Budget and Amex Rewards - NIGHTMARE!!

[msr709]

Just posting so someone else can benefit from my experience. WE have a party of 11, 8 adults and 3 children and coming into Sanford Airport on a Sunday morning so we needed a rental place open on Sunday and that had the 12 passenger van. We also want a place that we can pick up the van at the airport but drop it off at place near Disney since we only wanted it for the first 3 days of our trip to transport us from the airport to RPR, then from RPR to ASMo and return the car at the DTD hotel. Budget was the only one that fit all requirements. We make the reservations and everything seems Ok, just need to get the Amex rewards requested. We request the Amex rewards and call Budget and here starts the nightmare. The Budget operator tells us that we need the certificates in the driver's name. Amex had told us they only put the merchants name since they are transferable, they don't have anyone's name on them. We proceed to double check with Amex, which tell us what we already know. Back to Budget we get another operator who then says yes, they are transferable but we need to return the car to the pick up address (which is the airport and we didn't want to do this because we wanted to give it back at the hotel at DTD). Now I have to call my niece and conference in all parties to decide what we want to do, we decide to keep the car for the whole week. Call Budget and now this new operator tells us that the recipient of the certificates has to use their Amex card to pay for the rental, which no one told us before and its not on any of the restriction lists. Call back Amex and they say its not their policy it must be the merchant's policy. Call the family again to discuss it and decide to let my BIL put it on his Amex (but he doesn't want to drive) so he will authorize my nephew to be the driver. Call back Budget and they take our information and the woman proceeds to ask me for the Amex BCD code and if we have any coupons we would applied. I tell her I have Ent. coupon, which she applies. At this point I reconfirm that we are using the Rewards to pay and she says no, we can't use two codes. I'm losing it at this point. We go back and forth and finally I tell her just make the reservation with the Amex code and ask her for the rate and she then proceeds to tell me she can't give me the rate until we get the certificates in hand and hangs up. Now I'm fuming, its been 4 hours back and forth on the phone, we've all had it. I call back and cancelled and sent an email to a car service to pick us up for the 3 legs of our trip. I'm just glad this all happened before we left and I didn't leave it for the last minute. Thanks for letting me vent! I'm going with MH Transportation.

 

[Lewisc]

Other people have posted that AMEX rewards are worthless for car rentals since they can't be used with the deeply discounted code/coupon rates we all like to find.

 

[CarolA]

Amex Rewards are the hardest things to use anywhere. Plus my experience with Amex is that they are a nightmare to deal with.

I just transferred mine to one of my airline accounts and closed the Amex. Not worth the hassle.

 

[msr709]

I thought I was the only one feeling like this. I'm going to suggest to my sister that she also transfer them to her airline account, thanks for the heads up CarolA!

 

[Lewisc]

I just used AMEX MR to book a trip to Cancun (from EWR) via Continental. I use AMEX MR to get SW RR tickets all the time. Great for trips in which I don't have any flight flexibility, wouldn't use them on flights I could book for under $200 R/T.

Suggestion, you can use the RR for 2 one way tickets. Sometimes you can get a good fare in one direction, use the RR for both parties in the direction you're stuck with the higher fare.

 

[sln88]

Whenever I read these kind of threads, I have to ask?

Why do people have reward cards with rewards other than money?? I get cash and can use it to rent a car, airline tix, Disney tix, groceries. No restrictions, exprations, goofing around with redeeming rewards.....


what am I missing by not having one of these cards? I get about 1.5% cash back on my Amex bill every year.

I am not trying to debate this, I really want to know why it is worth the hassle to have these kinds of cards?

 

[msr709]

Originally posted by sln88
Whenever I read these kind of threads, I have to ask?

Why do people have reward cards with rewards other than money?? I get cash and can use it to rent a car, airline tix, Disney tix, groceries. No restrictions, exprations, goofing around with redeeming rewards.....


what am I missing by not having one of these cards? I get about 1.5% cash back on my Amex bill every year.

I am not trying to debate this, I really want to know why it is worth the hassle to have these kinds of cards?

My sister got the card through work, it was not taken for the rewards program.

 

[Lewisc]

Originally posted by sln88
Whenever I read these kind of threads, I have to ask?

Why do people have reward cards with rewards other than money?? I get cash and can use it to rent a car, airline tix, Disney tix, groceries. No restrictions, exprations, goofing around with redeeming rewards.....


what am I missing by not having one of these cards? I get about 1.5% cash back on my Amex bill every year.

I am not trying to debate this, I really want to know why it is worth the hassle to have these kinds of cards?

Using your 1.5% figure you can get a free airline ticket for $300-$350. Use the ticket on a flight/route that's worth more than that and you come out ahead.

 

[Patty3]

January 2003 and February 2004 using our American Express Delta card we were able to get two first class tickets to Hawaii both times. We were lucky in that we were making some huge purchases when they were offering double or triple miles. We remodeled our kitchen and put it on our card and paid it off when the bill came in.

 

[CarolA]

In my case I have to use my Diners' Club for all my company travel expenses. They don't give me a cash option, but their rewards program has been TONS easier to use then Amex. (I think Amex had a mark on my account titled "See what you can do to foul this up". I had more problems with them then anyone I have ever met! LOL!)

 

[sln88]

Originally posted by Lewisc
Using your 1.5% figure you can get a free airline ticket for $300-$350. Use the ticket on a flight/route that's worth more than that and you come out ahead.

I guess if I was going to spend that much on a ticket. Right now, most of us on these boards look at flying to Florida for less than $200, so that does not pay for me. Plus, don't these things with miles have all kinds of blackout dates?