Last night a friend emailed me from the United Kingdom – they have finally taken my advise, and decided to come to South Africa on their long-haul holiday this year. The currency is well in their favour, and they really need to see some sun!
They were asking me some of the standard questions – where should I stay, in Cape Town or Stellenbosch, or travel the Garden Route, etc. Also what sites to see like the Kruger Park or The Tsitsikamma forest, and naturally I was able to give names of many places.
They also asked me about my speciality – car rental. They had already gone onto the Avis (www.avis.co.za ) website to make an enquiry, after I had given them the site that I usually use – (www.southafrica-carhire.com) Fair enough, always good to have a comparison. Unfortunately, they were a bit off, as they thought I had sent them to a more expensive place. The pricing was similar, with mine being slightly higher, and they wanted to know why – so I had to investigate…
There were a few inconsistencies between the quoting, and quite frankly, I am really disappointed that Avis would quote the way they do. The three main points that I picked up were the following:
1. Mileage
With Avis, there are 200 km’s per day inclusive. This may be enough for what you require, however, many people would like to exceed this amount – which is going to be extremely expensive. With the broker site that I use, you always get unlimited mileage.
2. Excess
The excess on standard cover for C group vehicles with Avis is R15,789.47 (ex VAT). The excess that we were given on the broker site was R6500.00, all inclusive. Firstly, this information was terribly difficult to find on the Avis site, and secondly the amount is ridiculously high for the standard renter. They do not offer an immediate price to reduce the excess, rather saying that that must be done when the vehicle gets picked up.
3. Airport surcharge
Avis have not included the airport and tourism surcharge in their quote! Together they come to 10%. Our pricing includes all costs clearly.
Recently there was a web-site war between 1Time and Kulula, where Kulula was not advertising their pricing with taxes and 1Time was. The Kulula team quickly changed that due to pressures put onto them – I think that the same should be done with Avis. But that’s just me, the SA Traveler.
