Avis - Time of Day Matters-Who Knew?

I stumbled across a fun fact while "playing" with the Avis site this morning. Time of day for pick-up/drop-off seems to be a factor in determining the rate you will pay for your entire rental.

In my case I made a two day rental at one of the busier US airports for late in July. I accidentally left the default time to pick-up and drop off (9AM) and I got one rate. When I went and corrected my times to 7PM I got a much higher rate. All other variables (date, AWD, coupon) are exactly the same. Specifically (2 day rental):

Intermediate morning rate: 111.58
Intermediate evening rate: 170.00

Standard morning rate: 113.38
Standard evening rate: 174.00

Full size morning rate: 115.18
Full size evening rate: 184.00

Seems the cutoff for the rate change (in this case) is Noon (low rate) - 12:30 (high rate).

In my case I decided to go with the lower rate (Guess I will be arriving a bit late) and upgrade myself from an intermediate to a full size. Even so, my total rental price will be $35 less (all in).

Anyone else run across this?

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What day of the week is the pick up? If it's a Sunday or Monday, you might be seeing the difference between a weekend rate, and a non-weekend rate.

Also, if you show up too late past your reserved pick-up time, you might find that your reservation has been canceled.

Ah! You may be right. This is a Sunday afternoon/evening rental.

In the past when I have arrived many hours late they have always honored my reservation. We'll see ...

My first thought is also the weekend rate idea. Most (all?) locations count the weekend rate as noon Thursday 'til 11:59PM Monday. But that doesn't make sense in your situation. I'm not exactly sure what's causing your situation.

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Of course, you might get a significantly lower rate via Hotwire or a Priceline bid, but then you might not end up with Avis, and would have a pre-paid, non-refundable reservation.

Also, if you show up too late past your reserved pick-up time, you might find that your reservation has been canceled.

In the past when I have arrived many hours late they have always honored my reservation. We'll see ...

But arrived many hours later why? It may matter.

In other words, if you've put your arrival flight information in, and you're many hours late becuase your arrival flight is many hours late, they know that, and hold the car for your proactively.

That's quite different than you intentionally giving the wrong arrival flight, or you not listing one and then showing up half a day later. Then it becomes more of a crapshoot. (It depends on the station and other factors.)

You could try calling the morning of the reservation and let them know you'll pick the car up later

But arrived many hours later why? It may matter.

In other words, if you've put your arrival flight information in, and you're many hours late becuase your arrival flight is many hours late, they know that, and hold the car for your proactively.

That's quite different than you intentionally giving the wrong arrival flight, or you not listing one and then showing up half a day later. Then it becomes more of a crapshoot. (It depends on the station and other factors.)

Very true.

Assuming it wouldn't push you over the 2 days... Maybe choose a time that would be the AM of when you would normally pick up for your PM flight (which you entered correctly). Then call that day or so and say you just noticed the error and that you really will be picking it up in the PM.

Very true.

Assuming it wouldn't push you over the 2 days... Maybe choose a time that would be the AM of when you would normally pick up for your PM flight (which you entered correctly). Then call that day or so and say you just noticed the error and that you really will be picking it up in the PM.

One hint: call the station directly, not central reservations. If you call central reservations, they'll reprice your rental at the current going rate for any changes (although some agents/supervisors may be able to override the rate change). If you call the station directly, they should be able to just adjust the time without making any changes to the rate, although if you no longer meet the actual rate rules (weekend pick-up restrictions, etc.), the rate may jump anyway unless the person changing your reservation (or renting the car) overrides it.

On a related but separate point, Avis doesn't play quite the games that some of the others do, but some rental companies are trying to fool each other when it comes to competitive rate shopping. That is, they are trying to make the rate lower than their competitors for customers who search for prices but hide that fact from their competitors so they don't lower the rate and engage in a rate war. Here are some things you can try to see if they lower your rate:



Try searching for a pick-up time off of the top of an hour. hh:30 is good; hh:15 may be better, and something like hh:08 may be the best. Competitive rate shopping engines are usually programmed to check a standard time like 10:00am, so the savvy rental companies keep their 10:00am rates high but lower their 10:30 rates since real customers often aren't picking up exactly at the top of an hour.
Try searching for a rental keep other than in exact 24-hour increments. If you're picking up at 4:00pm, don't schedule your drop-off at 4:00pm--try 3:30pm. This isn't want most rate shopping engines look for but it's the case for most real customers looking for rates, so the companies may price their 24-hour keeps higher and drop other time periods to be competitive.
When setting weekly rates, most companies check the price of their competitors for straight 7-day rentals. Try pricing an 8-day rental. If it's less but you actually are keeping it for a week, just return it early. (Be careful when using a company that charges a penalty for early or late returns.)
If you're picking up around the midnight hour, try checking prices both before and after midnight. Rates and availability are often set by the calendar day.


The rental companies are all trying to one-up each other and use (and are constantly discovering) countless other tricks to try to drive rates up while still underpricing their competitors for most real-world searches. That said, rental agency yield management is not nearly as developed as, say, airfare yield management, and there remains a large amount of guesswork and dart-throwing in the rate management departments of rental car companies.