I just have a general question about the declining service I've seen renting with Avis recently. I have had several problems lately with my rentals. Twice I've been directed to a car that doesn't have my rental agreement ready. I've had to wait for them to bring it out (>10 minutes on one occassion). The cars are not as clean as they used to be. The one I rented today was FILTHY on the inside. It looks as if someone splashed dirty water across the entire inside. Waits on the bus have been longer. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like overall people's attitudes have been down. Any one else notice this?

Just a couple of thoughts to add...

Manhattan Avis locations do not offer Preferred or Preferred Select service at all.. They say it is a space issue, although there is plenty of counter space for them to handle customers at and they have several parking spaces at the front of garage at my usual location. YUL Location Avis is generally excellent, although two things I would mention: (1) someone could try to take a moment to wipe down the brown/black streaks when they park the car after arriving from hotfooting it from their washing location across the highway; and (2) if you enter an AWD online at avis.com that is not in your Wizard profile, such as the great AWDs available here, then your contract and keys are not ready to go once you arrive. I've also had one occassion in YUL where they didn't have my contract ready although I had booked everything with my standard profile AWD because they were looking for me to downgrade my selection, with no compensation for me helping them out of an obvious car shortage jam. That floored me. Unless I'm looking to have fun in a Roadster in the summer for a few weekends, safety is of paramount importance to me and the bigger the car or better yet, SUV, the better for me.

Unfortunately I must agree that the level of service has been declining. The worst is at LAX. You may easily wait 20 or 30 minutes for a bus. Then the rental agreeement is never in the car. They drop you off a mile away from where your car is parked and you wonder around in the dark looking for it. If that is Preferred Select I would hate to see what other customers get.

I have over 200 rentals days in the past year with Avis and I rarely have a good rental experience or a decent upgrade.

I just need my company to switch to Hertz. Three of their buses come by before a single Avis shows up in both LAX and LGA.

I also wish someone who works for Avis would post something in this forum.

I believe ezmonee knows all the Avis ins and outs and has been of great help across the forum. I'm sure he'll get around to posting. Maybe there have been cutbacks over the last year?

My company just switched from National to Avis. I always thought National cars were dirty but Avis is so much dirtier. The last car I had looked like someone was shot in the front seat. The windshield had a crack in it. Overall I like National better, at least with Emerald Aisle I could pick out the car I wanted.

When I've had a situation like Traveller, I've never hesitated to bring the keys back and request another car. It has resulted in some grimaces from the customer service people sometimes, but I always got a cleaner car or one in better shape, even if it meant I had to be given a free single/double/triple upgrade. I'm never rude, just politely firm about it.

Never hurts to ask, not necessarily for the upgrade, but for what you're paying for, a clean car with nothing more than minor scratches/wear and tear.

Just my $0.02..

I must be lucky then...I rent at LGA fairly often and I have not had any problems with the bus. I did have to wait about 5 minutes when I returned the car last week and that seemed longer than usual for me. I rented it from 32nd Street (across from the Garden) and got a brand new car (67 miles). I'll be renting in Albany, NY every 1-2 weeks for the foreseeable future now so we'll see how that goes. Cheers!

John

I thought perhaps my experience in MSP would've been out of the ordinary. Two weeks ago I was in town for a family function and rented a standard car and after refusing the offers to upgrade was given a little Chevy Classic that was beat up and worn out though it only had 5500 miles on it. The doors were scratched and dented, the seats stained and the smell was pretty unique. I was able to get another car after refusing this little beauty but it involved a lot of grumbling on the CSR's part.

I have always felt a bit underwhelmed with Avis - even at times when I was a frequent renter at the same station - 1 or 2 rentals a week.

Through my airline FF card I have recently received a AVIS Presidents Club card, and must admit - having used it recently a couple of times in the US - that I almost feel as if it is a different company - in terms of willingness to assist and help.

I gues that the situations are not comparable - but still kudos to Avis for the service they provide at that level.

Cheers

Thomas

Through my airline FF card I have recently received a AVIS Presidents Club card, and must admit - having used it recently a couple of times in the US - that I almost feel as if it is a different company - in terms of willingness to assist and help.

Thomas[/QUOTE]



Thomas:

Which "airline FF card" got you into Avis' Presidents Club?

Through the LH HON Circle card I was given an invitation to Avis Presidents Club and also to Sixt Diamond.

Cheers

Thomas

For one, the Avis Bus Manager at LAX was recently replaced. Expect it to get better there. The new manager has been on duty for three weeks, hes a great guy, and has extensive experience in bussing at major airports.

Second, Expect all cars to not be as "tidy" in general appearance as before as All major manufacturers have begun limiting the number of rental cars to the market. This happened at the beginning of the summer so Avis, along with every other manufacturer, must keep their cars longer in the fleet as the replacement frequency is less. On that note, the cars must be "turned" more often to keep the cars on the road. This means that a car that was rented today and returned today usually would get rented tomorrow, but now its needed today to go out again. That kind of situation sometimes leads to waits for cars and the cars getting beat up more often. I promise you Avis is working on it and they will be compensating soon. How you ask?

Expect to see more "Rental car sales" lots as the rental car companies compensate by purchasing cars outright instead of utilizing the "rental car programs" that allow them to turn back leased cars. Budget(as part of avis rent a car's parent, Cendant) used to do this, but they closed it all down to stick to its core business. Expect (no inside info here, just a gut feeling) a revisiting of this policy to ramp up the quality to where they want it.

As for the cleanliness of cars, Its been a long summer, the agents are getting tired. I hired several new agents at my location and that allowed several of my old timers to take a vacation. They came back and immediately I saw a increase in quality.

As far as the agents bieng "grumpy" about making changes for cars that dont meet your personal standards, from an insiders perspective, some of you guys demand too much. Just kidding. Every summer (busy season) the complaints rise about the quality of the agents, and attitudes. This year is no different. Dont feel jilted, bring it to the attention of a manager. And if you want a different car, you can ask. Never hurts to ask, but dont expect a brand new car. Some complain every time because they want a new car every time they rent. Unfortunately websites like this teaching the inside tricks on how to better your position often is the root of the problem. A guy renting a car for the firsttime in 6 years thinks hes a rental car superhero after reading posts likemine and comes in like a CEO demanding this demanding that. This type of behavior is becoming more and more common. thus I have been advocating the "softer" road most of the time and trust me,that road works damn near every time.

For me, if you yell, expect to go elsewhere for a rental car. I simply wont deal with it anymore. If you come up and ask for my help, explain your situation, dont try and do the "ill just have to take my companies business elsewhere next time "(its bull, we dont believe that crap anymore. Its a hollow threat.) you can get farther.

I just turned in an Avis car that I picked up on Thursday at MCO. On Friday evening, I realized that the registration was expired on the car. I called Avis & they said that they would bring me another car within 1.5 hours. I waited & they never came. On Saturday morning, I called again & told them about the previous night. They told me they'd have a car out to me within an hour. They never came. This morning when I turned in the car I complained to the attendent & he gave me a $25 coupon towards a future rental.

That makes me angry. The easiest fix is to send the registration and sticker to the hotel, not a whole new car. I, myself, have made hotel runs like that and fixed it myself. The "send you a new car" is a function of the roadside service that avis has as bieng lax. This is one of the few times you will hear me speak ill will about avis. It was a horrible decision to allow "budget's" roadside network to handle both brands under the Avis Name. We did better before the Cendant/Avis/budget Merger on this aspect. Grrr. And you should have gotten the 25 dollar coupon regardless of the roadside service snafus. For that they should have discounted the rental as well. My opinion...and im only one person.

It was a priceline rental so they probably couldn't have discounted it. Is there a customer comments email address I could write to in order to complain about this as well?