Avis : They DO try harder, and it shows!
Written: Feb 25 '01 (Updated Mar 20 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Usually less expensive than other rental companies, and always on-site at the airport
Cons: Can't guarantee a non-smoking car
The Bottom Line: Excellent rates, good locations, but if you have serious smoke allergies, you're on your own.
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| Penguinlady's Full Review: Avis |
I'm cheap. Sure, there are certain things I'm willing to spend money on - a wonderful meal, books, CDs, plants - but when I travel, I do so on the cheap. I'd rather spend less getting there so I can spend more being there.
For the past ten years, I've been renting cars at Dulles, National, and Baltimore-Washington airports when I flew back east to visit my mother. Before that, she had her own car, but about ten years ago, after two small accidents that shouldn't have happened, she realized that her vision was not what it should be for safe driving and reluctantly gave her car away. That meant that I had to rent one to pick up on arrival.
No problem with that. She figured that I only had to rent because she had given her car away, so she insisted on paying for it. So I always shopped around for the best deal I could get. For myself, a little 2-door puddle-jumper is fine, but as she aged, I began to go for larger cars that would be more comfortable for her. I've been renting in the Taurus-Lumina class for about seven years now.
I used to spend a lot of time phoning around to get the best deal on my rental cars, and actually did pretty well with Budget and Thrifty a few times, but learned, too late, that their offices are off-site. That means that you hop on a shuttle and it drives you off the airport grounds into the nearest town, where you pick up and drop off your car. They explained that this was because lease space on the airport grounds is always more expensive than in town, which made sense to me until I realized that I had to add at least 45 minutes to my return trip to return the car and get shuttled back to the airport. And that was 45 minutes I could spend with Mom...
Last December she had a series of heart attacks, the last of which killed her. But the day before she died, my husband suggested that we go back and visit her the following weekend, December 17. So we hit Travelocity and booked our flight. (An account of that unfortunate experience is related in my reviews of Travelocity and ATA.) After booking the flight, we tried again for a car, fully expecting to have to pay through the nose for a 5-day rental on the grounds of National Airport.
Well, blow me down! The cheapest rate we found was for Avis. What a shock. After so many years of dealing with Dollar and Budget and Thrifty and other cheapies, we never expected to find such a good deal with one of the Big Two. But it was for real, and we gladly rented some sort of 4-door mid-sized sedan for five days for about $175 plus various taxes.
Mom died on December 10, the day after we completed all these arrangements, but after our nightmarish encounter with ATA, trying to reschedule our flights to late January for the memorial service, we decided to go anyway; there would be plenty to do in the aftermath of her death. But we no longer needed the mid-sized car, so I called Avis and in about two minutes, was able to change the booking to a 4-door compact for about $130 plus taxes.
The rental office at National Airport - sorry - REAGAN Airport - is across the street from one of the terminals. We took a shuttle for a 3-minute ride from our terminal to the rental building. The car was waiting for us when we arrived at 11:00 pm. It was small and clean and suited our needs just fine.
I drove it for five days, returning it on Dec. 22 on my way home. The total cost came to about $175. Not bad.
We went back to Washington on January 25 for the memorial service. I stayed eight days, returning home on Feb. 2. Again, we hit the 'net to find a good deal, and again, Avis had everyone else beat by a goodly amount. So I booked another car, directly off their website, and this time got it for $175 plus taxes, a total of about $230.
What we like about dealing with Avis
• The rates. They were far and away the cheapest. Actually, there was one slightly cheaper, but it was off-site and we didn't want to spend the extra time. For on-site rental agencies, Avis was by far the best deal, by a long shot.
• Location. As I get older, I get more impatient; I don't want to waste my time being shuttled hither and yon if I can take care of business closer. So I appreciate the fact that Avis counters are available on airport grounds, sometimes in the main terminal. And they have offices all over the place, so when a friend wanted to be added to the registration, it was easy to find an Avis office within a few miles of Mom's home.
• Drivers. I learned that my husband was authorized to drive the car on my rental merely by being married to me. (Not too many advantages to being married to me, but that's one!) With other rental companies, we've had to pay $5 per day to add him.
What we could change if we could
• I've always been able to rent a no-smoking car from other companies, but Avis won't guarantee them. They say they have no control over whether or not people smoke in their cars, so they can't promise that a "no smoking" car will be truly smoke-free. I don't know how other companies manage this, but Avis doesn't. Fortunately, both the cars I rented from them had just a couple hundred miles on them, so although I thought I caught a whiff of stale smoke in the second car, it wasn't strong enough for me to be sure.
• When we booked off their website, I printed off the confirmation page. It showed the rate I thought I would be charged. Imagine my surprise when I got to the counter and found that I would be paying about $30 more than that in the basic rental; the rate I had expected to pay was the weekly rate, and I was keeping it for an extra day and hour. That's when the counter person pointed out to me that the confirmation document shows the different rates - weekly, daily, and hourly - but not the total; you have to figure it out and add it up for yourself. OK, my mistake; I could have read it more carefully. But they could have laid it out in a more intuitive and obvious way so I wouldn't be mislead. Other rental companies seem to be able to do so.
• When my friend wanted to be added to the registration so she could drive my car, we were told that it would cost a flat $25. She and I went to the nearest office, where she had to show, among other things, her credit card. She did so and we left with the understanding that the $25 had been charged to it. Not so. It turned up on MY bill when I returned the car. I asked why she had had to produce her Visa card, and was told that that is a requirement for all drivers. I asked why her fees had been charged to me, when they had had her credit card in their hands and could have charged it to her, and they said that this is just the way they do it. I asked why we weren't informed of this, and they said... nothing. So I wrote a letter to their customer service manager and received in return... nothing.
OK, so there's always a payoff for cheap rents, and this is it. The rates are excellent, the locations are excellent, but they need to Try Harder on customer service; it could use some work.
But I'll use 'em again, as long as their rates are so good. Avis, your customer service may be #2, but your rates and cars are #1 with me.
Recommended:
Yes
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Penguinlady
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