouldn't be in the shape we're in. Maybe borrowing against my 2 bedroom/1700 sq. foot house in Saganaw- millions upon millions of dollars, so I can take trips around the world and live like a multi millionare when I only make $8 an hour, isn't a brilliant idea. My yoga mantra: "I hate people. Yeah, they're the worst".

peteropny

You're new - compared to antiques like me (8+ years now)

On a more serious note, I'd bet that this deal was killed by someone off SD or FW calling in etc. More likely than someone from here at FT since "most" of us know not to call while the deal is alive etc. Anyways, lets not make this thread explode the same way the death of "57" did, it only attracts more attention from National and/or lurking deal seekers.

drzoidberg

Hmmm, an insane clown posse?