Using the Avis Online Reservation System for Car Rentals is Highly Recommended
Written: May 16 '07
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With an upcoming trip down to San Francisco, I needed to set up a rental car from the San Francisco International airport. It turned out that Avis has a lot on-site, and that was the main reason I decided to peruse getting a car through them online. The site was easy enough to guess, going to www.avis.com produced exactly what I was looking for.
On the site you are asked for a lot of information right from the start in order to figure out exactly what type of car you want. This includes the main reservation page, where you choose your rental Date & Time by choosing a pick-up date, a return date, and the pick-up and return times. You don't really have to be exact when you are playing around with the engine, but the more you know, the better the estimate will be on how much you will be paying for your car. Beyond the rental specifics, you also need to select where you are going so that the search engine knows what location you want to pick up your car from. The best way to use the search is to use the airport location code by using the call-letters of the airport. If you don't have them, use the city search, and it will give you the local airports from which to choose.
One of the things that the site gives you, is the chance to look for deals in case something is on special for your given location. This is a crap shoot in my opinion, because you never know where the specials are going to be, but if you are just surfing around to find someplace to go, the specials could help decide a location for you. One of the other things that it seems Avis does a lot of are weekend specials, so if you are looking to take a weekend trip, this would be a great place to look through if you are trying to find a good deal.
Once you have filled out all the information about where you are going, and when you will be going there, all of the car options are presented for that location. There is a vast range of cars from economy class for those looking to save some money, up to specialty cars such as town-cars or high-level SUV's if you are looking to splurge on the town. The rates are given on the page, and they do all of the calculations to tell you how much it is going to cost for the duration of your trip. This is neat, because it tells you the costs for each type of car so that you aren't going into this blind. That coupled with no surprises in the cost really helps to put the Avis Online Site in a good light.
At the end of all the detail-setting, you enter your credit card information (the card isn't charged, just used as a holder) and you are "out-the-door" with your car set to be picked up. The whole process is pretty easy on the site, but I honestly say that the best part of everything is the e-mail that they send out with the confirmation on your vehicle. In that e-mail they give step by step directions on how to find the rental agency, which is pretty cool when you are heading to an airport you don't know much about. The e-mail also gives a confirmation number that you can use to insure that your reservations are set in stone.
My use of the Avis online reservation system went splendidly, and I am very happy with how well the site worked. There were moments where the site took a little while to load, but that was all right with me, because it was the only (even-slight) drawback to using the web-site. Everything was really easy to understand, the prices (about $120 for the 3 days) was well-within the budget I was looking for, and the confirmation e-mail was overflowing with great information about the rental. I was extremely pleased with the site, and give it the full 5 out of 5 stars.
Recommended:
Yes
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