Both Avis and Hertz give me around the same pricing for the dates I am going.

Would you go for AVIS or HERTZ?

I'm renting at SFO and returning at LAX.

I'm looking at a full size car.

AVIS will only say Impala 2/4 door or equiv.

Hertz I can gurantee a Toyota Camry (of course subject to availability) or go with the Full Size car plan

Price difference is about $40 dollars max for 2 week rental. Which company is better for rentals? All insurance, fuel, additional driver, and fees are included in my plan

fumitani, I cannot answer your question, but I have a couple of questions for you:

How are you able to guarantee a Toyota Camry from Hertz? (I won't ask why you would want to guarantee a Camry!)

Are you able to guarantee any other cars?

I am also hiring a car from SFO in July and would like to guarantee a car - probably a Ford Fusion. Definitely don't want any Toyotas, Chryslers or an Impala.

It says Toyota Camry....but I guess i'll take anything full size....

One more thing to think about: I know most Avis rentals charge a mileage fee, but I'm not sure about Hertz. I presume you included that in your calculations?

If both have mileage fees and you're driving directly from SFO-LAX in one day or two, it might be easiest to get a car SFO-LAX and a second "local" in LAX. Also, depending when your drive is within your 2 week period, it might be cheaper to get an SFO local car, an SFO-LAX car and an LAX local car so you only pay the mileage for the direct trip, instead of 40 cents per mile for the whole 2 weeks of touring around.

Good luck & enjoy the trip!

I rented from both Hertz (25 rentals) and Avis (10 rentals).

Hertz has better service at the counter and AVIS seems to have the opposite.

AVIS seems to have better cars than Hertz.

I am not sure how you would guarantee any particular car from AVIS or Hertz. They all seem to be based on availability.

In the end, I would go with AVIS.

The plan comes with unlimited miles. I do plan on driving about 2000+ miles in the two weeks I rent.

Is there any car in the AVIS fleet that will give me a ride close to the German Engineering feel? Been driving Mercedes for the past 5 years now.

You may find similar type of cars in their Premium or Luxury class. But you will not have it in the standard full/mid/compact class of cars.

Based on my experience with both (I rent nowhere near as much as others on this forum) Avis tend to upgrade me for free more than Hertz ever did.

I used to manage to get Hertz to upgrade me from a full size booking to a Volvo XC70 (which they categorise as a prestige car) but it is not as nice as a CTS nor has as much power. But that was a few years back - since then it has been Mercury Sables (ok car, a bit anonymous though), a Ford Edge (I don't like that SUV at all - the brakes are so weak) and the last one was a Avalon with about a million miles on it (felt like it was going to break).

I did manage to get Hertz in LAX to give me a brand new (less than 100 miles on the clock) Infiniti M35 in Jan 08 though - that was very nice! - but had to pay around $100 over the full size booking I had to secure it though - it was a 4 day rental.

Plus for me as I am based in the UK, Avis is cheaper - book on avis.co.uk to get the all inclusive price.

I have rented about 20 times from Avis and recently have tried Hertz about 8 times in the past two months and I am going back to Avis. I dont know how everyone says hertz is better but I have had much nicer cars from Avis and they seem to care much more even at the counter. I have also complimented some staff members at the Atlanta Avis and the regional manager wrote me back a nice note. I thought that really was a nice gesture to thank me for writing in about his staff.

Where did you get that from? I rent from Avis only, and constantly, and I can't remember the last time I had a mileage fee, or the last time that I was limited to a certain amount of miles per day, and I am going back years and years! I have only been Avis Chairman's for 15 months, and did not have mileage fees when I was the old Avis Select Preferred, or when I was AvisFirst. Maybe you have mileage fees because of the contract your company has with Avis? But your statement "I know most Avis rentals charge a mileage fee" has NO BASIS in fact by my experience or the experience of anyone else I know of who rents from Avis.

Actually, they may have gotten it from here. Your experience may be vast, but it is not all-encompassing or absolute.

Last year, the NYC area started imposing mileage caps, even on corporate rentals. I don't know if it is still in place or not because I switched my NYC business to Hertz after they started pulling that cr@p.

I never said that my experience was all encompassing or absolute! I was reacting to the operative word in IAHTraveler's post, and that word was "MOST," as in MOST AVIS RENTALS HAVE MILEAGE CHARGES, which is definitely not true. Most means MORE THAN HALF, and for sure more than half of Avis rentals DO NOT have mileage charges. Sure, SOME Avis rentals have mileage charges, and maybe even MOST IN NYC area, but that is not MOST AVIS RENTALS OVERALL!

Looks like Avis is going to win for me.

Avis is 300USD cheaper than Hertz.

I guess i can deal with any crappy car I can get from Avis.

Why do you believe, and even more importantly, why would you accept, that Avis will be renting you a CRAPPY car?