Thrifty really knows how to drive customers away
 

First E-mail that came this morning telling me I'd 'earned' a free day:

http://i.imm.io/19oqJ.jpeg

Second E-mail that came later today....oops sorry, we are taking it back:

http://i.imm.io/19ord.jpeg

In all fairness, I didn't have enough rentals to earn a free day, but nevertheless, very poor PR to give out an award & then take it back.

I got two, too. This can't have been too tough a decision. You almost have to risk losing customers rather than allow a several million dollar mistake to go through.

Some lawyer somewhere already has the class action ready, I'm sure.

I, too, was not thrilled to get the second email. I have sent them a reply but I don't expect to hear anything back.

That is why I just booked my next two car rentals from Avis and Alamo...I had been only Thrifty for the last 8-9 years straight. Bye Bye Thrifty..no more scam emails!

Ya...
 

Stopped using Thrifty about 3 years ago. I miss them about as much as I miss hemmroids!

I got this too. Not being used to Thrifty emails (I can't remember how many years it's been since I got the last one), I found the links "suspicious" (they were to some third party site I'd never heard of, rather than to thrifty.com directly). So I went to thrity.com to login, and it says my account in inactive because it's been so long. And it gave a number to call, but when I called it said it's closed for the weekend! So I fired off an email saying why did you send me this email if my account is inactive, and that this looks like a suspicious email!

So it sounds like they sent this email to absolutely everyone who still has a Blue Chip number on file!

And, btw, the email said that I'd be getting something in the mail. Well, since I'd been inactive at Thrifty, they no longer have my correct mailing address! So that was another clue that something was very wrong with this email.

On the one hand, it made me remember I once had a Blue Chip number. On the other hand, not the best "come back again" invitation that I can think of!

Glad to hear I wasn't the only one that was teased :P Thrifty isn't our first choice but last month, they gave me a great deal on an intermediate at IAD for $99/wk + tax/fees!

Ditto.

Thrifty has just moved down on my list of companies I even check.

They should just give people an extra day on a 3 day rental or something. If they get a person to rent at Thrifty that wasn't going to rent, they would actually increase their business.

Maybe some would like the experience and rent again.

If they spin this right, they could turn this into a win.

Oh, wait a minute, this is Thrifty we are talking about. They will crap all over themselves as usual.

I signed up for Blue Chip years ago but have never actually used Thrifty, so I assumed the initial email was in error. The wording in the retraction could use some work, but otherwise it has no bearing on whether I use them or not in the future.

I too got the e-mail and knew it was in error as I haven't accumulated enough days to get the free certificate. I don't know why everyone is so upset though... when I signed up for Blue Chip I was only promised a free rental every 16 rental days. As long as they stick to the original terms I will be happy... it's actually a pretty generous program.

I don't think this will make me more or less likely to choose Thrifty. Like other companies they have their pluses and minuses. By and large the plus has been that I have gotten some really really cheap (like stupid cheap) rates on weekends from Thrifty. I also have found the Blue Chip program to be great as I tend to get upgraded from compact to standard for free, and they don't do any insurance upsale, etc.

I got two free day emails and two cancel emails - thanks Thrifty. I wonder if this was related to the recent layoffs:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.as...1_Dollar471947

As mentioned above, I sent them an email early on Satruday asking about this (half a day before the retraction email arrived). Today (Wednesday), they finally replied to my inquiry, explaining about the promo email:
And they ackowledged that my account is indeed inactive. (They didn't offer to make it active, they simply ackowledged that it is inactive.)

And they didn't explain about the "suspicious" part (why the email didn't link to thrify.com but instead to some obscure third-party site).

I don't know, I think I'm inclined even less to rent from Thrifty after this quarter-baked individual response than if they hadn't responded at all! :rolleyes:

Wow, there sure are a lot of whiners in here. I dislike Thrifty as much as everyone else but if you didn't earn the free day, why B* about it when they sent the retraction? I agree with cldflyer, they could have made lemonade by offering the 3rd day free, but, it is Thrifty being thrifty.

sdsearch, you win the prize of biggest whiner, you get a personal response (which you didn't think you'd get), but because they didn't beg you to come back (which we all know you would have rejected anyway), you wish you didn't get a response at all? And now you're even less inclined to rent from them? Really? What's zero minus zero? Still zero.

Again, I'm not their biggest fan but I do rent from Thrifty on a regular basis, only for the free days. Their website SUCKS, their cars aren't great and who wants to take a shuttle to an off-site location? But a free day is a free day.

It's not that they "didn't beg" me to come back. When you try to log in to an inactive account, you get a red notice to either call a number (which was closed for the weekend, I did try that first), or email them. Well, I emailed them, and mentioned two issues, one of which was an inactive account, and they mentioned nothing about how to make it active or whether I want to make it active (they just acknowledged that it's inactive).

So just how much work am I supposed to put into re-activating an inactive account????