Avis Preferred Select & Go Questions
 

I have been renting with National and enjoy their Emerald Aisle program. You pay for a midsize. You can then select any car in the Aisle. There are a combination of midsized cars and typically upgraded cars (generally larger cars or small SUV's, occasionally pickups, sometimes minivans). As an example, in Boston this week, I paid for a midsize but drove a Nissan Rogue.

I am now with a new company that has pretty good rates through Avis. I just did an Avis Preferred profile and see they have a Select & Go option. How does that work? Is it similar to the National program where I can select a larger vehicle for the same price?

Avis Select & Go is not nearly as good as National's Emerald Aisle or even Hertz Ultimate Choice. Basically the way it works is that they pre-assign you a vehicle and then you can use their mobile app to choose from alternate vehicles. The problem is that what the app usually serves up as alternates is extremely limited and/or unappealing, so it's definitely a YMMV situation, but on the whole, it's a huge step down from National or Hertz. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. :(

Did this change or did you give incomplete information?

According to this thread from a couple years ago:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avis...select-go.html

you could just show up and select from any Exchange cars in the Select & Go row. No need to select ahead of time (on an app or otherwise). Are you saying that the app is now the only way to use Select & Go?

I like to examine the car I'm selecting, so to me having to select only on an app would be a step down from being able to inspect all the cars in the Select & Go row and pick the one that works best for me.

You still have the option to use the app or choose in person. Autoslash is just saying that the Select and Go choices suck because it is not a full aisle like National/Hertz.

It's like the first incarnation of Gold Choice with Hertz. Only several spots with generally mediocre cars.

-J.

I feel as though there may be some upgrades to this coming down the road. I haven’t saved them, but MCI has been emailing me about enhancements to Select -and-Go. I’m not flying out of there in a while, so I didn’t really pay attention to them,

I've seen more and more locations skipping the S&G option (either the aisle is empty, or just has upgrades in it) as Avis is relying on folks to use the app to pick a vehicle. Makes more sense to not have to move the cars to a specific row, just update the info in the system.

I suppose, but the app always shows pretty mediocre options IME. I have never actually rented from an Avis IIRC that had a S&G aisle.

Clearly Hertz and National saw value in the physical aisle. National has some issues with it especially when inventory is low, more so than Hertz it seems.

-J.

Avis Preferred at LAX
 

Hi guys,

Going to LA in a couple of weeks and wondered if Avis has a nice Select and Go section there. Has someone already experienced their fleet in 2023?

Anyone experienced that it appears to be really rare to have pickup on site in Canadian Airport?

Really? I've rented at YYZ, YUL and YEG in the past few months and all are on-site.


Avis no longer has S&G. They've replaced it with picking a car through the app (which is hit or miss). Some sits still have signage but it's not actually a thing anymore.

Really? So they don't maintain sections anymore dedicated for S&G? Can you then pick any car you want within the group or how does that work now and do you have good experiences with that?

I can't find anything on the website any more about select & go so seems this is correct. Also had a rental at an airport that used to be select and go and I was assigned a car ahead of time with some mediocre alternate selections in the app. Its really sub-par by a significant amount compared to the competition that lets you pick a car from the lot. Don't know why Avis rejected this idea.