Business Travel Tips

Avis is offering Lufthansa Miles & More bonus for each rental.

As a base member of Miles & More, Avis will reward you with:

- 1.000 Miles for your second rental
- 1.500 Miles for your third rental
- 2.000 Miles for your 4th to 6th rental
- 2.500 Miles for your 7th to 10th rental
- 3.000 Miles starting with your 11th rental

Miles & More elite members can get better bonus.
Traveller and Senators will earn 1.000 award miles with their very first rental.
HON Circle members will receive double miles on the base promotion.
Details of the offer are available here.

As states and municipalities in the U.S. look for revenue to balance their budgets in recessionary times, taxes imposed on renting a car are becoming a way to close budget gaps.

Some figures

There were 114 separate state and local excise taxes for renting or leasing a car in 43 states as of the end of last year.
In 1990, there were only 14 of them, according to the Coalition Against Discriminatory Car Rental Excise Taxes, a group formed to combat the proliferation of the taxes and which tracks them.

Michael McCormick, executive director of the National Business Travel Association, which represents about 4,000 corporate travel managers and suppliers, says taxes can cost a Fortune 100 company $5 million to $10 million a year. […]

Rental-car companies aren’t happy with them either. They don’t want to be tax collectors. Nor do they want to hear disgruntled renters complain about the charges on their bills.
So three years ago, eight rental-car brands and the National Business Travel Association formed the coalition to publicize the taxes, educate consumers about them and lobby against them. (Source)

Hertz has launched a promotion in North America, Europe, and UK.

The offer, a 15% off daily rental rates, applies only for Hertz vehicles booked before 30 June 2009, for rental between 1 June and 31 August 2009, at participating corporate rental locations in the UK, Europe, USA and Canada.

You are required to rent for a minimum of five days.

Hertz has recently launched a car sharing club in New York, London and Paris.
Called Connect by Hertz, with plans to include further cities for 2009 and beyond, it is the only global car share club offered by a traditional car rental company.

Connect by Hertz membership offers consumers a convenient alternative to car ownership.
The annual fee includes insurance, fuel, roadside assistance, maintenance, cleaning and use of a universal key card. Rentals are charged hourly.

Members enroll online and get 24/7 access to a centrally located fleet of vehicles.
When making a reservation, they receive an email confirmation as well as a text message indicating the reserved car’s license plate and location. To unlock the vehicle, members need to swipe their membership card over the car’s radio-frequency identification reader.
Should they need assistance, a audio kit in the car connects them to a Member Care Center representative.

- A fleet of environmentally friendly vehicles
All Connect by Hertz cars in the US are EPA SmartWay certified, indicating high quality environmental performance.
To get details of Hertz’s car sharing program visit Connect by Hertz.

With companies reducing business travel and fewer airline passengers to rent cars at airports, the car rental industry has been heavily hit by the economic downturn.

USA TODAY reports figures showing the current frailty of the industry’s health.

- Avis Budget Group this month eliminated 2,200 jobs — about 7% of its employees. Hertz says it laid off 2,000 workers this year, and Dollar Thrifty, Enterprise, National and Alamo also reduced their workforces in recent months.

- Hertz reported that net income dropped 94% to $63 million during the first nine months this year. There also was a 2% drop in the number of days its cars were rented.

- Advantage Rent A Car announced on Dec. 8 that it filed for bankruptcy reorganization in federal bankruptcy court. The company also said that rentals are no longer available at most of its 48 U.S. locations.

- A Standard & Poor’s research report released in late November said Dollar Thrifty “appears to be the most likely” of the big rental companies to file for protection from creditors in bankruptcy court. A Dollar Thrifty bankruptcy filing “might even result in a liquidation,” the report said. (source)

usatoday.com also cites a study showing customer satisfaction with renting cars at airports has declined considerably.
To survive car rental companies are reducing their workforces and fleets and shuttering under performing locations.
Also, because the used car market is weak and their resale values are low, car rental companies are keeping vehicles in their fleets longer. That means growing difficulties in supplying clean and well-maintained cars.