star_world

Setting the country of residence to Ireland has consistently resulted in good rates in the US and often the UK.

I always use avis.com for all reservations having found that the rates given were better than .co.uk or avisba.com. Never needs a credit card for booking either.

frankvb

Hmmm, just thought of another angle to this. The EU rules are that EU residents are allowed to do business in any EU member state. E.g. if something you want to buy is cheaper in another EU country, you are free to buy it there (and don't have to pay additional import duties/taxes due to this). Which IMHO means that it is perfectly legal to change your country of residence to Ireland in order to do just that - getting a better price in another EU country @:-) I do wonder if this holds up in court, should avis/hertz decide to go after you.

flyclub

In another twist in this rather remarkable state of affairs, it must be said, my card was waiting for me when I arrived home last night.

Great! I now have a wizard number. So I rang up to take advantage of the complimentary one class upgrade which was mentioned on the letter the card was attached. I was interested to enquire whether the BA Gold card AWD which gives you a one class upgrade would result in reality in a double upgrade on the day. Alas it won't.

Anyway as Avis don't do the over the phone booking fee nonsense, I continued my reservation there and then with the agent. However, this is when the story gets even more interesting!

I quoted the BA AWB. Fine. However if I 'did not want to pay there and then' the pay later price for my rental was £110. If I paid there and then it was £95

However, avisba.com doesn't ask for a credit card if you don't log in with your preferred number yet will therefore allow you pay later at pre-pay prices which avis.co.uk quotes!

Completely nuts.

So I have just cancelled my reservation and about to re-book however am still very sceptical and will just rely on advice here that when I now re-book through avisba.com, where there is no talk of pre-pay or pay-later - "just quote and then book", that the final screen will not say - "Your card has just been charged for £95". (as i would now have my wizard number in the system which ultimately has a credit card on file!)

Now, I know its not a big issue in the grand scheme of things, however for more pricey rentals I have been looking at - the cost differential can be up to £80. One of my bookings is like this and if I had not noticed this, I wouldn't have been in a position where one of my rentals is basically free just by booking through a different Avis website yet with the same information!!!!!

Arghhh!!!!!

Swiss Tony

I booked with Avis in Edinburgh over New Year.

Booking through Avis gave me a pre-pay rate of £142 or a pay on return rate of £148.

Using the BA AWD (blue) code simply presented the rate of £142 pay on return.

They had my wizard number so in turn had the cc information but the charges weren't made until I'd returned the car. At no point in the booking process did I ever get the impression they would charge me ahead of the rental.

The gold AWD may be different, but for blue in the UK all it offers is the "best available rate" or something.

Hope that helps

flyclub

Indeed. I just rebooked with avisba.com and yes I get the same impression as you.

However it is not an ideal situation is it?

Especially as all the prices are quoted in pounds, yet I'm renting in Spain so obviously am going to get charged in Euros. Maybe a wording that the price of the rental will approximately be £X is more reasonable?!?!?!

It is very vague. In fact I have never know a website to be so vague.

LHR Tim

And another peculiarity of the avisba website.

According to Avis, spouses and domestic partners are covered (found on avis.com):

Now granted one of the gold benefits is no additional driver fees, but are they covered in Europe?

flyclub, you need to change your country of residence to a eurozone country (i.e. Spain) to get rate quoted in Euros. That said, if you do, be prepared for bizzare rates. However, I think you are charged equivalent in Euros at time of payment.

flyclub

Indeed. However as I don't live in Spain and it asked me where I lived I just guessed the most logical to choose would be the UK. As I actually live in the UK. All very odd though.

LHR Tim

I think they just use country of residence for marketing and currency purposes. The same thing happens with Hertz.

whmere

Like in hotels, these things are 'space available'. In theory I get a double u'g with preferred select, but it is variable to say the least. A month a go in Dusseldorf I got an upgrade from subcompact (A) to premium (F), yesterday in DC I got a downgrade from C (midsize) to B (compact).

One thing that is pretty much consistent in my experience is that you DON'T get upgrades (or at least extremely rarely) from Avis franchises. You can only expect one from Avis-owned locations.