How HfP clogged up the UK Avis network this weekend

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A couple of weeks ago I ran this article about a shockingly generous Avios promotion run by car rental group Avis.

If you hired a Group C or above Avis car for three days, starting on December 8th, 9th or 10th, you would receive 18,700 Avios points.

Living in London, where car rental prices don’t drop too much at weekends, I didn’t fully understand how cheaply you could rent a car outside Central London. The answer is ‘very cheaply’.

Head for Points was the only site of scale in the UK to publicise this offer. It was actually aimed at members of Iberia Plus in Spain, and indeed the Avios will be dropped into an Iberia Plus account. The small print specifically said that UK rentals would count though ….

It seems we created a bit of carnage at Avis depots around the UK. Here are a few quotes from the HfP comments over the weekend:

Just picked up my car from Cambridge branch. The manager said that they’d been inundated with Spanish rentals and they’re simply not accepting any more bookings as he’d had to chase around to find enough cars for everyone. He was surprised to see lots of Spanish reservations but he had checked with head office and said that these rentals will all be eligible for the 18,000 Avios promotion.

Booked a Group E for €49.18 from Peterborough. Very friendly clerk told me I was the fifth person today with a Spanish booking. They had suspected some sort of fraud and checked it with HO who told them about the promotion. He offered to let me leave the car there as I live 35 miles away, but I’d already pre paid for NCP parking for my own car. He also said they were now short of cars.

I ‘picked up’ 2 cars today. Was planning on driving them round the corner onto a street lit residential area i’d found on google earth but the guy on the Avis desk was really helpful. He waived both £12 refuelling charges and asked me to take the keys but leave the cars in the Avis compound as would be safer. He said he’d had c.20 bookings via Iberia and knew the score for Avios so knew it wasn’t some sort of fraud trick on Avis.

Apparently this was causing huge issues at Avis in Liverpool today. Many many bookings and not enough cars. I set my parents onto this offer and my mum was lucky and got a car. She overheard plenty of folk in there asking if they could just leave the cars there as they didn’t want them anyway!

Picked up my rental this morning from Basingstoke and was upgraded to a Skoda Octavia. I don’t know how Skoda have managed to make a car so boring but they have. The lady at AVIS said that there had been a lot of customers taking advantage of the deal.

Same over here. Their system went down in the morning, when it came back up, they had 17 more bookings. Completely out of cars as well – but they had no idea why, and I didn’t hang around to explain things. Hoping for the best.

I picked mine up today – Avis’s systems were down and reservations had to be completed manually. The attendant told me that there had been such a huge number of cars rented through this promotion and that it had meant that they had no more cars available for hire in their fleet. I was asked “Is this yet another Avios booking” when I arrived there.

So, erm, sorry Avis. But you did get quite a few bookings out of it!

PS. If you did a booking under this promotion, remember that you are meant to refuel the car – and provide a receipt – however little mileage you have done. Avis can fine you if this is not done.

Category

Avis and Avis Preferred, British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Craig Strickland says:

12 Dec12 December 07:00

Ford Focus 1.0 Ecoboost for 3 days. Not only will I receive 18000 Avios, I have also learned what a dreadful car this is. Eco? Eco? Combination of 120 miles town and motorway driving, average 40mpg!
- BigDave says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 08:18
  
  haha same here I ended up with a renault Captur which in eco seemed to do the same urban MPG as my old Scenic automatic ….
Matt says:

12 Dec12 December 07:18

All vehicle MPG stats are based on an artificial and short EU test which the manufacturers design to, and in some cases dishonestly achieve e.g. VW Diesels (and others?).
My Ford Ecoboost is only really Eco at speeds below 60, if you are driving at 70, or err accidentally slightly over, then you get 20-40mpg (depending on speed/acceleration etc.). Around town its pretty good and close to the 60ish mpg it’s meant to do. However, what I really need is a car with great mpg for cruising at speed – if my company had electric charging points I might have gone electric but without that only a Tesla (£50+k) would make it to work and back.
Cheshire Pete says:

12 Dec12 December 07:21

Nice to see so many people getting in on this deal. However ultimately, in the long term, this kind of mass attempt to get something for almost nothing will mean it’s more likely to be closed down in the future! Reminds me a bit of when HFP used to outline to people how they should book their then ‘free’ avios legs to the regions. As someone who lives around Manchester it meant I found it harder to then find avios seats via LHR to complete ‘legitimate’ journeys I wanted to make,

….and we all know what subsequently happened to ‘free’ connections into LHR.

I suppose one could step back and view HFP as being the goose that lays the odd golden egg, but ultimately a curse will come back to bite you. Just food for thought.
- Steve Jobs says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 07:32
  
  Baa humbug
- Barry cutters says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 07:40
  
  Totally agree
- Graham Walsh says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 07:54
  
  Totally agree as well. Don’t take the piss when there offers like this. Providers won’t make the mistake again.
  - Rob says:
    
    12 Dec12 December 08:28
    
    But in this case it is a non-argument. You would never have heard of this deal if I hadn’t run it. Admittedly if only 10 rather than 1,000 UK bookings were made they may have been more likely to rerun it, but that would have been immaterial to you unless you were one of the 10 in the first place!
- Joe McGregor says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 08:56
  
  Whilst it doesn’t state against it in the t&c I think that booking more than one car isn’t right for promotions like this. Taking one is perfectly reasonable use of the offer.
  
  I just returned my Tuscan (upgraded as well) to Staines!
PAL says:

12 Dec12 December 07:37

Did it say in the t and c regarding receipt given? Even if only 5 miles driven? Not sure how you could do this with key drop?
- Susan says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 07:56
  
  I wasn’t told about a refueling charge. Avis did try to include a charge for a full tank even after I’d said I didn’t want any extras but having had bad experiences with this shyster company I was super careful about checking things. Picked up the car from 3 miles away and it’s sitting on my drive until tomorrow PM.
  - Anon says:
    
    12 Dec12 December 08:20
    
    They will stiff you unless you show a receipt, see item 9 in T&Cs
- TigerTanaka says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 09:09
  
  I dropped mine at Teesside airport where there is only a key drop facility so left the receipt for 2 litres of fuel on the passenger seat next to the parking ticket which shows when I dropped the car off.
  
  My car was “full” on collection but I had only done a mild down the road before the fuel had dropped below full.
  
  In total I did less than 20 miles.
Choons says:

12 Dec12 December 07:39

I took up this offer and got the bus to the car hire place on Thursday and cycled back on the Sunday – at 16 miles my longest ever cycle ride in about 25 years!
- Anon says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 08:19
  
  Good on yer, keep it up, as long as done safely 50miles spread out over a week massively reduces heart disease. Check with GP, etc, etc
Chris says:

12 Dec12 December 07:55

I couldn’t get a rental for less than £80 near me. Not worth it for Avios I value at around £100 given the extra pick up costs and time inconvenience.

But, for once, the regions got a better deal than London!
- Wayne Phillips says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 08:23
  
  Battersea branch had loads of vehicles on for 79eur (in case anything similar comes up again).
- Kinkell says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 09:50
  
  No they didn’t! It was going to cost me twice London prices up here in Inverness. I passed. Obviously not a dedicated point collector.
- Alan says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 11:17
  
  Agree, was working this weekend anyway so limited collection options and all around £80-90 mark, not worth the hassle at that Avios rate.
Sprout7 says:

12 Dec12 December 08:03

Anyone know when the points are expected to post?
- Anon says:
  
  12 Dec12 December 08:17
  
  8 weeks.
RichT says:

12 Dec12 December 08:04

No real problems in Telford – except their systems were down so had to be done manually.
Upgraded to a Tucson… Which ok except the engine!

No mention of Avios, but then that branch is being closed down just before Christmas so the ladies have other things on their mind I guess!

Fingers crossed the manual rental won’t cause any issues on getting the Avios…