David Politis

Re.:  If you want my continued business, please fix your Website.

Ronald L. Nelson

Chairman & CEO

Avis Budget Group, Inc.

Dear Mr. Nelson:

I choose to use a debit card for most of my electronic payment transactions. Apparently, certain Budget Rent A Car locations do not accept debit cards for payments, which is fine. At the same time, however, many Budget Rent A Car locations do accept debit card payments.

As a result, such a nonsensical, on-again, off-again policy where the traveler is left to decipher if/when a debit card is an acceptable form of payment is crazy — and very unfriendly to the customer.

When I arrived this past Friday at the Budget Rent A Car location for the San Diego Airport, I was told in a surly manner that “We don’t accept debit cards.”

When I asked, “Since when?” (as I have used debit cards many times at other Budget rental locations), I was simply told that this was the policy and that the only way I could use my debit card was to

• Provide a current utility bill (less than 60 days old) addressed to the same address as my debit card billing address;

• Present a current passport or military identification;

• Produce a current vehicle insurance card; or

• Present a round-trip airline ticket, e-ticket or travel itinerary for your current travel disclosing a return date and the renter’s name.

Unfortunately, I do not carry any of the above-listed items with me when I travel domestically, and I now use my BlackBerry for keeping track of my travel itinerary. Unfortunately, this was not sufficient, and the only way I could rent a car from Budget in San Diego was to provide my confirmation number to the counter clerk and have her look it up in the backroom.

All told, instead of taking my average of three-to-five minutes at a rental car counter, I ended up wasting 20 minutes. No, I was NOT HAPPY! 

As crazy as it seems to me to sometimes accept a debit card with no hassles and then at other times require a traveler to jump through all sorts of hoops to be able to use a debit card, it’s a company’s prerogative to do so, whether I think it’s whack or not.

However, these policies are not easily found on the Budget Website; in fact, you have to go looking for them to even find out that they exist, and even then it’s not perfectly clear whether some locations accept debit cards or not.

I finally found the policies under the Debit Card User Instructions section.

Here is my suggestion, Mr. Nelson.

Unless you have Neanderthals supporting Budget’s Websites, it should be quite easy to create a simple Web-based, pop-up window that would appear anytime a prospective customer was about to complete a rental reservation at the San Diego airport. The language in this pop-up window could simply read as follows:

Please be advised that we do NOT accept debit cards as payment at this location without additional identification or information. Please click here for a list of such required information/identification. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you and thank you for your continued patronage.

This way, any time a traveler made a reservation at a Budget reservation that does not EASILY accept debit card payments, he/she would know in advance of the policy and could make arrangements in advance to prepare for such additional requirements.

If, for some reason, your personnel or external partners/agencies are unable to write the software code necessary to complete this simple task, please let me know and I’ll be happy to refer you or your colleagues to some programmers who can do so.

For the record, I have been a long-time Budget renter, and I hope to continue to be a Budget customer in the future. (My RapidRez number is GE352C.)

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to avoiding such auto rental hassles in the future with Budget Rent A Car.

Sincerely,

David Politis

c/o Politis Communications

&

SOAR Communications

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thru strategic communications”
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As I wrote last Friday (”Bad SkyWest / Delta service!“), we did not have a very good experience after my wife and I arrived in Oakland International Airport on Delta Flight #3957 as we had to wait 45 minutes for our baggage to make it to the Baggage Claim area. (Well, to be precise, we and 48 other unhappy passengers.)

So today I decided to reach out this morning to both SkyWest and Delta via the appropriate feedback pages on their respective Websites — the SkyWest Corporate Communications feedback page and the Delta Email Us page, something I did this morning.

And, as anticipated, I got automated email responses from both companies within the hour letting me know that my email had been received.

However, I received a personalized email this afternoon from Janice Street, Manager of Customer Relations at SkyWest Airlines, in response to my feedback (which was a pleasant surprise).

Janice apologized for SkyWest for the delays we endured in waiting for our luggage and let me know that she has contacted the Regional Director who oversees the Oakland operations. Janice also clarified that Oakland operations are handled solely by Delta on a contract basis and not by SkyWest.

Janice further added that she was forwarding a $50.00 travel certificate to my wife and I as a goodwill gesture, something that was totally unexpected.

This response has gone a long way towards restoring my faith and positive feelings towards SkyWest. Thank you, Janice.

On the other hand, I’m still waiting to hear from Delta. 

So for now, a tentative Thumbs Up for SkyWest and a Thumbs Down for Delta.

My travels took me to the San Francisco Bay Area today (12/29/06), where my wife and I flew into Oakland International Airport (OAK) on Delta (Flt. #3957) via its partner relationship with SkyWest.

The flight from Salt Lake to Oakland was fine, but the baggage situation once we got on the ground was not.

After 20 minutes of waiting while passengers from two other flights received their luggage and seeing no sign whatsoever of our bags, I began to look for a solution.

The Delta representative at the lost luggage counter used her walkie-talkie to call an unknown associate to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing baggage.

His response was that they “didn’t have enough rampers” to take care of our bags since they were loading an outbound flight first, so our bags would have to wait.

So I asked the “lost luggage” woman if there was a “red coat” around, a long-used term at Delta meant to refer to an on-the-ground Delta supervisor. Surely, I thought there had to be a supervisor on-site.

We don’t have red coats any more, came the rather huffy reply. Okay, how ’bout a supervisor? Can I speak to a supervisor?

No, there is no supervisor here, she said. You’ll just have to wait.

By now it had been 25 minutes, so I thought I’d go over to the Delta ticket counter. Once there I found a solitary, harried ticket agent trying to solve problems for outbound passengers. Hmmmm, I thought, maybe I’ll try something else.

I walked back over to where my wife was sitting to give her an update, then proceeded to try calling Delta on the SkyMiles 1-800 number. All lines were busy.

Next I got directory assistance on the line to get the main number for SkyWest, thinking surely they’d want to know about this bungled baggage operation in Oakland. By now, however, it was after 5:30 p.m. back in St. George, Utah (headquarters for SkyWest), and naturally (you guessed it), everyone had gone home from SkyWest already. I left a pointed message on the voice mail system.

With the baggage claim monster sitting idle and 50 Delta/SkyWest passengers/customers growing more upset by the minute, I decided to walk back to the Delta ticket counter once again. This time there were no customers in sight.

Great, maybe now I’ll get this issue taken care of; but no, it was not meant to be. Turns out the agent was the only Delta person working the counter that day as the supervisor had been called out of town for a family emergency. (Like what, a trip to Mazatlan, I wondered sarcastically to myself?)

The ticket agent was very sympathetic and offered to let me yell at her, but I declined, saying that it wasn’t her fault there weren’t enough rampers. I just wanted my stupid luggage.

I finally decided to make one last effort to reach someone who might be able to help me, so I picked up one of the Delta Direct phones adjacent to the ticket counter. Maybe this way, I thought, I can talk to a real person who might have the ability to get some extra bodies out onto the ramp to get our luggage inside the terminal.

Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. (Turns out Delta Direct is only for making flight arrangements.)

I did speak to a “live” person via Delta Direct, however, and she helpfully gave me a 1-800 number to call regarding baggage issues. Turns out, though, all I got was a series of recordings to help me find my lost bags. AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH.

They’re not lost, doggone it, my mind screamed as I walked back toward the baggage claim! My bags are somewhere between the belly of Delta Flight #3957 and Baggage Claim #2 inside of Terminal Two at Oakland International Airport!

I felt like I was trapped in an old Star Trek episode and my luggage was trapped somewhere between the transporter on the planet’s surface and the transporter platform on the Starship Enterprise.

As I walked away from the ticket counter and the the baggage claim came into view, I realized something had changed. The conveyor belt was moving, and, and, yes, there were bags on it.

Two minutes later, with two bags in tow, I walked over to my wife.

Total time from arrival at our gate to bags landing on the baggage claim conveyor belt? Forty-five minutes. UGH!

Now . . . I get the fact that it was a Friday afternoon, the Friday of New Year’s Eve weekend. And I accept at face value the statement by the Delta representative at the ticket counter that her supervisor been called out of town on a family emergency.

I even understand that Oakland is not a big destination for Delta/SkyWest. (Soutwest Airlines has a dominant position at OAK, however.)

Nevertheless, 45 minutes to get luggage delivered from a plane to Baggage Claim on day when the airport was mostly deserted is unacceptable.

Not enough “rampers!” Are you kidding me?

Delta and SkyWest get a BIG, BIG “Thumbs down” from me for this luggage fiasco.

I love spicy foods — unfortunately, my stomach does not.

Thankfully, I found Pepcid AC chewable, mint-flavored tablets a couple of years ago and they worked. So spicy Mexican, Italian or Thai food didn’t phase me anymore.

However, now I can’t find those chewable little pink tablets anywhere. To its credit, Johnson & Johnson does carry Original Pepcid AC and Maximum Strength Pepcid AC, both of which are not supposed to be chewed, rather swallowed with water. But (for some reason — perhaps more psychological than physical) I feel better faster after chewing up a Pepcid AC tablet than I do when I swallow one.

And as far as the new Pepcid AC Complete chewable pills are concerned, they’re nasty-tasting and leave a dry, chalky residue in my mouth for several minutes after chewing. (Heck, if I wanted a dry, chalky residue in my mouth I would have tried TUMS instead, or eaten chalk. Either would have had the same result!)

So . . . after calling the Johnson & Johnson - MERCK Consumer Pharmaceuticals Co. consumer hotline today (800-755-4008), I learned that the company has killed off the line of Pepcid AC chewable pills. AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

I asked why and was told by “Mary Ellen” that the decision had to do with a lack of shelf space inside the stores. She also admitted that the Pepcid AC Web site was out of date and needed to be fixed to reflect the recent change in the product line.

She took down my info, so hopefully I’ll hear back from some PR person, but I’m not that hopeful.

Too bad. I LOVE Pepcid AC chewable tablets (major THUMBS UP!), while I HATE the chewable Pepcid AC Complete tablets (major THUMBS DOWN!).

Guess I’ll be looking for a new brand. Any suggestions?