How strange. Fields may be mssing.

[micky]

Things get stranger all the time.

I wanted to join Hertz rentacar Tin Rewards Program.

(They call it gold rewards but I think that's puffing.)

I filled out all the fields, except the day of my birth. It gave a good drop-down menu for year and month, but the cursor changed to circle with a slash when I put it in that field.

But I submitted it anyhow and it showed, in red, errors for almost every field. First name, last name, phone number, year, month, and day of birth (even though the first two came from their own drop-down menu), drivers license # and state, home address, city, country, zipcode. But NOT for email, password and credit card info.

I couldn't get past thsi so I went to Chrome. No big deal that the page does not work, but in Chrome, for driver's license, it wanted month, day, year of expiration, even though those boxes were not even there in FF. How strange.

Is there some easy way to report pages that don't work to FF-central?

[micky]

And then when they enrolled me, Hertz sent me an email with a member number, but the web page showed an entirely different number, also called "member number". Both of them 8 digits, one starts with 21 and the other with 16.

The enrollment email aslo said that now I can just choose whichever car I want. This is supposed to be quicker, but will they really have the cars parked, sorted by price, or will I have to check how big the car is and how much it will cost me.

(It does have an advantage in that once, by Hertz but not in the US, I was given a car that couldn't even hold in the hatch 1 fairly large and one medium suitcase, only the first one. Actually it took him very little time to give me another car, and I wouldn't have more than one bag in the USA in the first place. So it's not an advantage.)

[Char Jackson]

Mine is a single 8-digit number that begins with 60. You shouldn't have two member numbers. Perhaps you enrolled twice?

They typically park the Gold cars in a section by themselves, usually right up front for quick access. You're important now, so you'll have to adjust a bit. You should be able to skip the visit to the Hertz counter and just proceed out the door. Look around for a big sign/board that has your first initial, last name, and parking spot number. Go to that spot, load up, and proceed to the exit (the keys are in it, somewhere). They'll check a few things there and you'll be on your way. Meanwhile, the ordinary schmucks are still inside, waiting in line.

You select your rental just like you did before, usually by size and type of vehicle, and they'll do their best to accommodate you. As I'm approaching my spot and I see what they've selected for me, if I see something in that row that I like better, I take the better choice. They adjust the paperwork when I'm exiting the area. They've never asked me to go back and take the other car and they've never adjusted the rental cost, but I suppose there are limits to that so don't get too crazy.

(I know that *my* response has nothing to do with Firefox, but your post did.)

[micky]

Yes, I found an earlier one. Got to take those memory pills again.

I would guess that when picking out one of the other cars, you can only choose from those that have no assigned renter? And on a really busy weekend all the cars may be reserved and there are no other cars to pick from, right? Or do they let you pick any of the Gold section cars and just assign the renter who isn't scheduled to show up for an hour to some other car?

One of the advantages of running 2 computers at the same time, a desktop and a laptop, is that I could look at their reservation page while logged in and while not. The prices are the same when the description of the cars match up, but the the cars are offered in very different order. (All prices below are Pay Now (not Pay Later) and non-Approx Total.)

The first two cars if you don't log in are Economy 2/4 door Chevy Spark or similar, for 324.50 (now) and Small Sedan, Ford Focus 323.60 *** These two categories don't appear in the list for Gold.

OTOH if you are logged in gold it starts with Standard 2/4 door, VW Jetta or similar, 323.02, so the same price.

Am I to assume that the VW Jette or similar will be better than the Spark or Focus, because they treat Gold members better?

Gold shows 25 categories but not the first two for Non-gold. Non-gold also shows 25 categories.

Gold shows only one Tesla, in the last, 9th, row, a Tesla 3, standard range, and it says, Select for Quote. Non-gold shows 2 Tesla 3's, in the 2nd row, one long range for 564 and the other standard range for 376, which is not that high. How come they give a rate when you're not logged in but don't when you are? (FWIW Standard range is 260 miles, Long is 358 miles.)

Paying in advance is cheaper but.. No refunds or credits for unused rental days. If a prepaid reservation is cancelled more than 24 hours before the pickup time, a $100 cancellation fee will be assessed. If the prepaid reservation is cancelled within 24 hours before the pickup time, a $200 fee will be assessed. If the customer does not cancel the reservation prior to the time of pick-up and the rental vehicle is not picked up on the rental date, the entire prepaid amount will be forfeited.

Interesting, in that when you don't show up, especially when it's 23 hours later and you still haven't shown up, it's still more than 24 hours in advance of your 3rd rental day. So they should keep the first

2 days and 100 dollars from the rest, but they keep the whole thing. Including the money paid for insurance sand other add-ons, it seems.

On a cheap car for a week**, it's 323 in advance vs. 476. A big difference. $153, over 32%, on the rental without the add-ons! I've never cancelled a trip or a car, and I would like to pay now but there is always a first time. I still haven't told my brother I'm coming. He may be somewhere else that week.

I understand that it helps them to be able to plan in advance and cancellations really screw things up, but from my pov, tough toenails.

**without insurance yet afaik, and I was** sure they don't give a pay-in-advance discount on insurance, but what about refunding what the insurance cost? They don't say, which sounds like they keep it, even though there is next to no inconvenience in writing up insurance that's cancelled with one click, compared to reserving a car that therefore can't be rented to someone else.

Another thing, choosing a non-Gold car at random, Small Sedan, Ford Focus, the difference between the Pay Now price in bold and the Approx Tot. is 117.69, but for Pay Later it's 152.15. What add-on charge should be higher for paying at pickup.

For a Gold car Stnadard 2/4 door Jetta, NOW, it's 117.57 but for Later it's 152,15, Different car, gold vs non-gold, almost exact same numbers. 12c difference in the first one.

The JCB card is a valid form of payment for prepaid rates. What's JCB?

Okay, I wanted to find out more about the difference between the bold price and Approx Tot. I used Duplicate Tab, but it only gave me the blank reservation page, not with the cars offered. So I filled it in again and this time the order of the cars was different again. (This is all for Gold because the other computer is acting slow.) I'm only looking for the week starting March 19, 12 days from now. Again, 25 categories. The Tesla 3 which had been in the last line Request Quote, was now first for 376.64, the same price as 30 minutes ago for non-Gold. Which BTW is only $50 more, $7/day than the cheapest car they have. (though I have nowhere to charge an electric car.) The Economy 2/4 door Spark that was not even shown for Gold before but was first in non-Gold is now last in Gold, Request Quote. It's like they are political pollsters changing the order of the possible answers to avoid imparting bias, and I guess Hertz is trying to rent all their cars. It sort of annoys me that the order of the cars keep changing, not all categories are shown, the last one is made difficult (Request Quote), but at least the prices are the same even when the order is different.

Five different add-ons, LDW $35/day I thought of getting a cc that would pay, but they charge a large annual fee for those, more than I pay for car rental insurance. So Yes, but the rest No. Liability 16/day, but I have my own insurance Med expenses 7.50/day but I have insurance; I won't have many psgrs. Roadside Asst 10/day I never need that. Full gastank 62 once. That's a winner for them because you pay for a whole tank and on average you'll return it with half a tank of gas. You're best by filling just before you come back, but even you let them finish filling when you get back, isn't that a lot cheaper than $62?? And no less convenient than paying for a whole tank in advance???

The prices seem the same for Now and Later, so maybe the difference is based on what people actually bought. People who pay later must buy a little more of these add-ons. Fair enough.

Also, because the screen sizes are a little different, the cars on the desktop look sleek and on the laptop they look boxy.

[Char Jackson]

That's not my problem, it's theirs, and they've never said anything to me about it. I guess they're flexible enough to give my car to someone else if I've taken someone else's car. But yes, since I'm Gold, if I'm stealing someone else's car I stay in the Gold section to do it. I really like the Hyundai Sonata.

I've never asked. I figure if it's a big deal they'll say something, but they just type a bit on their iPad and off I go.

I can't address the rest of your questions so I'll snip them, except that I always gas up before I return a car. I take a picture of the lighted instrument panel, showing the mileage and the fuel status, just in case there's a later disagreement, then I drop my keys in the box and walk on. I like it when no humans need to be involved.

[micky]

BTW JCB is a Japanese credit card, similar to Mastercard, able to be used in many countries in Asia and elswhere.

Just one more comment on car rental rules, and pre-paid versus paying more when you pick up the car.

Hertz charges about 1.5 times the Pay Now price for Pay Later. Or one could say it charges 2/3rd the Pay Later price if you Pay Now. It would be 32% less.

I found a fly-by-night company that only charged 4% difference, and a reputable company that charged 6%. Those are numbers I could live with. I guess Hertz gets stood up more than they do.

But I don't know where they stand on another even more important rule: While Hertz said nothing about whether insurance payments would also be kept if one pre-paid and then didn't show up, they did say this:

If you prepay and then want to return the car early, there are no refunds. That's a deal-breaker for me regarding pre-paid. I realize that it's similar in that you've made a reservation and you dont' want to rent the car for the whole period, but wanting to go home early still seems very different and in my case far more likely than not going at all. Lots of reasons to want to go home early.

At least for Hertz. if the other companies have the same rule, then it doesn't matter if they only charge 4 or 6% different rates. If you want to leave 4 days early on an 8 day rental that 50% you've wasted. Do other companies have this same rule????

Unless of course even if you pay only when you get the car, and they ask you how many days. Do they then charge you for all those days even if you have to go home early??????

I've only rented a car in the US once in the last 41 years, didn't pay in advance, but I didn't return it early.

See the last sentence of this, the 6th paragraph: Up to two changes may be made before scheduled pickup. If those modifications result in changes to the prepaid amount, the difference will be charged or credited to your credit card. The booking credit card must be presented at the rental counter for confirmation of reservation. Once rented there are no refunds or credits for unused rental days.

IMO it's sort of hiding there.

This is the pre-paid rules page. I have to look for Pay at Counter rules page.

Seems like the best plan.

I hadn't thought of that. Very good**.

Speaking of photography, when I'm abroad, I take a picture of my passport and leave it in the phone, if I'm asked for my passport and don't have it with me. Don't know how often or where authorities will settle for that but I think once I did use it.

A lot of people do that, but it occurred to me I should take pictures of my drivers licence and registration and maybe the insurance certificate so if I lose my wallet I'll have pictures at least.

[Jim Joyce]

I thought I recognized it. JC Benney, right? Weren't they in malls at one time? I was wondering what happened to them. Good to see that they moved to Jp.

[Jack & Beanstock]

Read all about it here: