DTWflyer

I am a semi-regular customer at DCA, usually there about 4-5 times a year and got an email this evening saying they are moving off-site, out of the airport parking garage facility to an off-site location .
2600 Richmond Hwy Arlington, VA 22202

What is this all about? I was last in DCA in Dec and will be there again the last week of March literally in the midst of the transition.
Are all rental car companies moving off-site, or just Avis?
This location looks like crap especially as I am used to for years just cruising down the GW Parkway, into the airport and easily walking to/from the terminal through the garage.

If the other companies are still in the garage, I'm done using Avis there.
Actually in fact, I am in general about done renting cars from Avis. For 15+ years I've been a loyal an exclusive user of Avis but over the past 2 years they have become increasingly difficult and increasingly expensive, and increasingly terrible staff and customer service everywhere. I know the pandemic did no favors, but I am tired of waiting for non-existant cars, non-existant stuff, and just PITA experiences.

drseagrass

I got this email too. I am so used to walking to and from the terminal at DCA to the car rental area that this is a big disincentive to use Budget/Avis. Unfortunately almost all of my rentals are one-way to and from the Patuxent Naval Air Station Budget/Avis in Lexington Park, MD, so I might have to just accept this inconvenience. Enterprise/Alamo/National and Hertz are also in Lexington Park, but lately they have not been competitive for these one way rentals. I do wonder if some or all of the other car rental agencies are also moving out of the currently convenient airport location.

River in Sight

Got the same message - I cannot imagine how they expect to remain competitive with this change. As far as I know, the other agencies are not moving - the in-terminal/parking lot rental cars are so convenient at DCA, there is absolutely no way I would deal with a bus.

Might as well just go to the Avis/Budget at Pentagon City mall (2 metro stops away) and avoid the airport surcharges.

BlueEngineer

There must have been a contract re-compete that Avis lost. Looks like Sixt may be taking over the former Avis space starting in April

From the Sixt app

flyerUSA

yeah this is a huge pain in the ... because for me, my corporate discount was VERY good at Avis and I use it for personal reasons all the time, DCA my most frequent airport to pick up a car from, and now I have to either pay more for a different chain, or tolerate this hassle, ugh. not pleased.

vedivan

So when I received this email, I was obviously disappointed for the same reasons. But I kept wondering, “How could Avis/Budget think this is a good business move? This will most definitely have a negative impact on their business at this location. Someone screwed up.” I had a few more rentals before the end of March, and I had he chance to speak with a couple of Budget employees. One at my local store, and one at the airport. And you know that employees wil spill the beans in a New York Minute. And since their stories aligned, I tend to believe them.

Someone at ABG thought it would be a good way to save money to low ball DCA on the contract. Sixt did not. What a lesson in economics.

mathprof

They have run out of cars on me twice due to renting to walk ins. Reservations didn’t matter, would have been added to the bottom of a long list. So took the metro to DCA and rented from there (cost almost double).

m907

All of the rental companies at DCA are subpar, IMO. Even National has worse service there. I'm not sure why.

drseagrass

We tried the off-site location last week after an overnight flight and everything initially seemed OK. A new Budget/Avis shuttle van was outside baggage claim when we exited the airport and a second person besides the driver was available to help with baggage. Within a few minutes we were at the car rental site that Dollar used to occupy a few years back on Richmond Highway. They have hired a lot of new employees so we were immediately helped as we stepped off the shuttle. Pretty much everything went downhill from there. We were offered a Kia Niro (reservation was for an intermediate car), and pressured to take the pre-paid gas option. I declined and was told to be sure and fill it up on return. All of this led me to believe it was a plug-in hybrid, but once we left the location and had driven a few miles, it was clear it was an all-electric car and there was only 67 miles of range on it. It was 65 miles to our home and we barely made it---car was shutting down systems and not exceeding 25 miles per hour as we arrived. The next day we returned the car as reserved to Lexington Park, MD (and asked if we had filled up the car). By then I had added 160 miles of range to the car; fully re-charging it would have taken 14 hours of the 24 hours I rented the car. One last insult was $62 added to our bill for supposedly returning the car 1/2 hour beyond the 24 hour rental. The bill provided at drop-off indicated that I had picked the car up before the plane landed at DCA! The boarding pass and flight status printout should take care of that, but it is just one more thing. According to Budget's posted web policy, EVs will not be rented one-way, and will be provided to renters with at least a 70% charge. I have contacted Budget customer service about all of this, but have heard crickets.

suzy1K

I’m renting cars at DCA 2-3x/month. Avis - Budget DCA has been sold out the last two times I tried to reserve (after their offsite move) so I ended up renting from Enterprise. I asked the agent what was up with the Avis move & he said that Sixt had bought out the Avis lease at DCA. Must have been worth it considering the hassle of moving, setting up the shuttle service etc.

I’m not a fan of the off-site move since I had my return to A garage->AA express gates timing down to the minute. 20 mins with pre-check +clear on a good night. Too many variables when factoring in a rental car shuttle. Although I have some discount codes that might make it worth the hassle…if they had any cars to rent. I’ll be sure to stay clear of the EVs. Thanks for the warning drseagrass!!

suzy1K

PS coincidence or not … as I type this the FT page is filled with Sixt ads.

DELee

We've all been "Sixt" on by Google Ads enabled by FT in this forum.

David

TBD

I just rented at this location and it's really testing my loyalty to Avis.
- Signs to the shuttle were inaccurate. Pickup isn't straight out the door in the median. It's in the median and to the left about 100 yards.
- Instructions in the app were to "pick any car in zone #", but the staff wouldn't let us walk away from the building. The lot is so crammed with cars trying to maneuver that it's probably dangerous to walk around.
- My Jeep was garbage, but that could just be because it's a Jeep.
- Avis signed the car out to me 45 mins before we picked it up. In fact, my rental started before my (early) flight even landed. We returned two hours early, so didn't wind up mattering, but might be significant for others.
- Shuttle drivers were friendly, but no one else was.

suzy1K

Rented @DCA last week. It was raining heavily when I returned the car. Not much fun with Avis DCA's off site outdoor lot. There is a small open tented area (think 10'x10') next to where shuttle picks up though a sizable puddle (9'x9') had materialized under the tent. When I said to the attendant that 'we're really missing Garage A right now' he replied "just wait until it snows". A minute of silence followed while we both envisioned a snow & slush filled lot, wrestling wet wheeled luggage into a snow covered car, the lot's exit onto a residential street, etc. Oy. Then he said "only five more years of this" meaning the MWAA garage contract that Avis/Sixt were bidding on (and Sixt won) lasts for five years. I said that Avis should have bid higher & what was up with that anyways? Why didn't corporate authorize a "we need that garage space contract no matter the cost" bid? As it was told to me, the employee who was responsible for the bidding didn't consult Corporate on this and no longer works for ABG (ahem). Guess how much business has dropped off since the offsite move: ~ 50%!!! ie from 1000 daily turnover to 500 ... ouch. Nevermind the extra costs of setting up the shuttle bus service and the staff turnover. The physical limitations of using the tiny off site lot might be part of it - there are only so many cars you can run through that space compared to the garage operation.

He mentioned offhand that he heard 'Sixt wasn't doing so well'. Which I didn't pay much attention to at the time, but it came to mind now that I'm booking an upcoming rental at DCA (which is $300+ for 4 day rental - this was after going through all of my best awd codes) so I thought 'what they hey - if that's the case maybe Sixt has some deals (and nicer cars that aren't Malibus). And they do. Plus they status match Avis.

There's a business school case study in here somewhere.

TBD

That was likely Sixt's strategy. They had mote to gain, though, as a relative newcomer in US car rentals, and so took it more seriously.