Avis - Avis Rewards

Can someone tell me if there is a breakdown for how many rentals it takes to get a free day, or weekend, etc.?

I've rented from Avis a half-dozen times in the past few months and their site isn't nearly as good as Hertz's in letting you know how many "points" you've accumulated.

There are 2 ways to get free days with Avis:

1. Avis First (www.avisfirst.com) where you get 1 free weekend day every 4 qualifying rental of 2+ days. FAQ @ https://www.ccrgservices.com/web/AvisFirst/membershipdetails.jsp

2. Avis "Free to Get Away" promo where you get 1 free day (not just weekend) every 2 qualifying rentals. FAQ @ https://www.ccrgservices.com/web/getaway/FAQ.do. This promo is only through 6/30/12, but they offer it semi-regularly. You must register for it and I've not been emailed any coupon codes in the past year; you need to email customer service and ask "where are my coupon codes" and they'll shoot them over to you. I've started a thread on this somewhere.

The BIG EXCEPTION here is that you DO NOT get credit for rentals that get hotel/airline/other miles/points/etc in either program. Hopefully this helps. If not, ask some more!

I've got PC status, do I need to be specifically enrolled in First as well?

I've got PC status, do I need to be specifically enrolled in First as well?

Yes, you need to be enrolled in AF. To qualify, you must have 12 qualifying rentals or 35 qualifying rental days in a calendar year. If you've obtained this, you can register at Avisfirst.com.

The other thing to note: Rentals that qualify toward "Free to Get Away" do NOT qualify for AF weekend coupons, too. However, I find the FtGA coupons to be much more valuable since they're valid on weekdays, too. Unfortunately, neither are stackable so you can only use 1 free day/rental.

May be a dumb question but is there a way to earn miles or points instead of the free weekends that I never use.

Am an Avis First member and have been for some time.

May be a dumb question but is there a way to earn miles or points instead of the free weekends that I never use.

Am an Avis First member and have been for some time.
Yes, in fact many (most) of us find much more value from earning airline miles or hotel points than from the so-called free weekends (which don't include everything so to me they're not even free!).

For regular earning, on the last page while making a reservation online at avis.com, right above where you put in your arriving airline and flight number, there's a dropdown for your airline/holel partner choice and next to that a field to type in your number with that airline or hotel program.

If you belong to multiple airline and/or hotel programs, you may well want to "follow the bonuses" to earn much more than the basic, by switching to whichever of the airline/hotel programs that you belong to has the best bonus for your circumstances. (Note: Many bonuses have restrictions on number of days, region, maybe car class, etc, so read carefully.)

You can find out about many of the bonuses by going to:

www.frequentflyerbonuses.com

and then clicking "By Car Rental Company" in the upper right. That takes you to a list of bonuses sorted by car rental company, and fortunately aphabetically Avis is near the top of the list (second after Alamo)! :) And it's easy to find where it starts and ends because the page changes color each time it transitions to another car rental company.

Please note that this list in not necessarily always complete. For example, right now it doesn't list an AA bonus that runs through May, and doesn't list the 2-day 6000 point version of the Club Carlson bonus. For details on the Club Carlson 6000/9000 versions, see this thread in the Club Carlson forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/club-carlson/1309012-avis-9-000-cc-goldpoints-3-day-rental-til-april-30-not-easter-edited.html

and for the AA bonus see this thread right here in the Avis forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avis/1282451-earn-2000-aadvantage-bonus-miles-plus-save-up-25-global-rentals-avis.html

Also, it doesn't always explain the total you earn, just the bonus. In some cases, like Club Carlson, the normal earnings are comparatively small, so there's not that much difference between the total (9000) vs the bonus (8250). But in the Best Western case, the total (2000) is more than twice the bonus (750), because the normal is 1250, and so it's actually better than it sounds from just seeing "bonus 750".

(Since I collect Best Western hotel points, I use that as the fallback, since it works on rentals as short as "2 days", which btw actually means 1 day plus enough extra hours that it gets billed as 2 days, so doesn't require 2 full days, and it's good all year long, and no restrictions on car classes. But until the end of this month, the 6000 total for 2 days or 9000 total for 3+ days for Club Carlson trumps it.)

Btw, you have to pay a small (50c? 75c?) "surcharge" (per day, but capped) when earning domestic airline miles. You don't pay that on hotel points, nor on most foreign airlines.

Good stuff sdsearch. Many thanks.

The BIG EXCEPTION here is that you DO NOT get credit for rentals that get hotel/airline/other miles/points/etc in either program. Hopefully this helps. If not, ask some more!

It's worth mentioning that pre-paid rentals also DO NOT count toward earning reward credits or Avis First qualifying rentals for enrollment or maintaining status.

And I completely agree that the Avis First two free days but-only-if-they-include-a-Saturday weekend rewards hold less value than the Free to Get Away single day any day of the week rewards. They offer more flexibility to use them when they are needed as well as accumulate more rapidly from the less stringent qualifications. Calling customer service later this morning to switch back from AF in fact.

Does registering for the AF membership affect President Club status in any way? I rent twice monthly for 3 days at a time. Thanks!

It's worth mentioning that pre-paid rentals also DO NOT count toward earning reward credits or Avis First qualifying rentals for enrollment or maintaining status.

So if I pre-pay a booking directly on the Avis site I cannot earn any miles/points/awards? Where is this in the terms?


Avis First Terms
Qualified Rentals

A qualifying rental is defined as a completed, paid rental at participating Avis worldwide locations and that is checked out and checked in within the same calendar year ("Rental"). Rental and Rental day credit will not be earned on rentals or rental days that are unpaid or "free" of time and mileage charges, nor on rentals with the following discount rates or profile types: corporate or government accounts that do not allow employees to participate in reward programs, Avis central billing profiles that can be used by more than one person (i.e. authorized rep card, global electronic billing account), ACTO (Avis Company Travel Orders) vouchers, employee rates for Avis or any affiliated company or licensee, travel industry, tour, wholesale and meeting and convention affiliations. Non-revenue days will not count on Rentals using a weekend rental reward coupon.

Ron.

So if I pre-pay a booking directly on the Avis site I cannot earn any miles/points/awards? Where is this in the terms?



Ron.

This restriction is related to the Avis proprietary loyalty and incentive programs. I can't speak to each and every miles/points/awards partnership programs that exist between Avis and other entities , but I would venture to say the possibility does exist and it would be wise to review the terms of the program in question rather than unknowingly forfeit the credit. The Avis First terms and conditions posted on the site and that you quoted here led me to believe that prepaid rentals would count toward the cumulative qualifying rentals needed to level up, but when that didn't happen in my case I called customer service to inquire. The csr informed me that due to the rate discount from the prepaid rate the logic goes that a perk has already been exhausted and therefore ought not to allowed to "double-dip for benefits" (she actually said that, lol).