As someone who loves to drive (and travel) but doesn't own a car, I rent a lot of cars -- I've probably rented for between 25 to 30 days from Avis this year so far. I do like them as a company in terms of their service execution -- the cars are ready for me when I arrive, I don't have to wait for them, and the prices are usually reasonable, if not rock bottom. But their web site drives me absolutely bonkers, it's so badly designed.
First of all, to login, you have to use your "AVIS Wizard Number" -- a randomly assigned alphanumeric mishmash with absolutely no relation to anything else. Mine is something like 1MQD32Z. All of the airlines and credit card companies have discovered the concept of a "user name" some time ago. Not AVIS. They've got their wizard numbers, and well, fuck you if you don't like it.
Worse, rather than using some kind of rational system for locations, AVIS uses whatever their internal coding is for locations. So midtown Manhattan? That's "M1H", you silly bastard. Why don't you know that? If you do manage to login and enter a date and a time for a rental, then search for a location, the system isn't smart enough to say, not show locations that _aren't open_ on the days you want to rent a car. (See the above graphic, which came about three screens after I had entered my target date and chosen a location.) Nor will it always tell you what times that location is actually open, so you might adjust your reservation. I guess that's a company secret or something.
Finally, to add insult to injury, if you do follow the directions in the error message and click on the "Modify >>" hyperlink to change your reservation, you'll probably end up right back at this page. That's because the new search form will have that "M1H" location filled in, so even if you enter your city and state again, it will ignore that and put you right back to the same location on the next try.
Now, if you don't mind. I'm going to have a stiff drink and try reserving a car again, for the tenth time.
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