First let me point out that I am an Avis Presidents club member and also a Budget Fast Break member.

The first thing I noticed with Budget is that they assign you a group number as opposed to a rental car space as Avis does. The group number indicates the type of car you rented where those types of cars are parked. You simply walk up to the group of cars and pick anyone that you’d like to drive for the day or week. This seems odd as it requires additional action on the part of the customer to get the car off the lot. This additional action doesn’t exactly fit with “Fast” in the Fast Break.

So after I picked my car for the week, you drive up to the exit and hand the check out person your slip that was hanging from the mirror. This slip has nothing related to your reservation on it or name. So you must hand over your ID and credit card to start your checkout process.

This is the point that is significantly different and more time consuming than Avis. At Avis you would have walked up to your pre-reserved parking space with car that has your rental agreement in it. When you leave Avis you simply hand them the agreement and they tear half it off, and off you go.

But at Budget, they have to take your credit card to run it, then it appeared they generated a rental agreement. The odd thing was I was never handed a rental agreement what-so-ever before leaving the lot. So all I have when leaving is the car and a set of keys.

The promotion for 3,000 Delta SkyMiles is great if you have a week that requires you to have a rental of fewer than 4 days (which is what is required to earn the 5k at Delta). But overall I found the Budget process to be less transparent, and more time consuming.