Thrifty Q's and some info

[jerseyjk]

Learned a couple things about Thrifty ...

• they will hold your car up to 6 hours if you are running late. Somewhere while searching these threads I found a post that said to book your times an hour later than you expected to be there so they wouldn't give your car away. Not true.
  
• After reading that post, I went and tried to rebook my reservation for a later time (I used the arrival time as my pickup times). I found out that Thrifty will reassign current rates to your reservation if you make changes like what time you will pick up your car. My rate went from $45 a day to over $60 before I realized it and called them to ask about my car not being there when I got there. They changed it back for me.

Now my questions that I forgot to ask the nice lady at Thrifty ...

 

• Does anyone know if Thrifty offers pre-paid fuel at the various ports? I couldn't find it when I made the reservations and I'm afraid to go back in to look (for fear of changing my rate again). I would really rather not mess with gassing up with such limited amount of time in port. I would gladly pay a premium to be able to return the car on empty.
  
• If you don't show for a reservation, do they charge your card? I searched their site and couldn't find an answer, although there "customer care" section has a topic "Cancellation penalties and timeframe requirements" but that just brings you to an email form.

[mlprahl]

Yes, you can do the pre-paid, but it is based on the car returned with a completely empty tank - so even if you only use 1/4 tank, you still pay for the entire thing. But we used Thrifty at every port and every counter had that as an option. Unless you do a lot of driving, I can't imagine that it would pay off to do this if you're on a cruise and only in port a short period of time...but to each his own.

 

Not sure about the cancellation penalty; but my guess is that they only have access to that information if you sign-up with Blue Chip. On other companies that I've used, I'm always able to reserve a car without entering credit card info. But I've only used Blue Chip with Thrifty.

[daWoods]

Just used Thrifty on 3 different islands and they all offer 3 options for fuelling. Do it yourself, they do the fill up at a rate higher than what you'd pay at the station, or a full tank prepaid for a lower rate. I always fill myself, but the options are there.

[jerseyjk]

Thanks for the info. Again, I'm not worried that much about them overcharging for the fuel, it's a matter of convenience.

 

That said ... Since you both chose to fill yourself, I wondering if there was somewhere to fill up relatively close to where you drop off the car? I ask because the last thing I want to be doing is wasting a lot of time finding a gas station.

[mlprahl]

I always found a station within a mile or so of each location. I just kept my eyes open after picking it up, so I could know there was one on the way back without the worry.

[beachchick]

Learned a couple things about Thrifty ...

• they will hold your car up to 6 hours if you are running late. Somewhere while searching these threads I found a post that said to book your times an hour later than you expected to be there so they wouldn't give your car away. Not true.
  
• After reading that post, I went and tried to rebook my reservation for a later time (I used the arrival time as my pickup times). I found out that Thrifty will reassign current rates to your reservation if you make changes like what time you will pick up your car. My rate went from $45 a day to over $60 before I realized it and called them to ask about my car not being there when I got there. They changed it back for me.

Now my questions that I forgot to ask the nice lady at Thrifty ...

• Does anyone know if Thrifty offers pre-paid fuel at the various ports? I couldn't find it when I made the reservations and I'm afraid to go back in to look (for fear of changing my rate again). I would really rather not mess with gassing up with such limited amount of time in port. I would gladly pay a premium to be able to return the car on empty.
  
• If you don't show for a reservation, do they charge your card? I searched their site and couldn't find an answer, although there "customer care" section has a topic "Cancellation penalties and timeframe requirements" but that just brings you to an email form.

 

That's great, but a couple of caveats: One, this is Thrifty, not other companies who often will not hold a car for more than an hour maximum, especially when there are walk-up pax. This has happened to many, many folks over the years. I'm kind of curious as to why Thrifty would hold an unpaid reservation that long, but if that's what they do, then lovely. Two, can the corporate reservations office guarantee you that the local office will hold your car for that long on a cruise day with all those other folks maybe wanting to rent a car? If it's pre-paid, of course they have to hold it; if it's not, they aren't under any legal obligation to do so. I truly hope that they will give some leeway, but am concerned because of recent reviews that included information on car reservations being cancelled because of overbooking.

 

beachchick

[daWoods]

I always found a station within a mile or so of each location. I just kept my eyes open after picking it up, so I could know there was one on the way back without the worry.

 

Most companies say you must fill it within 10 miles of the office, which has never been a problem for me in Hawaii.