Hassle-free Car Rentals at Avis.com

Avis.com is the online portal of Avis Rent A Car System, LLC. Avis is one of the most trusted names in car rentals and the company and its subsidiaries provide business and leisure customers with a wide range of services. They have around 2,000 offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and the Caribbean region. The company is part of Avis Budget Group, Inc., (NYSE: CAR) formerly Cendant Corporation.

The website allows you to avail of car rentals quickly and without hassles. The options are listed very clearly in the header bar in the homepage- rates and reservations, deals, renter's guide, programs etc.

You can go directly to ‘Make a reservation' and enter the details needed- the pick up date and return date, first of all and then the pick up and return time. This is followed by the ‘rental location information.' Here you have to fill the airport location code or the city/town and the state/province and the country. You can find your airport code from the list provided if you are not sure of it. Also, if you won't be unable to return the car to the original location, you can mention it here.

In the next section, which is optional, you can fill in additional information-wizard number, last name, arriving airline as well as flight number. Once all these details are filled, you can click on ‘next step' which will take you to a page where the rental locations available in the region will be listed. You can choose your nearest location here.

You will be directed to a page specifying the rates and discounts. You can select the discount, which is optional. The optional equipment is also listed here-GPS Navigation system at the rate of $9.95 a day, infant seats, safety seats and booster seats.

From here, you will be directed to the page where the cars are listed-the class, type and base rate. The letters (A) or (M) indicate whether the transmission type of the car is automatic or manual. On the right hand side all the details entered till now will be displayed, which you can check and confirm.

A problem with the site is that the requests might not get processed at the first attempt.

Registering will provide you with various other benefits like creating your personal itineraries and saving them, booking you reservations quicker and viewing your pending reservations. You can also review and print your rental receipts.

The site generates revenue from the various advertisements displayed none of which however, interrupt the smooth flow of text.

Asha Prakash

Hi-tech Editorial Division