I suppose SAN airport has opted-out

I received a plastic 'Preferred Plus' card in the mail this week ... I'll be at PC by the end of next week, I guess they'll mail me another card

SAN is a participant. As of now, there are relatively few non-participants in the program. See https://www.avis.com/avis/html/globa...nList_0715.pdf

Maybe it's a technical error, I check the avis website frequently, and SAN never offers any points-redemption options to me

I've been renting a car nonstop since the new Avis program began on July 1st and Avis is even quadrupling my points for the first two months because of my company. So in essence, I just finished 21 days of rental here in Seattle for a total of 2290 points (480 base points + 120 preferred bonus + 1440 quadruple bonus + 250 initial bonus).

That is essentially the same as renting for 84 straight days. So I called reservations and had them try reserving the same size car in Seattle using my points and was told that it would require 2400 points for one free day! So I didn't even have enough points to get one free rental day!! Unbelievable!! There is NO way it is going to be worth renting for 90 days just to get one free day.

The rep told me they are still working out the kinks in the system since it is new and I told him they better figure it out quickly because people are going to be irate when they find out they have to rent for 3 straight months to get just one free rental day.

I'm starting to check out National now, seems everyone likes their program.

No more loyalty from me
 

I will no longer be loyal to Avis. Now price rules. Whomever is cheaper gets my business.

2400 points for 1 day
means:
if cash base price is $24, this is 1%
if cash base price is $36, this is 1.5%
if cash base price is $48, this is 2%

I'll assume your car is in the $24/day range - so points are worth 1% rebate
Your bonus raises this to about 2.5%

Just heard back from an Avis rep. One day at boston (date was this week) for an economy car with no extras would be 1800 points. That's 6 days for me give or take. Better deal with National...

The "Two Broke Girls" money counter slowly going up is how I picture my progress toward a free day rental for Avis....

In best case (50% bonus):

1800 points for BOS is $1200 of rental, assuming $40/day = 30 days = 8 weeks (4 days a week for typical Mon-Fri business traveller)

2400 points for SEA is $1600 of rental, assuming $40/day = 40 days = 10 weeks

Say one travels 48-50 weeks a year, that is 5-6 free days of free rental earned.

Of course, the math is very uncertain as the pricing is dynamic. I wonder if they have a fixed rate for each day at each location. Or, it is based on the AWD rate you enter.

It may just be my experience with Avis, but they have never done me a lick of good. I'm Avis First, now Avis something-or-other plus. Had the free weekend day and tried to use it several times. The pricing was still more than other companies, even with my free weekend day. Have a business. Signed up for something or other business related (this was a long time ago). Got sales phone calls trying to entice me to book. Pricing was more than other companies. There was literally no "business" discount. Seriously, why does anyone bother with Avis? I can see no loyalty perk, benefit (monetary or otherwise) that would even make me want to go back to their web page.

Why bother? :confused:

Thanks to your feedback, I wanted to let you all know that we will be updating the functionality on Avis.com to show you how many Avis Preferred Points are needed for reservations, regardless of whether you have enough points. We hope to go live with this mid-August. But in the interim….

As far as redemption/value is concerned, as I’ve mentioned previously Avis Preferred Points are not worth a specified dollar amount. The redemption of Avis Preferred Points is dynamic, much like car rental pricing, and the quantity of Avis Preferred Points required for benefits varies based upon such elements as duration of the rental, date, car class, time of year and location. Members also earn bonus points on their birthday and for achieving certain milestones such as completing their first rental and reaching annual spend thresholds. Without factoring in these bonus points, you will miscalculate how many rentals are needed for a free day.

Taking all of the above into consideration, here are a few scenarios. If you wanted to rent a mid-size vehicle during an off-peak time of year in Orlando, you would need approximately 1,300 Avis Preferred Points. That can be achieved in approximately 3-4 rentals. A mid-size vehicle in Chicago during an off-peak time of year, would be approximately 2,400 Avis Preferred Points or approximately 7 rentals. A mid-size vehicle in Boston for a weekend day during an off-peak time of the year would be approximately 600 Avis Preferred Points or approximately 2-3 rentals.

AvisPreferredRep, thank you for your post, but one key point that your company needs to understand is that frequent travel loyalty programs have no substantial value if the rewards are not predictably achievable.

With my AWD code, I can predict the cost of a revenue booking in most cities, at least a few months out. There might be a lower rate on weekends, but it's fairly predictable for weekdays. Avis needs to give us the same predictability with use of rewards.

Avis can create three point levels: weekday, weekend/holiday and weekday for certain defined cities. That would be predictable in advance, and can be adjusted year-to-year. Many airlines and hotels use this system. That way, if we're planning a one-week rental in October, but haven't settled on the pick-up/drop-off city, we know that three or four months in advance we need this specific number of points, and we'll know that we either have them now, can earn them between now and then, or won't be able to use Rewards benefits at all.

One small thing that you can do now to give us some iota of a better comparison, is to consider editing your post above to show what the cost in Rewards points would be for a peak rental in your three examples. All of your examples use off-peak prices. As well, Avis would do well to define clearly the terms "peak" and "off-peak".

Hi AvisPreferredRep,

You have a tough job. You are stuck between some angry loyal customers and a company that does not seem to care about this group of customers. I think many of us are corporate road warriors whose corporate contract rates do not allow miles in other programs, somewhat captive yet very demanding and vocal.

The whole rollout of the program has been a huge failure. If there is to be a lesson on how to not rollout loyalty programs, this is it:

1 - there was the false start last year
2 - existing earned benefit (6 month coupon duration) was cut short - sure way to alienate your loyal customers
3 - many did not get notice on the change
4 - not much information before new program rolled out
5 - not much information after new program rolled out

Then someone probably quickly said "AvisPreferredRep, you better get onto Flyertalk to deal with these people" :D

We all know any "enhancements" to loyalty programs are not good nowadays :D For those who valued the weekend coupons, this was a huge loss. For those who did not, this is a gain - no matter how little.

As far as your points above:

1 - I don't recall reading about the milestone bonuses and birthday bonuses. You are right, without them, we miscalculate. If they do help make the program look that much better, why not tell us about them?

2 - I think rentals in MCO, BOS and ORD during low season can probably be Pricelined for $20/day or less. Say our corporate rate is $40 a day and we earn 50% bonus. We earn 60 points a day. So:

MCO at 1,300 -> 22 days as opposed to "3-4 rentals"
ORD at 2,400 -> 40 days as opposed to "7 rentals"
BOS at 600 -> 10 days which is 2-3 rentals for most Mon-Fri 4 day week renters

So, the math just does not look too attractive. On top of that, you used the off-peak scenario. In the hotel world, it is like saying you get a free stay at Fargo ND in January, right? :D

Of course, many of us are captive and I think your Management was focusing on that. Maybe they think a point-based program means they can sell points later to others but who will buy points from Avis if it is hard to determine the value of the points for the recipients?

Good luck :)

Nowhere on avis.com can I find any means of actually using these points for anything other than rentals. How about upgrades?

Corporate contract means I'm only able to book Avis cars, so I guess I'm stuck with it.

THIS!!! agree with all of the above. would be curious what the Avis rep defines as "rental" and what all the bonuses they speak of really are.

Overall, this is a program that no longer provides value for loyalty. I'll be switching to Hertz once my PC is up at the end of the year.

I'm in the same boat, we are mandated to use Avis.

Although enough of us complained about Avis we now have an option for National. Sure we're just a small company with 2000 field employees, but we all found little value in free weekend coupons. Now if I've got to spend 20-30 rental days for a single free rental day.. That's even more worthless than free weekends.

I'm not sure how National's program works, but it's got to be better than this debacle.

Yeah I'm sticking by my opinion that Avis changed the program due to complaints about the weekend coupons (which I didn't mind)...they just made it worse. Be careful what you wish for I guess.

I'm dynamic, too. I'm so dynamic that I no longer use Avis and I just stick with National, Hertz, sometimes Dollar or Alamo, and even Advantage. But I don't like Budget, Sixt, or Payless. I am very dynamic.

this type of program caps their rebate costs at a few %

It also means individual stations need to perform better on price/value/service for routine customers that have flexibility

I don't need to use the SAN Avis every week - I can and have used Hertz, National ...

E.g. last night they assigned me a Patriot, and the exchange aisle only had two vehicles, the better being a Corolla ... I stuck with the Patriot, but I'm not happy - my incoming flight was delayed, so the preferred cust service desk was closed

While I've gotten some great cars over the past two months, the past two weeks they've assigned me this high mileage, uncomfortable Patriot - last week there was a Camry for me to switch to, but this week, I'm unhappy

Given the Avis loyalty program rebate is in the 2% range, I'll likely try National at SAN on my next rental

Loyalty is dead
 

I have said it before and I'll say it again. Customer loyalty is dead - and the corporations killed it. I now go for the lowest price. Period. On rare occasions it is Avis, usually not. And that is that.

Well, after 4 weeks of rentals and 1500 points and no possible way to redeem them (since work pays for all of my car rentals), I opted back out today and am going back to miles. I have to use Avis, but I can use the AA miles a lot more than points. I was surprised that you cant earn points + miles with a coupon, so its back to miles only. Maybe once a reward chart is posted or the ability to convert points to miles is added ill go back, but for now its just normal again.

So you'll give us something, but not tell us what it is, what it's worth, and what we can use it for. It will be a surprise if we decide to try to get some value from it..

Is that the marketing strategy? If so, it's horrible.

I'm glad I now have other corporate options.

Just in case I ever use Avis again...
 

...I switched back to earning miles. Like I said previously, I will no longer hold any loyalty and will go for the cheapest, which is usually not Avis.

Panera Bread has the same thing. The benefit of their loyalty program is not defined - you get what they throw your way.

Mon-Thurs Booking (pickup 12pm, return 9pm) @ SEA on a Compact.

Given option to use 1800 points to remove 1 day of rental time.

The redemption value.....yikes.

Same thing in Orange County airport. Price of rental car is $31 for a day and they want 1800 points. Ouch!

in SAN, I got 600 per weekend day on an intermediate 2 weeks from now

Another data point:
ORD on a random Nov. weekend: 950pts per day (not covering tax)

For me, the website now shows how many points I need for various bookings.

It's still buggy though, as I've gotten some to say you need 0 points for this booking (not sure if that means I have enough points to redeem, or I can't rent this vehicle on points).

Just did a test booking. The interesting thing is that even though the amount was zeroed out, all the percentage based taxes are still there. With other coupons, they would remove all the % based taxes. So, if this is not a bug with the site, here is another way we have been enhanced :(

Avis's average rental is $325-$433, before taxes/fees - so $400-600? I must be an outllier on the low side. I'm renting 4 days/wk and getting 159 base points.

That's 32 rental days to get a single day in your cheapest scenario.

Your second scenario, still off-peak rental, is 60 days. I can rent 4 days/week, every week, for an entire year, and earn 3 rental days.

Peak periods I get what, 1 day, maybe 2? Frankly, that's insulting.

Perhaps that's why I haven't bothered joining. Minimal, undefined benefits in exchange for my personal info and buying habits. No thanks. But I can't undo years of doing the same with Avis.

EDIT:Just checked my status - "You are 0 rentals away from even more rewards." So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

EDIT #2: My first attempt - "You would need 0 Avis Preferred Points for a free day or 0 Avis Preferred Points for your entire rental. " Also nice.

Just tried reserving a minivan in Oakland for about 4 days during the week prior to Christmas. Total was going to be $240 and Avis wants 4300 points for 1 free day which equates to about $60. In other words, after spending $4300 in rentals I would get a whopping $60 in free rentals. What a deal! :td:

New points system, is it good or bad?
 

New points system seems very vague. I just spoke with an Avis representative who told me I needed 1800 points for a one day rental. Now I read here that you can get a 4 day minivan rental for 300 points. How does that work. Why can't Avis give us a chart that says exactly what the points are worth. If I need 1800 for a one day rental then this NEW program is a joke!,

Well, this program is a joke Avis pulled on its most frequent customers.

If you read the Wiki a little carefully (and I just edited to make it more obvious), the 300ish points were to ADD GPS, not the base rental....and I think the point required is PER DAY.

It is made worse by Avis keeping the percentage based taxes even though the rental is free and any % of 0 should be 0.

Folks this thing is a joke. I left Hertz for other reasons but that program is light years better than this thing. I jut looked at a weekend day in BOS and was quoted 1800 points...really?

The best thing we can do is NOT spend them! I am racking em up pretty quick and these points are a liability on their books (albeit a small one) and they will NEED to get them off if they start building. As Avis Rep likes to say: Pricing is dynamic and when they want you to get rid of your points they will lower requirements to get some bleed down.

I am SO disappointed in this program. The folks who implemented it did so much damage to the Avis brand. It is accepted that FT programs will get worse over time but to lead with a ridiculously worthless (or near) program is just a marketing blunder. I will rack up a ton of points and start to spend with Enterprise until/unless they make this a viable program to entice business. This does the opposite.

T&C:
Remember, this is a program offered to people who are mostly on rates that cannot earn miles (i.e. captive business travellers on corporate contracts). So, Avis probably cares less about what we will do - as most of us can't really do much.

Value of Avis vs Hertz points
 

Was looking at a weekend one-way rental (CLT-RDU) in a couple of weeks. The cash price was $34 (pre-tax & fees, which username suggests aren't covered by points), plus 30 cents/mile (don't know if points include one-way miles). Avis wants 4,300 points for that rental, Hertz only 1100 points, miles included. Wow.

Are the Hertz points earned the same way as Avis? (I don't know Hertz's program.)

The tax thing probably should be addressed by Avis. It almost seems to be random and illegal to be charging those % based taxes if the pre-tax rental amount is 0 (and any % of 0 is 0). It might also be a system glitch?

Great, so free rentals with Avis DO NOT include unlimited miles?

One other data point-

Phoenix (PHX Airport) was $31 for a mid-size car on weekend, Avis wanted 3400 points for one day. Wow talk about a bargain.

Mileage seems to be the same as whatever the AWD you use would normally be. Points seem to just reduce the time and mileage charges in the same way a gift card, coupon, or other instrument would, to the point of the taxes and fees not being reduced for days that are paid with points, with the caveat that you don't get 7 days for the price of 5 when renting weekly like you would when paying cash.

That, I find terribly annoying.

Hertz also gives 1 pt/$ spent, so same earning ratio.

Seems that everyone often include the typical surcharges (facilities, license, etc) and other add-ons for “free" rentals, and the tax is added to that. Even the old Avis 1st "free” weekend deals could still have surcharges and thus taxes; if there were no surcharges there were no taxes.

For one-ways Avis uses the standard time charge plus a per mile charge, while Hertz generally includes miles but a higher (e.g. 2x) time charge. I didn’t have enough points to book a one-way with Avis so I don’t know if it had a mileage charge but I suspect they would; Hertz just doubles the points needed for a one-way.

Hertz does offer a weekly rental on points that is less than 5x the daily points rental and is good for 5-7 days. Aside from being more transparent, it is clear Hertz points are worth a lot more than Avis points. Even National’s 1 free day/7 rentals (or 6 or 5 depending on status) looks like a better reward than Avis points.