Have you ever been in that situation where you’ve been to an offer page , seen a banner advertising that “incredible discount”, but when it came to book you couldn’t get the right price?

This is what happened to one of our customer, who despite booking a car during the Avis New Year Sale period, she’d seen advertised on our email newsletter, was unable to get the advertised car hire discount. I thought it would be useful to share her experience & attempt to clarify how these promotions work, so next time you don’t miss out on the chance to get the best price for your car hire.

Most of Avis’s discounts are driven by a promotional code which we embed on our offer/sale promotional pages, newsletter links and internal and external banners. When a customer visits one of these landing pages or clicks from one of the links or banners, then proceeds to book, the discount is automatically applied to the price.

If however the visitor sees the banner or the newsletter advertising a specific discount but instead of following the promotional link or banner, goes straight to the booking engine on the Avis home page, the code is not activated and therefore the discount is not applied.

This is always specified in the landing pages, but following the customer’s comment we will make sure to have it even more prominent.

Of course all promotions are subject to availability and to specific terms and conditions which are always state at the bottom of our landing pages, so make sure you read carefully.

Hope this helps! But if you have any other questions please let us know or visit our FAQs page.

Did you know that fuel consumption can vary by up to 45% on the same route depending on how you drive? As well as renting from our new, fuel-efficient Avis Eco Collection, by following our Eco Driving Tips you can save money and reduce your emissions on all your car journeys:

1) Plan your journeys.
Plan your journeys to avoid peak periods, road works and getting lost – you will have a more relaxing journey and will waste less fuel.

2) Drive smoothly
Try to avoid harsh acceleration and braking – pulling away too fast can use up 60% more fuel.

3) Traffic jams
If stuck in a traffic jam for more than a couple of minutes, turn off the engine to cut exhaust emissions and conserve fuel.

4) Change gear efficiently.
Change gear at 1500 to 2500 rpm can save up to 15% on fuel – and reduce emissions by the same amount.

5) Avoid short journeys.
Short journeys on a cold engine use up to twice as much fuel as a warmed up engine – producing more pollution.

6) Limit your speed.
Optimise your fuel consumption, reduce your emissions and avoid speeding fines by observing the speed limit.

7) Concentrate
Look ahead and anticipate the road conditions and other people’s actions – this reduces the need for hard braking and acceleration.

8 ) Keep you cool.
Using air vents rather than opening windows can reduce fuel consumption by 4%, while air conditioning can increase fuel consumption by up to 2 litres per 100km.

9) Don’t Rev
Avoid revving the engine unnecessarily – this wastes fuel and increases harmful emissions.

10) Drive Carbon Neutral®
Avis is proud to be the first car rental company in the world to offer Carbon Neutral® driving to all its customers. If you would like to absorb the CO2 emissions from your next car hire please speak to one of our station staff who will be keen to help you. For more information on carbon offsetting your car rental please visit www.avis.co.uk/environment.

To download an illustrated PDF with all of our Eco Driving tips, click here, why not share them with your friends and family?

Looking at the amount of queries we receive here on the blog, and the feedback we get from our front line teams, it’s quite clear that renting a car generates a large number of questions on a variety of topics, ranging from the type of child seat available to fuel options and damage policy.

Our challenge at Avis is to answer all those questions as clearly, quickly and efficiently as possible. This is why we’ve recently launched a new interactive web FAQ section on our website, which you can find at www.avis.co.uk/CustomerService .

The new section uses a keyword based system to help customers search through a large archive of frequently asked questions. It then provides answers based on relevancy and knowledge built by analysing other customers’ searches.

It also offers suggestions on related topics that other customers searching for similar keywords have found useful.

Customers are also able to rate how helpful they found the answers and send us comments about it, and this will allow us to work on those topics where we fell short of your expectations.

The contact section of the website has changed too; you can now ask questions and even log your complaints/queries directly online. All you have to do is write your question, tell us which topic you are contacting us about and your message will be automatically delivered to the right department.

If you have used the new system or want to give it a go, we would love to know what you think.

As we all know business can be unpredictable and sometimes it’s hard to envisage what your future needs will be. That’s why we have developed Avis Flex; our new, fully flexible solution for corporate long-term car rental. This provides your business with a great fixed daily rental price and the only commitment from you to us will be to keep the car for a minimum of 28 days. Plus the longer you keep the car the lower the daily price.

Flexibility and price aren’t the only reasons to get long-term car rental from Avis. We also promise you will also benefit from:

• No Deposit Required
• Free 2,000 Miles on your car, every month you rent
• Flexible terms & conditions with no complicated contracts
• Free Collision Damage Weaver Insurance
• Delivery and Collection service to your home or business
• Free 24 Hour Roadside Assistance

For more information on Car Rental and Leasing click here

We are currently only offering Avis Flex to our corporate customers, but we would love to get your feedback and opinions on this product.