Reservation: time tolerance
 

I have a reservation, but what happens if I am unable to pick it up at that time? I may be up to an hour or so late, maybe longer. This is on a Friday afternoon, which I imagine is a busy time.

Um... Call them and tell them you're going to be late?

In my experience, if your flight # is listed on the reservation (assuming you're flying in), they keep your car til your flight is in. Twice, I've had it where the new arrival time was PAST when the Avis office is open and they sent an employee back to give me keys both times (when I was only Preferred with them)!!

If you're going to be more than about 2 hours late, though, I'd call them or modify the ressie online to keep them informed.

Assuming you're Preferred, at most locations they've already put stuff in the car pertaining to you. So to "undo" your reservation, they have to go out to that car and pull the stuff from it. This is somewhat more work than just punhing a couple keys on a keyboard, so I would presume they're not as "trigger happy" with Preferred reservations as they could be with "normal" ones.

Btw, how do they know whether a Preferred car was picked up, if you never have to talk to an agent? Does you existing the gate signal automatically and instantly to the office that you picked it up? Or do they do a periodic "sweep"?

I got an internet reservation and hopefully they will let me change it over the phone, I will not have access to the internet that day. I am flying in in the morning and have a meeting that is SUPPOSED to be over by 1p.

IME, at airports with Avis lots where the keys are in the car, I've always had to checkout at a manned gate where they check my DL and scan or note that the car is going out.