Thrifty Review

We had arrived, courtesy of Southwest Airlines, at the first leg of our three week trip and now needed transportation on the ground. Thrifty Car Rental had an internet  special on a weekly rental for a mini-van. Since there would be four and sometimes more of us on this trip with lots of luggage, a van sounded really good to us. We picked it up at the Kansas City airport, loaded the luggage and headed to Olathe, KS where we would spend the night and add my sister to the traveling crew. There were a couple of flaky things about the Chrysler Town and Country but we decided we could ignore them.

We headed for the next stop, Branson, MO. On the way a couple of other flaky things manifested themselves, but they were just irritants and made us wonder a little. The van got us there with no problems and we started the tourist portion of our trip. The mini-van really came in handy since my honey had arranged a great surprise for me - two of my children, one with wife and the other with grandson, magically appeared in the lobby of our motel in Branson to share a long weekend with me. Since oldest son is an accomplished mechanic, he suggested the quirks of the Chrysler might not be good to ignore for long. No one listens to their kids, right? By the end of the six days in Branson my honey suggested, rather strongly, that she did not want to head to the wilds of Southeast Missouri in this piece of junk. I called the twenty-four hour Thrifty Road Assistance hotline.

What a great experience! Kathy was both friendly and professional. She decided we should stop by the Springfield,Mo airport on our departure to see Jerry and pick up a replacement. We followed her advice. With the tire monitor warning flashing, we made it to the airport fine. We were quickly given a Dodge mini-van as a replacement. Johnny missed the bright red of the Chrysler. More importantly, we found the seating in the Dodge to be much less accommodating than the Chrysler. Honey voiced a complaint and the friendly folk in Springfield grabbed the Chrysler they had been using as a shuttle van, cleaned it, gassed it, and even helped us transfer the luggage, including honey's overweight bag, into the replacement. We lost less than an hour from our trip.

Their cars may be a little suspect at Thrifty, but their caring, friendly, and efficient service makes us feel good about using them again in the future.We are now in the little town of Arcadia, MO, visiting with our oldest sister and feel pretty comfortable with this third mini-van.