I recently completed my fourth rental of 2015 and went looking for my free weekend coupon for a trip at the end of April. Hasn't shown up yet but the Avis First CS rep said "it was being processed, but could take 2-3 weeks." Let's hope it comes through.

I just noticed on the coupon I talk about in the quote that the issue date was Aug 27, 2014, a couple of weeks after I qualified for Avis First. I had applied it to a rental in Nov 2014 that I later cancelled, but it never reappeared in my account. I wanted to use it at the end of Jan 2015 but the Avis First CS said it had expired and no new ones would be issued. Thus, very surprising that it reappeared a month later with a 2/28/15 expiration date.

One more note: While making a reservation on the website today I was shown to be Avis First. When checking something on the mobile app, I noticed my status banner was chanced to Avis Preferred Plus. I recall Avis First in that banner just a few days ago. Looks like something is moving along.

Here we go again. Again, Avis changed the T&C without telling us. On https://www.ccrgservices.com/web/AvisFirst/faq.jsp , it says:
So, I guess basically the program will be discontinued sometime between now and 9/30.

I guess that's why they waited until April 13th to issue mine. I applied it to a rental at the end of the month so not a big deal, but yet another example of how the increasingly poor service I've experienced since qualifying for Avis First is making me less loyal to Avis.

FYI: My weekend coupon is good up to full-size cars (E).

Just got this in an e-mail from Avis:

Other than LoganFlyer, has anyone received anything from Avis on the change? Thanks.

I got the same email

Same here.

Avis app showed Avis First earlier this week but just checked today and it shows "Preferred Plus".... hmmmm

The App shows Preferred Plus for me as well. Some parts of the website still say I'm Avis First though.

I received a weekend coupon this week (expiring 9/30 as others have noted), and in the body of the email, it has the following text that wasn't in the one I got in February:

"Coming soon—you'll have the opportunity to start earning rewards with the enhanced Avis Preferred program. All newly issued Weekend Reward coupons will have an expiration date of 9/30/15.

Stay tuned for more information about your Avis First membership and the new Avis Preferred program."

Personally, I love (and will miss) the weekend coupons -- I use them for those cases when I need to rent somewhere that has obscene weekend rates (PHX sometimes, for example).

Me too
 

Received weekend rental coupon this morning expiring 9/30 in addition to the coupon I received 4/12 after I qualified for First. Pretty interested to see what changes are coming as of 9/30 but a little bummed that the heavy usage this year won't go toward the new program.

If I'm calculating right I think I'll have a total of 122 rental days through end of June. And the net result is First status and two or three weekend coupons. Hm.

If you want to earn more coupons, just return every 2 days :D

Supposedly we can accumulate for weekend coupons until June 30th. So, I guess the new program will start July 1st. If it actually works this time :D

Where I can I find the list of benefits from Avis First? I can't find even on the Avis site.

New Avis Preferred Points Program
 

Hi All! I thought I share this as I just received this via email from Avis. Looks like we're going to start earning points, not just those free weekend coupons.

Below the email for that asterisk above it says

What are Frequent Traveler Points? I'm assuming those are different from what they just mentioned above (earning miles?)

I don't know if this is specific for my company (Accenture) or if this will be a new reward system to anyone who has a Wizard Number.

I received it and have rented from Avis only a handful of times in the past few years -- so it is almost certainly not targeted.

Odd that they are ending the old program prior to starting the new one.

Avis First -> Avis Preferred Plus
 

From an email I just received:
More information at this link.

From my perspective, the weekend rental rewards were the primary thing I used so this change is disappointing.

I'm glad they are moving over to a points program rather then the free weekend coupon rental. Opens up more options.

Yes, earning miles or points with any travel partner (airline/rail/hotel).

For regular (non-Accenture) Avis Preferred members, you can only earn Avis Points on those rentals where you don't choose to earn any partner miles/points. Thus since you can't apparently earn partner miles/points as an Accenture Avis Preferred member, you automatically get Avis Points, while non-Accenture people get a choice of Avis Points or partner miles/points.

Of course, we'll have to see how the points system works to find out how valuable they are. And we'll have to see whether there are any periodic bonuses. (The normal non-bonus earnings on partner miles/points tend to be pretty small, but they can pretty big once you factor in bonuses.)

I never not get the e-mail they sent a few months ago informing us the "no changes". However, I also got the e-mail today on the 7/1 change as posted here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avis-...rred-plus.html

The strange thing is the link sends you to the FAQ for the conversion (i.e. can't earn free weekends anymore). However, it does not say how the new program will work. Has anyone found anything on how the points will accumulate and how they can be used?

Thanks.

Many corporate AWDs do not allow earning of FFP so the company does not have to pay the extra FFP taxes.

So is it probably safe to assume that we won't receive anything for rentals through the end of the month that aren't enough for a weekend coupon?

From this PDF document, it looks like we will be able to become President's club members after 25 rentals !

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=ca

I hope they will also allow status matching, as I was stuck with Avis First while being an Executive Elite at National...

Here is the new Avis preferred structure.

Avis Preferred :
1 point per rental $ spent, 2 points per accessory $ spent.

Avis Preferred Plus (level attained after 12 rentals or 5000$ spent) :
1.25 points per rental $ spent, 2.5 points per accessory $ spent.

Avis President's Club (level attained after 25 rentals or 7000$ spent) :
1.5 point per rental $ spent, 3 points per accessory $ spent.

https://uat.avis.com/car-rental/cont...isPref-Points#

---

Finally, President's Club is attainable without actually being a President of a big company (or via other memberships) !
I'm hoping that Avis will allow status matching, as I'm stuck at Avis First while being a National Executive Elite member (after my 100 or so rental days this year).

Ouch, the point expire after 5 years OR if the member doesn't rent in 12 months (which shouldn't really affect most of us here, but for the general public, I definitely foresee problems).

" Expiration of Preferred Points: Preferred Points are valid for sixty (60) months from the date of check in/return of the rental upon which they were earned. In the event that the Avis Preferred Member fails to exercise any redemption of earned awards within such sixty (60) month period, the rewards are deemed forfeited and surrendered back to Avis and shall have no value to the Avis Preferred member and will be removed from any of the Member's accounts.

Cancellation for Inactivity: An Avis member will be considered inactive and Preferred Points will be forfeited and surrendered back to Avis if, during the preceding twelve (12) months, the member has (a) not completed a paid rental or (b) the member's account has been otherwise cancelled.

Avis Points earned or otherwise obtained by an Avis Member will be forfeited without notice if the Avis Member becomes Inactive. An Avis Member is considered "Inactive" if during a 12- month period: (a) the Avis Member has not completed an eligible rental at an Avis Participating Location; (b) the Avis Member has not earned or redeemed any Avis Points, or (c) the Avis Member's account has been cancelled. "

And so begins the countdown until either:
1. Avis devalues the PC membership, or
2. More locations start claiming the 2-class upgrades "aren't available", thus making PC useless

And it looks like any actual paid rental will count (as opposed to needing a 2-day rental to count towards a weekend coupon)?

I might be an optimist, but I don't see how aligning their thresholds with other programs would negatively affect the quality of the higher tier.

I myself would gladly return to Avis if I was afforded better recognition than First/Preferred Plus (obtained over a period of two months last year), which means Avis would receive more revenue. As it is now, I made all of this year's rentals with National, because their Executive Elite tier allowed me to have some very nice cars/SUVs (Cadillac, Mustang Convertible/GT, etc.) at the intermediate rate, even though National has less locations from which to rent, thus a smaller number of cars in the regional fleet.

So, it seems that:

1 - the redemption pricing is dynamic (i.e. like redeeming DL miles or WN RR points?) as there is no fixed award chart?

2 - rentals that receive miles/hotel points still won't get points

3 - there is no "consecutive check in and check out counts as 1 rental" rule as the hotels count stays?

4 - 5-year rule is shelf-life for the points earbed (not to renew all the points), right? (Like what AC had.)

Any prediction on if they will promote to PC and award the tier bonus to those who already qualified based on last year's rentals?

Thanks.

no more "rental days" option for earning status!
 

Rats. So apparently they're getting rid of the "rental days" option for earning the status. It was typically through "rental days" (because I do a handful of week or two-week rentals some years, but not enough separately rentals) that I'd qualify for Avis First in some years.

Though not that (as someone who always earns partner miles/points and bonuses on same, on every single rental) I get that much out of Avis First. Avis First doesn't seem to upgrade me (from lower-class cars) much more than Avis Preferred (which still upgrades me quite often) does.

Hi guys,

I guess this change is only for US, right?

At the moment in Europe we are already on a rental-based model similar as what is described a few posts above:

Avis Preferred Plus:
reach that level with 5 rentals and €1000 spend

Avis Presidents club
Reach that level with 10 rentals and min €2000 spend

No Avis first that I know of.
The PDF doc for loyalty is here.
http://www.avis.co.uk/dms/avis/PDF/a...ts-summary.pdf

If PC upgrade become as rare as First upgrades, this will not be any better for me. Back when I was PC through the Chase card they would bring me nice cars from the airport when I reserved at the neighborhood location. Not only do they not bother now that I am a lowly First (I wouldn't expect them to anyway), they decline to give me a premium on a full size reservation even when they have one sitting there.

The only upgrade I've gotten in 10 rentals so far this year was when I used an upgrade coupon. It's a bit infuriating, TBH. Why bother to have the benefit if it is never actually given? (I'm particularly annoyed today because they had an MKZ on hand, which would have been a single class upgrade, it's been sitting there unrented for days and the car I have will be up for an oil change before the end of the week so it would have made everyone's life easier to just give me the damn upgrade)

I just started using Avis in the past week - it' s the preferred provider for my firm, and now need to rent cars regularly

I have th AMEX PLAT card and have had the old Avis Preferred status through that - it looks like that no longer has any special value

Has anyone heard if the AMEX PLAT will now give us Preferred Plus status?

I'm at 2 rentals in the past 10 days, will have my 3rd next week

Avis Preferred is a program, not a status.

No one knows that Avis Preferred Plus program will be like - the T&C we found here seems to be from the Beta site. It probably IS the real one but the T&Cs do not seem to have been officially announced.

At the end of the day, as you see in how they handled the program change, Avis really does not care much about loyalty.

I'll apologize up front for this very basic, and possibly unanswerable, question. What benefit, then, is there in having the American Express Platinum card or the Citi Prestige card, which I believe are supposed to get you Avis First, which in turn appears to be vaporizing?

It may well be definitively unanswerable at the moment, but a guess might be that it will change to provide the new Preferred Plus status instead.

I'm on track to meet the "12 rentals or 35 days" criteria by mid July

Is Avis FIRST a dead program at this point? or should I expect an invite into it?

Nothing in my current avis account mentions points earned etc

So, we are two days from the end of the program and 3 days from the new program. Has anyone found any details other than the Beta site?

Thanks.

I just called Avis to ask, was transferred to the PC desk. They confirmed the details mentioned above, and the rental count and spend count starts as of July 1st, no credit for YTD spend/rentals

The agent said the website will report what your count is, everyone starts at Preferred, then at 12r/$5k will be auto-elevated to Preferred Plus, and at 25r/$7k will be auto-elevated to President's Club

I have a rental beginning tomorrow, returning Thurs July 2nd, unclear if that'll be counted

That is mildly infuriating. I'm already at 13 rentals so far this year, am First, and will get downgraded to plain Preferred for a couple of months if this is true. On the bright side, there is still enough time to make PC on weekly rentals.

Will it be 12r/$5k for a rolling 12 month period, or for a July 1 to June 30 23 month period, or this year for only a 6 month period??? :confused:

Of course, if MasterCard World Elite updates giving Avis First status to giving Avis Preferred Plus status, that just might the easier route.