Originally Posted by
Mountain Trader
I ran into the requirement to go to the counter for the first rental after changing credit cards with both Avis and Budget last week. I find it amazing that one can't do this online. They can certainly validate the credit card mechanically.
Do you want Avis to do an "authorization" for $10000 on your card the moment you sign up for Preferred online until you complete your first rental???
That's the problem. Credit cards only are validated by authorizing for a specific amount. But what Avis cares about is your ability to pay for possible damage, not just the rental cost. So the online approach would require them to authorize for a much bigger amount than the cost of the rental. Would you really be happier with that???
Besides you would trust the buggy Avis website to do all that correctly?
I'm glad
they don't trust it enough for that.
There are pluses and minuses to each approach. I just don't see how the approach you propose is guaranteed to be only better in every way and not worse in just as many ways.