Price was great, but service not so much. Avis did me a favor by allowing me to reserve a driveaway rental from the state of Arizona during touristy time when they had a glut of cars coming in and not enough going out. I took advantage of a $10/day one way rental during the month of May which really can't be beat, though at least one other rental outfit could have matched it.
I had expected any rental car these days to have a basic auxiliary jack so that I could use my ipod in remote areas that don't have much of an FM signal available. When I got to the counter, the agent advised me to upgrade ($16 a day) when my reservation cost less than the difference. I know it's their business to upsell everything but the script is so predictable at this point. I told him all I cared about was gas mileage. Why have a customer who's clearly price conscious and then tell him he could have had more if he paid three times as much? I ended up getting a Mitsubishi Lancer with 35 MPG highway but it did not come equipped with the features I had hoped for, so next time I will request a better car or go with a different agency. It is not like there was a shortage of cars here, so I suspect that the agent gave me a car that no one else wanted since he knew it was a driveaway rental. This was the first time I can remember not being offered the choice among cars in my class, though perhaps I should have insisted and next time I will.
The car had under 10k miles and not in bad shape but the agent tried to sell us on its extreme low mileage and then when we got to the car it ended up having 1,500 more miles on it than he had falsely claimed prior to signout.
The penalty here for shorting the tank is now $10 a gallon (4 times retail) whereas other agencies have offered reasonable rates for that service. What a scam. Heed the warnings and fill up!