I rent weekly Mon-Thurs from Avis in the Newark location (high # of "elites") and always rent full-size, as the incremental price is negligible and I drive with co-workers. For about the first 4 weeks straight, I was given either a minivan or a Grand Marquis. After dealing with it for a while - and after qualifying for Avis First, I put a request in my profile to NOT be given a Grand Marquis or Minivan.

On a weekly basis when I arrive, about 40% of the time I'm sent to the Preferred Counter (negating the convenience of avoiding the line), and about 20% of the time the car that I receive is a Grand Marquis and I have to go back to the counter and exchange it. I was told that when they manually assign cars, they can avoid giving me those, but if the system generates an assignment, I'll have to continue to switch out every time.

Anyone have any experience / thoughts / insight into this? Seems like this problem should be avoidable...