Avis & Southwest
 

Background: I have both an Avis Preferred account and a Southwest Rapid Rewards account. I understand that I cannot earn BOTH Avis points and Southwest points on the same car booking.

Several months ago, I learned that I could book a weekly car through the Southwest website and earn 2,400 RR points. I also learned that it was often the case that a 4 or 5 day rental would be just as cheap as a one-week rental.

The first couple of times I did this, it worked. I'd book on the Southwest site, not input my Avis Wizard #, and once the car was returned, I'd get 2,400 RR points in my Southwest account.

A couple of weeks ago, I did this again (two back-to-back weeklong rentals).

However, Avis added my Wizard # to the booking, gave me Avis points, and is insisting that there is no way to get the RR points instead, unless I "opt out" of the Avis program. I assume they mean permanently opt out... since I assumed that I was opting out by leaving my wizard number off from the booking.

Does anyone understand exactly how the rules work? Can you only get the bonus Southwest points if you don't have an Avis Wizard account? Again, I understand that I can't earn points in both programs for the same rental. Was it a loophole that allowed this to work previously? Did the rules change? or should I continue to pursue this with Avis and/or Southwest?

I think your problem may be related to how you're booking.

If you book at the Avis site while logged in with your Wizard number and put in your FFP number, that overrides any Avis points earnings.

But if you book somewhere else and Avis adds your Wizard number afterwards, probably the way they add it is what wipes out the FF earnings.

So always book at Avis with your Wizard number login, and input the FFP info and the FFP bonus coupon info there, and I think then you should be able to choose which rentals you earn what.

I am not sure this is good enough. I think Avis could auto-link a Wizard number via name or other matching which might be what is happening here.

I think you would need to spell your name differently (use your initial for your first maybe) and use a different credit card than what is on your Wizard profile.

Rasheed

Through multiple CS interactions, Southwest and Avis are united in the concept that you must not be opted in to the Avis points program in order to receive the bonus.

What nobody has specified is if this is an order-level opt-out, or a global opt-out.

If it's a global opt-out, then it should be disclosed up front. If it's an order-level opt-out, then Avis opted me in after I opted out.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I don't know if it's worth trying this in the future.

Avis CS does not know everything.

Like I said, I've never had (and I've never heard of people having) problems getting partner points/miles as long as they book at avis.com and add the frequent flyer info there.

I wouldn't ever think of booking at another site unless it's required for the promo, which doesn't seem to be required in Southwest's case. Yes, they suggest you book at southwest.com, but then they give you all the codes you would need to book at avis.com. (The only case I've heard of where you truly have to book at an airline's site is the United 2500 promo which is with Hertz, and Hertz doesn't have a problem in that case even if you are capable of earning Hertz points on other rentals.)

Fair enough. Next time I'll try this at Avis.

However, the instructions at Southwest say "For reservations, book online at Southwest.com..." which certainly implies that's where you need to start in order to receive the promotion. (http://travel.southwest.com/specialo...ml?id=66467375)

At the moment, even though I followed the instructions, both CS departments are insisting that I can't get the points applied as described. There is clearly a problem if Avis and Southwest won't honor the promotion as described on the website. (And, nowhere on Southwest's website does it say anything about being "opted out" of the Avis points program.)

Regardless of "next time," I'd like to figure out how to get these two departments to resolve my concern. Neither seems particularly interested in helping.

Thanks for your help and insight.

No, that's not the way I interpret that. United, which requires you to make the reservation at United (instead of Hertz) to get the 2500 miles, uses the "required" terminology.

I view as them trying to talk you into starting there (probably because they a bigger cut of your money if you start there than if you go to the Avis site).

Immediately after the part you quoted, it says: "enter coupon number MUAA042 in the Coupon field to receive points". No, that coupon is to receive bonus points, not your normal points. So here we proof that Southwest did not proofread this page before it posted it.

But forthermore, I just tried a dummy booking at Southwest, and there's no place that I can see there to enter that coupon code!

So the only reason they could possibly be giving you a coupon code to enter is for you to use the Avis site (which does have a Coupon field on the very first screen).

So how in the world can it be a requirement to book at the Southwest site if they're giving you info that can only be used at the Avis site? :confused:

And if you look in the following thread:
and its predecessor threads, you'll see that people posted that code in the wiki and that it worked for them without using the Southwest website, just like with all other Avis partner promos listed in the wiki of that thread.

Here's the advanced car booking page at SW: https://www.southwest.com/car-rental...r-rentals.html

In the Promo/Discount Code section, you choose "Add More" to add both an AWD # and a Coupon #. This is where I explicitly left out the Avis Wizard #, in order to (attempt to) ensure that Avis didn't do the very thing that they did.

In any case, you're point is well taken - clearly a significant portion of the blame falls on Southwest - they are the ones who posted a promo that didn't work as advertised. Had I started at Avis, it probably would have worked.

Thanks again!

Bingo.

Since I used the credit card that's associated with my Wizard#, the computer automatically applied the Wizard#, overriding the promotion.

Someone at Avis has finally figured out what happened and explained it to me. More importantly, they are working to fix it.

(I continue to maintain that Southwest's advertising of the promotion fails to point out that someone might not be eligible depending on their status with Avis, but that's a topic for a different thread on a different board.)

Here's my question for the Avis experts at FT: Do people opt-in and opt-out of the Preferred Points program on a transaction level? Or is it a global opt-out? (The Avis points seem to be fairly worthless... if it weren't for the Frequent Flyer Surcharge, I'd probably opt for SW points every time.)

As I thought I already explained:

The system for this works only if you book at avis.com, and is automatic. If you don't specify a travel partner program for earning, you earn Avis stuff (free weekend nights before, points now). If you specify a travel partner program, that overrides the Avis earnings and you earn the travel partner program instead. (This works at the Avis site because the Avis site can't remember you travel partner program; you have to enter it afresh for every rental reservation.)

The Avis program is not set up for you to book somewhere else if you have a Wizard number! Southwest needs to realize that! Southwest's site assumed that nobody had a Wizard number, and/or was set up back when Avis First (with occasional free weekend rental coupons) existed rather than the new Avis Preferred Plus (with the points program).

As far a I know, there's no opting out needed if you book at the Avis site. And opting out is global anyway. So the only way to control it on a per-rental basis is the "automatic override" method I just described above, but that requires booking at the Avis site.

Thanks! You did explain that before, I just didn't really get it the first time around.

On the ABG side, if you are a Wizard or RapidRez user, you should always book your rentals via avis/budget and use the airlines codes for bonus miles as we have listed in the promotion thread. If you do not have a profile number, then we have seen the partner account number option doesn't come up consistently and using one of the partner portal sites may be more useful to enter that FFN or HFN.

The only car rental situation that I know of today at ABG that requires use of a partner (or rather alternative branded site) is Payless partner miles accrual options.

I am quite sure that more people want the auto-detect Wizard situation (via card number in this case) than not. However, I have not opted in to the Avis points program as an attempt to reduce the number of points currencies I am managing.

Rasheed