Avis Preferred and Avis First Tips!
February 2015
Learn a few great tips about the Avis Preferred and Avis First programs. We also shed light on when it makes sense to choose Avis First credits toward free weekend days or to participate in a hotel or airline partner bonus!
Who likes to wait in line at the rental car counter? We sure don’t! So, we always suggest you join the car rental Loyalty programs! Avis Preferred is a great choice. It’s free to join and membership allows you to skip the counter at most locations, in addition to other great conveniences!
Avis rewards Loyalty with elite status and benefits through Avis First. You must be a US or Canadian resident and complete 12 qualifying paid rentals or 35 qualifying paid rental days within a calendar year to earn your first Avis Free Weekend Reward and achieve Avis First status. Once you achieve Avis First, you begin to accrue additional weekend rewards after 4 qualifying rentals of 2 days or more. You can earn a maximum of 8 Free Weekend Rewards each calendar year.
Avis First is invitation only. Once you qualify, you will receive an email or mail notification. And then you must activate your Avis First membership and provide an email address at avisfirst.com. You will not be rewarded with your first Free Weekend Reward until you’ve activated your membership. After achieving Avis First status, you also receive special discounts and an upgrade with each paid rental when available.
Until you reach Avis First you can earn credit toward qualification AND airline bonus miles or hotel bonus points from the partners of Avis. Therefore, we recommend you use the AWD # (discount code) of your favorite airline or hotel rewards program and choose one of the hotel or airline bonus offers featured in Browse Perks UNLESS you prefer one of the offers in the Avis “Deals” tab. Just remember, you can only use one “Coupon Code” at a time.
It’s important to be aware that once you reach Avis First you must choose to earn either Avis credits toward the Free Weekend Rewards or one of the airline or hotel offers. It is always more lucrative to elect to earn Avis credits IF you rent enough to earn additional Free Weekend Rewards before the status qualification clock resets on January 1st.
Once you’re Avis First, here are some details on how we value Avis First rewards:
For illustrative purposes regarding the free weekend rental qualifications, let’s assume your required 4 rentals are each 2 days long. The Weekend Reward covers the base rate only of an intermediate through a full-size four-door vehicle and not surcharges, taxes, fees and extras. We value the base rate of the 2 free weekend days at $55 per day or $110 total. Therefore, the value of the credits earned for each paid rental day are valued at $13.75 ($110.00 divided by 8 paid rental days). We suggest you use this value to compare whether a hotel and airline bonus offer is more or less lucrative than the credits toward a Free Weekend Reward from Avis once you’ve achieved Avis First.
Some additional information about Avis First Weekend Rental Rewards:
Weekend Rental Rewards are valid for 2 consecutive weekend days. They are non-transferrable, must include a Saturday night and cannot be used for one-way rentals. Weekend Rental Rewards are valid at participating Avis locations in the US (excluding Alaska), Canada, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
During your inaugural membership year of Avis First, your membership expiration date will be set to December of the following year. In all subsequent years that you remain a member, your expiration date will advance one year at a time each year you qualify and will expire on December 31st.
Please note, most airline miles and hotel points earned through the rental car companies incur a small daily charge (usually about $0.50 - $1.00 per day), which also reduces the value of the partner program incentives, but was not factored into our car rental valuation comparison on TRVLVIP.
Top 3 Tips to remember:
Until you reach Avis First, we suggest you choose one of the hotel or airline bonus offers featured in Browse Perks UNLESS you prefer one of the offers in the Avis “Deals” tab.
Once you reach Avis First, we suggest you forgo the airline and hotel offers and instead elect to earn Avis Free Weekend Rewards UNLESS you won’t have at least 4 qualifying paid rentals of 2 days or more before your Avis First status expires on December 31st.
Regardless, sign up for Avis Preferred for the great convenience it offers!
It's a great Tip worth sharing!