Avis vs Budget -- same price, which to pick?
 

Hello,

I'm going to be picking up at Sacramento Intl. Airport and the prices for both Avis and Budget are the same.

Is there a difference in the level of services between the two?

I'm signed up as Fastbreak for Budget, so I'm wondering if there's a way to bypass the lines as well for Avis.

Thank you!

To bypass the line at Avis, you need to register for Preferred. However, for your first rental, you will need to go to the counter to have your credentials verified. Then you can skip the counter on future rentals.

I'm not sure about SMF, but they share lots/counters at a lot of airports. So the service might be identical. I would peruse the 'net for coupons (free upgrade, etc) to see if you can get an advantage on one.

Service is identical. They do have separate counters, if you are already Fastbreak i would go Budget as you can just pass the line and head outside to their booth.

Budget is owned by Avis (in case you did not know)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Rental_Car

Owned by, yes. (Well, technically both are owned by the Avis Budget Group, rather than one being owned by the other.)

But is there any degree of linking between the programs???

It would be nice if anyone who is Avis Preferred was automatically also Budget FastBreak or vice versa, given that Avis and Budget are co-owned.

Otherwise, what's the advantage of their co-ownership to us (the customers)???

No - though at some stations they share a fleet. But really? What does it take? 5 minutes to sign up for AVIS Preferred and Budget Fast Break? Boom - now you got membership in both.

They are two separate companies owned by the same parent company. It doesnt always work like that.

Again, they are basically two separate companies both being owned by a parent company. There are no advantages to you the customer.

ABC and ESPN are owned by the same company. Just because I receive ABC doesnt mean I get the advantage of also getting ESPN. The advantage Disney (the parent company) gets is that they can share on-air talent, production crews, etc.

Except that it really doesn't work for your first rental (and again the first rental after you update your credit card). So if you only rent from Budget once every three years or so, singing up for Fast Break would do you no good, if the verification of your credit card didn't carry over from Avis Preferred.

Yes, if you're frequently enough going to rent from each program, you can sign up for both, but that has nothing to do with them being the same company. Where them linking the two programs together would help would be for someone who almost always rents with one but wants to very occasionally rent with the other.

Of course I know it doesn't always work like that (if I didn't, I would have said "this is how it works, right?" instead of asking if there was any link), but sometimes it does, and sometimes even better.

Not only did UA and CO, and NW and DL (and now WN and AirTran), allow you to link their accounts long before those accounts were merged, but UA and Marriott aren't even co-owned and DL and SPG aren't even co-owned, yet they've now entered into partnerships that allow you to link the accounts between these airline/hotel pairings.

But those were companies who were going to merge... Not just companies owned by the same parent company.

Thats interesting. Didnt know that. So, if you have a DL Medallion number, you can use that to book with SPG without registering with SPG separately?

It depends. In some cases (e.g., for USAA members) Avis offers more complimentary insurance. Not sure what you are looking for in this case. Are you not satisfied with the service you have gotten from Budget Fastbreak?

I can't afford to be elite with DL or SPG, so I'm not up on exactly how it works there.

But with Marriott and UA, as a Marriott Plat, but no status at UA, I simply had to tell Marriott my UA number, and within a couple days I had complementary UA Silver status. (I have beem accumulating UA miles from partners for years, but have never flown paid trips on UA to date, only award trips, and hence no chance at on-going* UA status any other way. *I might have been able to get a status "match" at UA once, maybe, I dunno, but even if so, that's certainly not repeatable.)

The equivalent, therefore, at Avis / Budget is that you wouldn't get it automatically, but there would be a button at Avis saying "give me a pre-activated Budget FastBreak status based on my already-activated Avis Preferrred status" and a button a Budget saying "give me a pre-activated Avis Preferred status based on my already-activated Budget FastBreak status. (And this, again, would be between co-owned companies, whereas UA and Marriott manage it despite not being co-owned at all.)

I always thought Avis is sort of the more premium brand and should carry better service / fleet / whatever?

Really depends on the station.

I ran into the requirement to go to the counter for the first rental after changing credit cards with both Avis and Budget last week. I find it amazing that one can't do this online. They can certainly validate the credit card mechanically. And if I can sign my tax returns, credit card apps, and investment documents online and have them legally binding, I can't imagine what is gained by making the customer wait in line to sign a car rental agreement.

Seems they need smarter computers. Or maybe more marketing-oriented, customer-focused lawyers.

Many locations share a fleet between Avis & Budget. A couple weeks ago in PHL, I asked for a convertible or Lux car other than a beat-up Infiniti. Over to Budget we went to find 2 Lincolns, a Camaro SS Convert and some other premium cars. Really depends on the day/time/location, as with all rentals.


If you cause any damage to the car (or steal it) they need to be able to charge whatever your card will hold to recoup their loss. If I were leaving a "stranger" with a $30,000-$60,000 vehicle, I'd require a photo ID and matching credit card verification too.

It's also possible to put in a credit card with a different name (Jr, different first name, etc) since not all fields are verified by the online processes.

Do you want Avis to do an "authorization" for $10000 on your card the moment you sign up for Preferred online until you complete your first rental??? :confused:

That's the problem. Credit cards only are validated by authorizing for a specific amount. But what Avis cares about is your ability to pay for possible damage, not just the rental cost. So the online approach would require them to authorize for a much bigger amount than the cost of the rental. Would you really be happier with that??? :rolleyes:

Besides you would trust the buggy Avis website to do all that correctly? :confused: I'm glad they don't trust it enough for that.

There are pluses and minuses to each approach. I just don't see how the approach you propose is guaranteed to be only better in every way and not worse in just as many ways.