I received an email from AVIS which showed among other specials a rate of $154.99CDN for Ottawa per week. When trying to book I get a bull **** rate of about $1000 per month. Frankly I am fed up with these misleading rate specials which never pan out. I wasted several hours trying to reseach this "special" with uninformed agents who knew nothing about it.

I have been a loyal AVIS Pres Club member for years and I am not impressed. Unless AVIS can match other rates from Enterprise or others, they willl lose my businesss. I just do not have time to waste on these misleading specials.

This is all too common with all of the rental car companies. Alamo, Dollar, Budget, National, Enterprise, Hertz, Thrifty, all do the same. In order to be in the rental car business you have to basically lose ethics. I get the same specials, yet can rarely find any location in the entire country that accepts them.

These are almost equivalent to "bait and switch" promos. Unless you value your time at $US1.15/hr or less it aint worth the typing. And getting ff miles costs closely to what extra you pay.

I book almost all my car rentals via www.orbitz.com and www.veteransadvantage.com (a pay site for discounts for veterans). A few were booked on www.travelocity.com and the great $9.99/day deals for FR,SA and SU were booked on www.enterprise.com directly. Itsa almost always a total waste of time using the car rental sites specials.

MisterNice

It's the same thing with any 'special rate' with any car rental, hotel room or even airline tickets. You have to read the 'fine print' and do some research. It's also what you know that even may give you an advantage. All specials regardless if it is for car, hotel or airline, are limited to a number. Also, you always get that agent that says 'you can hold it' even you you're not sure, why? Simple, the less cars they have to rent, the higher they charge for the few they have.

It happen to me this weekend. Got a rate for 2 weekend days (friday 9 PM to sunday 9 PM) a few weeks back at $21.99 a day but checked rates on Friday morning, it was now $14.99. Canx first reservations and then rebooked, got new lower rate. Guess they had a flood of cars left over but when I picked up the car there weren't many left.

I even got the double AA miles since I had first checked the rate using the codes provided on AA.com but that gave me a rate of $63. I backed up on the web page and did a new search using 'lowest rate' but I left the double miles code (was too lazy to blank it out and thougt it would be ignored. When I returned the car back yesterday, I notice I got the double miles (got charge for the FF miles at the double mile rate).

I had a problem with the car so I had to visit the counter after returning the car. The agent corrected my bill (got credit and a voucher for next rental) plus she even told me to ask at the counter next time if there is a lower rate (she mention something about 'location/manager special' that are not advertised). I've had this happen before in MCO when my son was quoted a cheaper rate than I had gotten on the web (avis.com) which was cheaper than the phone rate. Guess the agent thought he was a cute little boy!