How would Select and Go work? (rookie here)
 

So, say Avis sent me a text say my car number is 209. I don't like it, so I go to Select and Go lot and drive another car. My question is this:

1) Say I reserved under Compact
2) Avis assigned me a Full Size that I don't like
3) I went to Select and Go and picked another Full Size

Would Avis count me as "upgrading on my own" and charge me the difference, or Avis will be smart enough to know they've already upgraded me to Full Size so by picking another car it won't increase my rate?

Thanks

To use Select and Go you need to rent intermediate or higher. You can then choose anything in Select and Go for whatever rate you're paying already.

Thanks for clarifications, Avis website really has so little information....

What you can do at the very least is go the Preferred desk, speak to an agent, and tell them you don't like your upgraded car. They may or may not allow you to use Select & Go, but they may at least give you the choice of another car (say, one in the category you actually rented).

Nice little snub, but I love Avis' tendency to upgrade me which is why I continue to rent with Avis at $150 a pop say go to Enterprise and their $40 a pop because I can count on Avis upgrades and newer fleet.

I'm glad Avis is a little forward looking in business practices and realize how to keep loyalty.

The point is, who qualifies for Select & Go and how you figure that out is confusing. Avis says one thing but sometimes does another. They have signs saying you can use Select & Go if you reserved intermediate or higher, but they don't say what happens if you reserved lower then intermediate but got an upgrade to intermediate (or higher). Meanwhile, they sometimes send emails to people who reserved lower than intermediate which say "you car is in space X, if you don't like you can do an Exchange at Select & Go".

Unfortunately, at many locations now, there is no paperwork in your car, and if you don't go to the Preferred desk and ask, your next opportunity to find out whether there's a problem or not is when sitting in the exit lane with people behind you. Not the place I'd want to be to find out my Exchange is going to cost me $$$ extra.

Fortunately for me (but unfortunately for collecting data points), I have nor gotten a car I wanted to exchange since I find out that supposedly it's for intermediate reservations and higher only. So I don't have recent experience with Select & Go working with a lower-than-intermediate rental, nor have I read about such recent experience from anyone here in Avis forum.


... Meanwhile, before Select & Go was initiated (a few years ago), going to the Preferred desk and asking for a different car was the only method that Preferred members had available when they didn't like their assigned car. So I don't think of it as a "snub", I think of it as the always-available fallback. In fact, even today, not all locations have Select & Go, and those that don't, this is still the only method that Preferred members can use to switch cars.

I've actually become sorta of an AVIS fan boy as of lately.

They're prices as with a previous poster tend to be higher, but it's well worth it. Since my first rental as a Preferred, I was upgrades and there's only been one rental they haven't upgraded me, but they looked and given me the model I wanted from what they had without even thinking about it.

It's fairly simple, if you're eligible for the Select and Go, just go to a car parked in that row and show up at the gate with your license and card and that's it.

You can also upgrade, and 40% of the time, being nice to the agent booth got me the upgrade at the same rate. (Last example, being a Full Size, and getting a Camaro SS for free).

If you show up at the window nicely they really like helping people (and I've rented at 9 locations now). I went and told them I wanted to enjoy my drive and if they had something better, and they switched me from a Optima to a MKZ without even hesitating, and a couple of months back gave me a Explorer Limited on a way from FLL to JFK on a Full Size rental. Even got a Brand new Caddy XTS4 at JFK when the attendant saw me kinda hesitating the free upgrade they gave me to a Edge, so he gave me a XTS4 with 18 miles on the clock.

I really love them, I rather pay the higher price but get better quality.

It's only fairly simple if you always rent intermediate and above. It's not fairly simple to figure out if you're eligible for Select and Go, if you rent something below intermediate but are upgraded to something intermediate or above. Avis never says "you are not eligible for Select & Go unless you rented an intermediate or above", it only says "you are eligible for Select & Go if you rented an intermediate or above", but doesn't spell out who else is eligible for Select & Go (yet it seems there are other cases where people are eligible, based for example on emails sent to people who rented something below an intermediate) but it's not at all clear how to figure out all those cases.

Same here, that's why I keep renting with Avis at many times 3 times the rate as I could have say with Enterprise, Budget, etc. Avis people are always friendly and helpful, and so far except one time I've always gotten an upgrade.

Definitely. I once had a reservation to National and Avis on the same day. None of the cars at National were interesting. Went to Avis and they were pretty much cleared out with only a few BMW X5s and one MKZ or Ford Fusion on the lot (I rented full size for both). The agent told me, well we messed up and we have no full sizes so I'm hoping you'll be happy with the car we have for you... the BMW X5. I said, "Wow, and I was really hoping for a full size." :D She laughed when I said that.

Avis has been top notch for the past 5 or so rentals I've had.