Eujeanie

Before I call them tomorrow (they are closed on the weekend), any idea why my last 2 rentals (FLL and SFO) would have accrued zero BC points?

Just want to have a rebuttal for what they might say.

randix

1. You didn't provide your BC number or an incorrect number

2. You opted to receive miles rather than BC points

Eujeanie

Negative on both. Here's my last few transactions. I also clicked "missing points?" at the bottom and got a crazy message that I was not authorized to access that info without Read Rights?

Date Type Description Rental Agreement Points
02/23/2017
Rental
SAN FRANCISCO INTL AP
11765xxxx
0
01/22/2017
Rental
FT LAUDERDALE INTL AP
657xxxxx
0
12/23/2016
Reward Redemption
N/A
N/A
-1000
Right Arrow 09/21/2016
Rental
KAHULUI AIRPORT - MAUI
18981xxxx
80
Right Arrow 08/05/2016
Rental
MCCARRAN INTL AIRPORT
1556xxxx
30

Eujeanie

Well I called today and it was a very curious outcome.

She said there was a "travel agent IATA" number on my reservation, in the spot where it would normally have my Blue chip number, which prevented me from getting the points.

I do NOT use a travel agent, I do NOT use a third party, I book directly on-line on the Thrifty website. And I've gotten all my points credited correctly until these last two rentals.

She took the number off and credited me the points, but why did this happen? I can't even see where/what she was talking about, she could see it on her end.

Ummmwhat

Did you prepay? Prepaids are considered 3rd party. IIRC, there is a place in DASH for a IATA number, however, I can't think of any other way it could have gotten in there. I'm not even sure CarTrawler reservations have IATA numbers in them

Eujeanie

No, never prepay, and I've never heard of either DASH or CarTrawler - all were simple, straightforward, directly on the website, directly with my BC number.

She didn't seem too concerned about the IATA number - I'm wondering if there are some travel agencies that somehow infiltrate reservations in order to get a commission without doing anything? I find that disturbing. Her just dismissing it and not a word about "are you SURE you didn't use a travel agent?" makes me wonder if this is an accepted practice there, and most people don't notice.

Often1

Send in a complaint. Ask that corporate security pull up the account. They can see who accessed the two.

Eujeanie

The problem with that is that I don't have the IATA number, I never even saw it on the reservation, it was just what the Blue Chip agent told me had happened.

I'd rather wait and see if it happens again and deal with it in real time, not several weeks after the fact.

Eujeanie

Well it happened again...rented a car in BOI last week, zero Blue Chip points.

But this time it was a different outcome when I called...instead of insinuating that it was a third party booking, or an IATA number was involved, the BP CS agent simply admitted that even after 3 years they are having a heckuva time assimilating the Hertz and Thrifty/Dollar systems, and they have no end in sight, that it was nothing I had done and sorry, but just call in and we'll add the points manually.

jackal

At least as of the last time I messed around with this, if you view a reservation on Thrifty.com that has an IATA number on it, or you make a reservation with the IATA number, Thrifty.com places a cookie in your browser that remembers the name on the reservation and the IATA number. If you then make subsequent reservations, they will have that IATA number placed on the reservation.

You can purge the cookie by clicking the "Not John?" hyperlink on the homepage before starting a new reservation (or, of course, by manually removing any cookies for thrifty.com and associated brands).

It'd have to be a pretty specific and odd sequence of events, but is it possible that you made a Thrifty reservation through an OTA or cashback site or something and then later viewed that reservation on Thrifty.com sometime before you then made your actual booking? I'm not sure how long the cookie lasts, but it might even still have been there if you had viewed the reservation several days or even several weeks before making yours.

Or it could be a clueless customer service agent. I've encountered plenty of those...

That said, it should all be a moot point. Thrifty does not prohibit the earning of BlueChip credits on travel-agency-booked reservations. So the customer service agent you spoke with was clueless at least in one way...

Eujeanie

Hmmm...about a year ago I did make a reservation through DHCR and then when the "regular" Thrifty either matched or bettered it I cancelled the DHCR and just kept the real Thrifty (I don't like using 3rd party sites). I wonder if that was the start of all this mess?

Unfortunately I've got all my upcoming rentals already made at great rates (well, I guess that's fortunately ) so can't start from scratch, but will try your suggestions the next time I need to make a new rental.