percysmith

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Do they know what they are talking about (what DCC is)?

bkafrick

Is there an "office"?

SouthOxon

They call themselves 'GB HQ Corporate'; this from a 'Corporate Customer Experience Specialist'. You could not make this up.

catandmouse

I rented a car at NCE and fortunately returned it 2 hours before my flight. On the receipt I discover that Avis have applied DCC and that it clearly says that I have been given a choice of currency and that I chose to use Avis' currency conversion scam, when I was never asked anything of the kind.
So I go back to the desk to have it corrected and discover that it suddenly cost me 10 € more than what my reservation says. On questioning, I am told that Avis applies a 10 € fuel surcharge on all rentals less than 120 km, unless I prove that I filled the tank. I show the credit card receipt of the filling station at the airport and the poor lady spends about 5 minutes removing the surcharge.
The counter lady was friendly and helpful about doing the corrections, but I guess Avis counts on people being in a hurry, long lines in front of the counters, to discourage customers having the corrections made.
Why on earth do they bill in a currency different from that on the reservation? If I wanted to be billed in my home currency I would have reserved in that currency in the first place (pre-pay). And the fuel surcharge would have simply been lost and forgotten in the currency conversion scam if I hadn't insisted on getting it corrected!

sdsearch

It also counts on people not visiting the Avis forum on FT until they've had an issue.

These practices have long been discussed in this forum, including here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avis/...argebacks.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avis/...el-charge.html

makos

Also just to note, if you are Preferred you wont be asked to opt in/out from DCC during pick up. You have to set DCC settings on Avis' website in your Preferred account settings!

Though the easiest way to avoid it is just to use pre-pay option.

sdsearch

You can't rely on the pre-pay option always being available, though. It depends on many factors, including possibly things like far ahead you're reserving, and which exact location your reservation is at. I only see it up come up on a small fraction of the Avis rentals I'm looking up (most often the ones I'm looking far far in advance).

Thanks, I didn't realize they'd added that on their website. (Years ago, when they starting using DCC, you had to call to get it turned off, if it got turned on somehow.)

Joining Preferred is free, so that may be easier, in that it works for all rentals, no matter how soon before the rental start you make the reservation (which may be a case where prepaid rentals are rarely if ever available).

Also, speaking of Avis Preferred: The next step is Avis First, but you can't qualify for that with pre-pay rentals, according to:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avis/...l#post20938318 (link to start of discussion at post 21)

SouthOxon

Where is that option hidden?

piyush

View Account -> My Saved Information -> Credit Card

Uncheck the following option

"I choose to have Avis bill all my future rental charges in the currency of my Avis profile credit card. "

makos

Well in my case when I usually rent only just in the US as a non-US resident there is ALWAYS a pre-pay option, but this is only cause as I said I am not a US resident and I get totally different rates then a US resident.

It is quite different if you are a US-redisnet and renting in Europe or even in the US but then DCC wont matter.

bkafrick

That statement is not in my Credit Card box... Mine just lists the credit card I have linked, and even if I press Edit, that option does not display.

sdsearch

Mine is there, but only when press Edit.

It looks like this before I press Edit:
It looks like this after I press Edit:
In my case, that was checked! (I got billed in local currency the last time I rented internationally, which was in September 2012, so I presume they added this online and made it opt-out after that!)

I just unchecked it, of course!

Thanks a lot for this information, makos and piyush!

nacho

That's for Avis in the US. Avis in Sweden doesn't allow that! Now I just have to stuck with that rate - it's like a fee for using Preferred.

percysmith

Loyaltylobby piece on DCC this week http://loyaltylobby.com/2013/09/25/w...cam/#more-9721


Although the piece is on Malaysia, Ollila has apparently avoided DCCed in China before (related post http://loyaltylobby.com/2011/11/02/d...lways-decline/ ). The DCC perp was BoC in both cases, merchants Renaissance Beijing Capital Hotel and Sheraton Chengdu hotel respectively. At that time there were no tick boxes, so he correctly realised he's being DCCed. He got managers involved who voided his charges and processed them in different terminals at the hotels.

Cooper Slay

Just want to make people aware of a scam that Avis has in France and probably other countries. Without informing the customer or getting customer agreement Avis chooses to do the foreign currency exchange themselves instead of allowing your credit card company to do it, as is the usual practice, and CHARGES A HEFTY SURPRISE FEE FOR THE "SERVICE".

I recently rented a luxury car (BMW, automatic, diesel) for 16 days in Montpellier, France. The rental fee was substantial but I am happy to pay the agreed upon charge. I used my Capital One MasterCard specifically because Capital One has no foreign exchange fee for purchases. For ALL other purchases in foreign countries around the world the credit card company always does the foreign currency exchange when preparing the monthly statement. In this case, I found that my credit card had been charged an extra, unexplained 7%.
After many email exchanges, Avis "customer service" sent me a copy of section 28 of some UNDISCLOSED Avis "rules", that I was never informed about (and not part of the rental agreement) which contains some amazing, blatant stuff. "Charges will be converted --by us unless you submit a written request in advance to have the currency conversion performed by your card issuer." Unless you submit a written request in advance to something you are totally unaware of!!
Further this section 28 says " Our conversion --- will incorporate a processing charge no higher than 3% ---" Well, I guess I'm special; they charged me 7.03% instead of "no higher than 3%".

The point is this: Hotels and restaurants might adopt a "policy" undisclosed to customers that they will do the currency conversion and then surprise their customers with charges of ...(why stop at 7.03%? ) ... 15% or whatever.

Avis must not be allowed to continue to get away with this scam.