Avis Rewarding Amazon Customers With Gift Cards

Avis Budget Group, the car rental company, is offering Amazon customers a deal when they rent vehicles through the company.

CNBC, citing Avis Budget Group, reported that when Amazon customers book an Avis vehicle via the Avis skill for Amazon Alexa, they will get an Amazon.com gift card that is valued at 20 percent of the rental price. Amazon customers who book an Avis vehicle without Alexa will get a gift card valued at 10 percent of the car rental. The perk for using Avis’ Alexa skill will come later in July, noted CNBC.

“Amazon customers are accustomed to convenient and on-demand services, and Avis Budget Group is pleased to be able to add transportation to the mix,” said Beth Kinerk, senior vice president of sales for Avis Budget Group.

This isn’t the first time Avis has teamed up with Amazon for a promotion. It launched the Alexa skill last year in an effort to make rental reservations easy, noted the report.

Last year, Avis also announced a partnership with the Alphabet-owned self-driving car company Waymo to manage its autonomous car fleet in its Phoenix, Arizona location. In this multi-year agreement starting later in 2017, Avis will store and service Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans and receive a fee for doing so. Starting back in April, Avis began offering free rides in these minivans in the Phoenix area to help gather feedback from consumers.

Although this is one of the first rental car agency agreements with autonomous vehicles, this deal is not exclusive just to Avis, leaving Waymo open to partner up with other companies. In 2016, the rental giant rolled out a new app, known as Avis Now, that will allow the company to communicate with vehicles outfitted with sensors and other equipment to manage reservations, rental details, checkouts, returns and payments.