I just checked and in my Canadian Avis Preferred Account, that checkbox is still there. And, naturally, unticked. :p

Well, I have AMEX in my profile, and they invoiced me in USD, despite my receipt being in GBP.

So... when you said "no DCC possible" - how did they do it?

AMEX does NOT support DCC!

Moondog, bkafrick: it js possible for one merchant to support what is known as multi currency transactions http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...ldid=405000340
This is mainly intended for online merchants. For example, cx has a policy to bill a passengers ticket in the currency of the point of origin, even though the processing happens out of HK (thus incurring foreign transaction fee).

However I would think it will be a sharp practice for a what is essentially bricks and mortar merchant like Avis to force billing in the cardholder's currency when the service is wholly provided outside the cardholder's country.

Surely a sek billing cannot be supported with a eur bill? Sounds like a prime candidate for chargeback, esp if the card is Amex-issued and not by a bank trying to avoid chargebacks (whilst collecting interchange).

No matter where I rent a car with Avis I'll be billed in SEK, as long as I use my Preferred profile. There is nowhere I can opt out, and I can only sign up for Preferred with Avis.se since I live in Sweden.

Can I use my friend's US address to sign up for Preferred?

We don’t have AE and seriously I doubt that they will help me. People here don’t care who charge you, these people see Avis as Avis, they don’t care, since I rented a car so there is a bill, Avis Sweden sent me a bill in SEK. It’s impossible to file a charge back if Avis wrote us a bill in SEK (even though I have a reservation in local currency).

So AVIS UK contacted me today and offered me a refund of $16.61 (USD) - the value of the 4% DCC fee that they tack on, or so they claimed.

My bill was $248.94 in GBP
My AMEX said $415.14 in USD

Using the currency conversion of 1.66348 (the current GBP rate) thats $414.11. So, a dollar in variance from last week. OK. It appears they did a currency conversion and didnt tack on any DCC %.

So, with the refund of $16.61, the new USD total is $398.53, and that makes my effective conversion rate $1.5888 USD to $1 GBP.

This seems like a good deal? In fact, even their conversion before giving me $16.61 back actually seems fair.

Weird?

If they gave you the yahoo rate and charged locally then I think you got a ***very*** good deal - not only did you avoid DCC, you avoided any foreign currency translation fee Amex may impose.

If this is a global practice then using AE on Avis Preferred is the way to go.

An update on how to avoid DCC for being Avis Preferred in Europe:

I was trying to sign myself up for Avis Preferred - since I live in Sweden I was redirected to Avis Europe.

It is very important that you DON'T use Visa or Master as your payment card because no matter what you do - it doesn't work on unchecking the option for not DCC.I first unchecked it and then press back button and that box was checked again!!!!!!!!!

Also once you have signed up you don't have any option to uncheck the box - even by going through update your credit card.

I don't have a DC or Amex so I wrote to Avis to ask them to permanently uncheck that box or sign me off from Preferred. I still haven't heard from them. I'll report back if I ever hear from them.

Got an mail from Avis, they claim that they have changed my profile to 'local' currency, but I have to let the rental agent knows that I'd like to be billed in USD. Not sure it's going to work since all the amount I quoted was in SEK.

Interesting discussion

I got hit with DCC once ( few years ago). I then always prepay my Avis rentals so no DCC for me anymore. when I return the car I always get a zero balance receipt.

I believe I am now free of Avis DCC. I did this by logging into the US site, avis.com and making the change in my profile there. You can't make the change on-line on the avis-europe site, but I haven't been scammed since making the change.

Thanks for the suggestion! I tried but this is what I got (I don't have a password):

I could log into my Avis Europe page but there is nothing about DCC option.