New To Avis
 

New to Avis, questions for the experts
I have a normal reservation using my company discount code, but I have also booked a reservation with Enterprise (just in case) as is sort of my standard practice, been burned to often, and its a 17 day trip thats going to include some driving so I want something comfortable.
When will the app pop up with my Car Options?
At what point is my last opportunity to cancel before it charges my card?
Anyone have any experience with Avis or Enterprise at ATL?
With our corporate card as soon as there is a pre-auth for a car rental it flags additional charges from other agencies as suspicious, then its a whole thing to call the card issuer to get straightened out.
I am Avis Presidents Club if that matters towards anything.

TIA for any info!

Booking multiple/duplicate reservations is a shady practice as it could deprive the rental agency of potential revenue and it could deprive another traveler of a needed vehicle, don't do it.

Helpful….

I have had confirmed reservations and then arrived where there are no cars and a line 20 deep for folks waiting for the next vehicle to turn in at 11pm; I find that shady also...

I am relatively new to AVIS also and have found varying degrees of timelines for when/if car options pop up, and I am prez club also. I would also like to know if there is a standard timeframe.

Anyone who has had the "Thrill" of renting from Hertz at LAX for years can understand "Shady" business practices and a system that doesn't care for your loyalty or status. Would I ever rent a car Christmas week at a location and do this, absolutely not. In this case its because of my lack of knowledge with the system in a new facility for me, with a new rental company. In fact I am doing a colleague a favor by taking this assignment (as I cover FL/CA/NV/West Coast generally), so don't judge without all the facts is all I can say.. In all my years of renting (20+) I have only run into one true situation where there were "no" cars and that was due to Hurricane Milton last year when there was an exodus of cars that went from MCO to TPA because of flight cancellations. And generally I always book my units hours apart so I can cancel in plenty of time to accommodate some other poor soul that may be after a rental.

I have found that my credit card is “charged” at the time Avis assigns a car to me. At some locations, especially ones that don’t use the app, that won’t happen until I’m at the airport to pick up. With ones where my car is assigned in advanced, like Dallas, Tampa, or Chicago, they were assigned before my flight even took off. The app never lets me pick or change vehicles before I’m physically at the destination airport, but I have had the ability to change it in the website before arriving.

I once complained about being “charged” because I end up in a similar situation where it screws up my ability to use my expense card and was met with a million comments that it’s not a charge it’s just a hold, so I appreciate finding another person who can understand why even a hold would be problematic.

Thank you for the insight.. I might just go with safe and use Enterprise, I hate the counter (upsell upsell etc), but that may be safer in this instance..
For all the security measures that seem to be on CC's these days, especially of the corporate variety you would think they wouldn't be dump as a stick with regards to this. And the agents at VISA/AMEX tend to struggle with this equally as bad.
Back in the day at a lot of local locations like Budget (That was in every little small town everywhere, and all locally operated), many were owned by Car Dealerships, so the merchant account was also in the Dealerships name, so it was charged as XYZ Cars Inc., was hilarious talking to the fraud departments about those ones.
You could just about max the thing out at restaraunts/grocery stores etc, but a pre-auth goes through for a car, god help you if you need to switch to another agency for any reason.

I use Avis quite a bit. They are good, not perfect. Presidents Club should get you 1-2 class upgrades automatically. I have been able to change my car assignment with the app basically when I am on site at the agency, not before. Have never tried on the PC site. When I have needed to speak to an agent the service was very good. I had a 19 day rental and went to the counter to ask to change, the agent was totally understanding and checked what cars would be ready in the next 30 minutes. Really no complaints with the staff.

If you decide to use Avis pay attention to the time you ask to start the rental, if that location is busy and you arrive early you will wait. You may be able to change the time on your reservation but it will recalculate the rate based on the rate in effect at the time of changing the reservation. Has added a hundred bucks to a 3 day rental for me. If you are interested in points, I suggest watching the points credits carefully. Make sure your name and license number are correct on your profile and identical to your rental contract. At some overseas locations they manually enter this info when you pick up the car and if they mistype your license number it will probably not post.

Touch wood I have not had any billing issues after renting over damages or things like that. Overall I would say I am satisfied and prefer them.