Avis: how to shaft a long time customer
I'm a really long time customer of Avis and so I was pretty surprised that using my Avis Preferred number gets me a way worse deal on car rental than pretending to be an ordinary unknown customer.
I wanted to rent a car for a couple of days so I went to the web site, found a suitable car and got offered this deal:
So £71 for unlimited mileage for the two days plus the standard insurance cover and tax.
But the site wants me to log in and so I hand over my last name and Avis wizard number and the deal changes to:
So I've lost the chance to pay now for a smaller amount, the rental has gone to £106 and the unlimited mileage has been removed to be replaced with 200 free miles. But at least:
Apparently my discount is a 50% increase in the fee. Boy, thanks Avis. I've been a Preferred member since 1995 and this is my reward.
I wanted to rent a car for a couple of days so I went to the web site, found a suitable car and got offered this deal:
So £71 for unlimited mileage for the two days plus the standard insurance cover and tax.
But the site wants me to log in and so I hand over my last name and Avis wizard number and the deal changes to:
So I've lost the chance to pay now for a smaller amount, the rental has gone to £106 and the unlimited mileage has been removed to be replaced with 200 free miles. But at least:
Apparently my discount is a 50% increase in the fee. Boy, thanks Avis. I've been a Preferred member since 1995 and this is my reward.
Labels: rants and raves
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3 Comments:
See also (from personal experience) The AA and Admiral Car Insurance (the latter also made my - anonymous - quote *cheaper* when I added my wife!).
I suspect that companies that have read Market Segmentation 101 are the same, TBH. :-( Vote with your feet, I say.
John, it looks to me as though you got an £89 discount.
The £71 price is pre-pay. Your £106 logged-in price is post-pay, so I guess you should compare that one with £195.
I often find discounts for pre-paying are better than any others with Hertz and #1 club. I guess Avis is the same.
From my experience it is much better to contact car insurance agency rather than fill insurance forms with several companies. Maybe it useful, you should try it.
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