Avis Develops App to Enable Split Payment Options
Split My Bill can separate charges according to customer preference
The car rental industry has been talking about massive changes taking place in the market for several months now, and that prophecy has come true on several occasions of late. As competitors joust for toeholds at the top of the heap, there’s no shortage of battlegrounds to host these car wars, whether they be in the arena of connectivity or the forum of autonomous fleets.
But for now, the biggest hot spot has been in how to offer more convenience on the apps they make available to user smartphones. And Avis delivered a hit with Monday’s announcement that it will offer split payment options on its app, the first rental car company to do so.
It’s a new feature called Split My Bill, that enables its customer base to divide payments on its vehicle rental between two different methods of payment, whether they be cash, debit or credit. And in the case of credit, users can also get the feature to split payments between two credit cards. Besides splitting the bill total, additional options include dividing payments by number of rental days or having additional charges like SiriusXM Radio or vehicle upgrade charges separated from the rest of the bill to be paid using another method.
One of the motives for the option was to cut down on how to separate business-related expenses from the rest of the car rental bill, since nearly 90 percent of travelers revealed in a recent Avis customer survey that most of its clients often combine business with leisure. If a company executive wants to combine a long-distance business meeting with a family vacation, Split My Bill is available to separate corporate expenses from the family’s leisure costs. The corporation would not be on the hook for any costs incurred by the family vacation.
Additionally, the feature also eliminates any additional paperwork by Avis staff who have to sort through the hard copy to make payment adjustments.
“With the introduction of Split My Bill, our business travelers can go beyond the corporate experience or trip to experience upgrades and additional services that travelers enjoy and want,” said Beth Gibson, Avis’s vice president of ancillary revenue.
“We recognize that many travelers use business trips as an opportunity to explore new cities solo or meet up with family in the area and are thrilled to offer a feature that will help them make the reconciliation of travel expenses cleaner and easier.”
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