Haven’t seen this discussed here yet:

Avis charges a “FREQUENT TRAVELER PROGRAM FOR MILES/POINTS” fee if you choose to credit to UA Mileage Plus. I know it’s not new, but I found it pretty sneaky that they tack it on after the reservation is booked. Their FAQ states that this fee is their “offset their costs of participating in the FF programs”.

The final rate before you click “reserve” makes no mention of the fee, but you can see it added when viewing your reservation. It amounted to $10.50 plus whatever %tax is charged in the locale on a $250-weeklong reservation. Haven’t booked Avis with the new UA relationship yet, so I can’t make out if what you get in return is worth the fee. Anyone has experience?

I'm pretty sure all rental car companies charge a similar fee. I know National does so I'd be shocked if Hertz didn't.

Most companies do this. I agree they do it sneakily. However, I have not seen it be that high ($10.50).

My last rental of around $550- with Hertz had a $2.25 frequent flyer surcharge.

I've done a few AVIS rentals in Hawaii lately because they were a lot cheaper than Hertz, and their customer service and car selection for UG sucks.

I have had upgraded vehicles on several recent Avis rentals. But I've also tried to rent twice from Avis in Phoenix in the last two months, and there have been no cars available. Once, I had to go to an off-airport location to get a car, and for next weekend, I've had to rent from Hertz instead. So this partnership has only been moderately successful for me, so far.

It's usually charged on a "per day" basis, so longer rentals will incur a greater fee. Since it appears that many of the partner miles/points awarded are on a fixed "per rental" basis, there's less value in longer rentals.

All this Hertz vs. Avis becomes a mute point, when the ONLY rental place that even has cars at EWR is Hertz! :rolleyes:
Looking at a month out, and no rental place has cars, except Hertz....albeit at $240 per day. Sheesh....

What does "Benefits:Guaranteed car every time." mean, exactly?

Because I am seeing "The location you have selected is Sold Out during the dates requested."

Added:
It seems I forgot about "rental car company' logic: originally received the "The location you have selected is Sold Out during the dates requested" error, but then did the same one-way rental but instead of next-day drop off, did a 6 day rental with the same prick-up and drop-off location, and that suddenly worked (for both AVIS and Hertz). So it appears that it wasn't they they didn't have cars....they didn't have cars for a one-day rental?!?!
(also interestingly, a 6 day rental (diff pick-up/drop-off) is only double the cost of a one day rental (same pick-up/drop-off); I guess the weekly rate kicked in)

You can't book a car under the guaranteed car benefit online or through third parties. Theoretically you can just show up at the counter without a reservation and they'll rent you a car, but much like guaranteed room availability with hotel programs I'm sure that the rates are pretty absurd.

I mean, they're something around $200 to $300 for a one-day rental at EWR later this week. That's already "pretty absurd"! ;)

I haven’t used Avis yet, but each time I shop, Hertz beats them. Also, maybe I’m a creature of habit, but I really enjoy walking to the garage and picking a car. I noticed Hertz will do a status match to Avis and others..,.so those that want to stay with Hertz, if I’m reading it right, just status match back to Hertz from your new Avis PC next year when Hertz drops.

What does Hertz match to, though?

If you have Avis Presidents Club, Hertz will match you to Presidents Circle (again), so another year.

Tried Avis as presidents club for the 1st time at TPA, app did not gave me an option to pick any car (error message), upstairs was not too busy but agent told me to go downstairs at the preferred booth to pick up the car, downstairs long line with customers with broken/malfunction vehicles, took 15 min to pick Chrysler 300 S, tank was not full, big dent on the passenger rear door (no wonder why they left only an inch of space on the right side), switched with another 300 S, again not full tank, I guess no one wanted V8 sedan, took almost an hour to get a Camry with 500 miles on the clock.
I will stick with National Exec Elite in the future


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1cc3490cd.jpeg

does National do status matches?