Dovster

Perhaps a better way to handle this is to do some housekeeping on the Car Rental Programs section.

At current, it has the following forums:

Avis
Budget
Dollar
Hertz
National
Thrifty
Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt)

National and Alamo, however, are the same company. They may have different programs but they have the same ownership and, in many cases, share the same facilities.

It would certainly make sense to take Alamo out of the "Other" forum and put it in National's. (There are already many Alamo posts in the National forum.)

Then, if you establish the Sixt Forum, the "Other" forum will be left with only one major company, Enterprise. Enterprise certainly deserves its own forum as much as Budget, Dollar, Thrifty, or Sixt, so why not give it one?

The "Other" forum would be left to handle the minor rental agencies that most of us have never heard of anyhow.

jackal

It's not my place (and indeed, it's even forbidden) for me to quote others' posts in the private TalkBoard forum, but I can and will say that the three points listed in your post above were addressed to the satisfaction of at least the moving and seconding members of this motion as well as to me.

jackal

I can't say I entirely disagree with the premise of your idea.

Why don't you suggest it in another thread in the TalkBoard Topics forum? Perhaps if the idea is brought up by you, it'll go farther than when I brought it up...

Dovster

I guess you should have asked Carol to recommend to TalkBoard that it recommend to Carol to do this.

nsx

I thought about this, but the Emerald Club makes National different in ways that matter to FTers. So there is different content in the two forums.

For Dollar and Thrifty, you might have a better case.

Dovster

I am not familiar with Dollar and Thrifty. Are they under the same ownership?

As far as the Emerald Club is concerned, you are right -- there is a difference between National and Alamo. Still, we have seen on any forum, be it airline, hotel, or car rental, that most of the threads are not really about the programs.

(If that was the crucial ingredient, you would not be considering a Sixt Forum; the program is a simple one and not too much can be written about it.)

Instead, the posts concern service, locations, upgrades, etc, and here Alamo and National differ very little from each other.

nsx

I have found the service of these two more different than National differs from Avis. YMMV.

cordelli

I love Sixt and use them from time to time, their service in Italy has been second to none. I would love a dedicated forum when I'm looking for discounts, etc.

jackal

Yes, and they're operated together and practically identically in most locations, much moreso than even National/Alamo/Enterprise (all one company, Enterprise Holdings) or Avis/Budget (one company, Avis Budget Group) or Hertz/Advantage (one company, Hertz Global Holdings), but we're now getting OT for this thread.

Dovster

Are we really getting OT for this thread? It would seem to me that instead of simply establishing a Sixt Forum, TalkBoard would do better to consider the whole car rental section and re-do it in a more logical manner.

If many National/Alamo/Enterprise posts concern the same issues (eg: "I found the line at Alamo in PBI to be too long, why don't they put on more staff?") then it would make more sense to combine those forums.

The same is true of Avis/Budget or Hertz/Advantage or Dollar/Thrifty. Of course, if these companies do not use the same facilities (or rarely do) and there is no connection between them other than the shared ownership, that would be a different matter.

plagwate

Yes, for a separate forum for Sixt. And while you're at it, Alamo and Enterprise should either be in their own forums or rolled into National.

ConsultanSea

Yes please

miklinga

I vote yes...what great customer service and very reasonable. We used them last month for about 10 days to go from Madrid to Seville by way of Lisbon. Not only did they have the lowest quote (after much research using many, many discount codes) but there were no dropoff charges. Super efficient and professional...

Dovster

Interestingly enough, the posts on this thread support what I said. While almost all favor having a Sixt Forum, none of them discussed its loyalty program. Instead, they discussed other factors:


I am not saying this as an objection to having a Sixt Forum. I see absolutely nothing wrong in discussing (pro or con) aspects of a company other than its loyalty program. Indeed, if posters were to restrict themselves to an uncomplicated program like Sixt's, they would not have much to say.

I am only pointing this out as evidence that forums which combine companies with the same ownership, locations, staff, etc, is the logical way to proceed -- even if they have different loyalty programs.

bodory

I was first to answer this thread and here is what I wrote :