best

Any Positive Or Negative Experienes ?

Wiggums

I have had various rentals from Europe..

National tried to trick me into accepting an Opel Astra as an "intermediate." I had asked for a Toyota Carina and she told me that an Astra is in the same class. I told her, "That's not possible."

She claimed, "You're an American. Here in Europe, cars are smaller and an Astra is an intermediate."

I shot back, "So what class is Corsa? Vectra? Omega? If Corsa's economy, Vectra's intermediate, then Astra's got to be compact. I want to talk to the manager NOW!"

She backed off and gave me an Omega Sweet!

N37077

Thrifty tend to have some very obscure sites in the UK. I have failed to get them to post any FFP mileage for European rentals despite sending the docs to Tulsa or wherever. Birmingham Airport - friendly, to start with, but then I wrote off their car with 12 miles on the clock; Glasgow Airport - bizarre location but far cheaper than anyone else, and I have used them at Toulouse airport, France where they subcontract to 'ADA Location de Voitures'. ADA frankly are a shower but I blindly believed they were the cheapest...til I discovered Hertz pre-pay anipulated. Now my Hertz miles from Toulouse post every time. And Hertz have better, newer cars.

Because of the problems of never posting to my UA Mileage plus account I am looking for Hertz/Avis wherever possible. I have a 3 day hire in Paris for a 7 people van which priced out cheaper on both Avis and Hertz than Thrifty.

So basically caveat emptor!

SFOffjunkie

I have no idea what you mean here. What's a "shower?" And "anipulated?"

srodr

When I rented from Thrifty in Germany I got no Blue Chip points. I emailed Blue Chip and was told that no points are awarded for rentals outside of the US. I let it go at that assuming that it is a true fact, hopefully not a blow off.

Other than that the rental was a positive experience. I booked an intermediate and got a Mercedes for less than $200 for the week. They did try to sneak in an extra charge of something like $10/day for snow tires, but I refused to accept it and they removed it from my charges.

jackal

Chalk it up to that obscure foreign language spoken by the English.

My only experience outside of the U.S. was a rental in Sydney, Australia. My BC profile has UA miles, but AFAIK Thrifty Australia only partners with Qantas, so I didn't get my miles. However, I'm surprised to hear that overseas rentals don't get BC credits as it's an internal rewards program. I'll have to read the T&C of the BC program to make sure this is the case--if I read or hear anything different, I'll let you know.

Ooh, nice! As a side note for those not aware of it, membership in Bluechip gets you a free one-class upgrade when renting outside your country of residence. (Perhaps this is compensation for not giving FF miles or BC credits...) You may need to remind the CSR of this benefit, and it probably wouldn't hurt to find and cut out (of the brochure) or print out (from the Thrifty website) the verbiage discussing this just in case the agent isn't familiar with it (or plays dumb). Make sure you book the reservation with your BC number, and it probably wouldn't hurt to bring your BC card (which normally is a useless piece of plastic). I wouldn't expect, however, to have the BC in-and-out-in-under-60-seconds benefit--it's not likely they'll have it done ahead of time. (I don't know if the BC express program is U.S.-only or if they just don't preprint contracts for foreign renters due to the differences between coverage options in the BC profile and the coverage options offered in foreign countries.)

The Thrifty CSRs in Australia were friendly blokes (and not pushy, either), but I still very carefully read the information on the charges. While they didn't push anything on me or try to sneak in any extra charges, coverage options outside of the U.S. are different than what we have here. IIRC, some liability insurance (or whatever the Aussie equivalent is) is included in the contract. The weirdest one is with covering the car: without paying anything extra, the car is covered except for a $3250 (or similar random amount) deductible, but for A$20/day (or whatever), you can reduce that deductible (known as an "excess" there) to only $300 (or something like that). In other words, you can pay a bunch of money just to still owe a bunch of money if something happens.

Clarification for foreign readers: if you don't buy coverage, known as Loss Damage Waiver or LDW, you're generally responsible for 100% of the cost of damage to the vehicle (that is, $30,000 on a $30,000 car, although most American credit cards and probably the majority of American auto insurance policies cover rental cars), and if you purchase LDW, you're 100% covered with no deductible/excess at all.)

In the U.S., I usually buy LDW (especially at the bargain price of $9.99/day in Los Angeles--that's a good deal considering it's covering me while I'm driving 85mph in heavy traffic on the 405), since I'm still young enough that insurance companies would surely jack my rates up 300% if I have a claim. But as my Visa coverage was primary in Australia and I really didn't see the sense of paying $40 just to still pay several hundred if something were to happen, I made sure there weren't any strange fees on the contract.

jackal

Aha, I found it. Yes, Blue Chip Rewards are only earned in the U.S. and Canada--it's the very first sentence of the Blue Chip Rewards Terms and Conditions.