home
reservations specials car types locations services frequent renter customer care

U.S. Privacy

Your privacy is important to us
In Summary:  This Privacy Policy sets forth our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of your PII both through our online and offline operations.

click to verify our privacy statement with trusteOur subsidiaries in other countries may handle your personally identifiable information differently: Budget Canada Privacy Policy.

Budget Rent a Car is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users'  trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. This privacy statement covers the site [www.budget.com]. Because this Web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact:

Budget Rent A Car System, Inc.
6 Sylvan Way
Parsippany, NJ 07054
ATTN: Privacy Officer

If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry, or if your inquiry is not satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe through the TRUSTe Dispute Resolution Process. TRUSTe will serve as a liaison with the web site to resolve your concerns.

Budget Rent a Car System, Inc. Privacy Policy

Purpose of this Privacy Policy

What Personally Identifiable Information Budget Collects and How it is Collected

How Personally Identifiable Information is Used and Disclosed by Budget

Web site and Internet Privacy

Web site Tracking and the Use of Cookies and Other Technologies

Links to Other Web sites

How We Protect the Security of Personally Identifiable Information

How to Correct or Update Personally Identifiable Information that Budget

Applicable Law and Jurisdiction

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Your Acceptance of this Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy Effective Date

This is the Budget Rent A Car System, Inc. (“Budget”) privacy policy ("Privacy Policy"). Budget is a subsidiary of Avis Budget Car Rental, LLC (“Avis Budget”).

Purpose of this Privacy Policy

We at Budget recognize the importance of protecting your personally identifiable information (such as your name, phone number, e-mail address and other contact information, collectively, “PII”) that you provide to Budget. This Privacy Policy sets forth our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of your PII both through our online and offline operations. This Privacy Policy also explains how you can correct or change the PII we hold about you, or opt out of receiving certain marketing materials.

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to tell you how Budget strives to better serve you by keeping you informed of promotions, products and services, while, at the same time, safeguarding your PII. Our intent is to bring you offers and discounts that we believe are relevant to your interests offered by and through Avis Budget business units and affiliates (including, for purposes of this Privacy Policy, our franchise system affiliates) and other non-affiliated companies with whom we have business relationships.

This Privacy Policy is incorporated into, and part of, the Terms of Use, which govern Budget’s Web site at budget.com (the “Site”).

What Personally Identifiable Information Budget Collects and How it is Collected

When you make a reservation, rent a car and/or join one of Budget’s programs, we need to collect certain information about you in order to provide and improve our services. The service that you chose will determine what information we collect from you. This information may include, but not be limited to:

Name

E-mail address

Home and/or business address

Phone numbers at which we can contact you

Your date of birth

Method of payments (credit card and expiration date)

Driver’s license and province/country of issuance

When you rent a vehicle, we will also record information that details your rental (e.g. where you rented the vehicle, where and when you returned the vehicle, payment arrangements, insurance preferences, gas consumption, mileage and other information related to the vehicle).

We may also need certain information from you when you request any of the following services or equipment: Special Needs/Optional Equipment; Special Offers/Discounts; Partner Member Numbers; use of an Budget Corporate Discount number and other car preferences. For example, if you wish to use a discount that Budget provides to members of an association/affiliate to which you belong, we may collect information about your membership to verify and provide you with the correct discount for our services.

How we collect this information will depend on how you use our services. We may collect this information directly from you by postal mail, phone, fax, e-mail, at the counter, upon completion of an application or enrollment form, or through your use of our Site or the Internet. To the extent you use our Site, we may also collect information about your use of our Site, transactional and account information, e-mail and other information related to communications to our Site. We may also collect information about you indirectly through a travel agent, an account program in which you or your employer participates or through one of our partner programs when you deal with us through those means. Additionally, our affiliates and third parties may provide us with information about you.

You may choose not to provide some of your PII to us, but this may prevent us from providing our services to you, or limit our ability to provide you with the level of service that you would otherwise expect from us.

How Personally Identifiable Information is Used and Disclosed by Budget

Usage

We strive to ensure that we give you a stress-free rental experience and are dedicated to building a rewarding and lasting relationship with every customer. In order to provide the level of service we believe you expect from us, we may use your PII for the following purposes:

To provide the services and offerings that you request, and to communicate with you regarding such services and offerings;

To do all things necessary to administer those services;

To research, develop, manage, protect and improve our Site and services;

To maintain and develop our service-oriented software and other business systems; and

To analyze data, or to have a third party do so on our behalf.

We also use your PII information or some discrete part such as your E-mail address for other purposes. For example, such information may be used to process and track your transactions and to send you information about our and our affiliates’ and business partners' products and services and other information and materials that may be of interest to you. If you use our Site, information may also be used to evaluate what portions of our Site are visited more often than others, determine where visitors came from, where they go, and how long they stay on a particular page, or on our Site in general.

We may match information collected from you through different means or at different times, including, for example, information collected online and offline, and use such information along with information obtained from other sources, including third parties.

To do this, it is often necessary to share this information with carefully selected vendors and business partners we work with, such as companies that manage accounts, offer affinity, frequent-user, and reward programs, and companies that perform marketing services and other business operations for us. For more information see Disclosing below.

Disclosing

We may disclose your PII to affiliated and non-affiliated organizations including, for example:

To your company or organization if you use our services under a corporate or other commercial account;

To one of our program partners (e.g. if you are a member of a frequent traveler program and you have asked us to send details of your rental agreement with us to obtain your benefits from that program);

To entities that provide services on our behalf;

To your credit card issuer;

To credit reporting and fraud checking agencies; To debt collection agencies, if you fail to pay monies owed to us;

To government or private organizations responsible for the processing or handling of traffic or parking related violations;

To driver licensing authorities, directly or through intermediary organizations, when needed to verify compliance with Budget’ safe driver criteria for qualified drivers and/or to verify license information; and

To government, regulatory and law enforcement agencies where the disclosure is required or authorized by law, and otherwise as we believe is necessary or appropriate to satisfy any law, regulation or other governmental request, to operate our Site properly, or to protect or defend our rights or the or rights well-being of our employees, users or others or if you are involved (or are suspected by governmental authorities or our security functions to be involved) in any illegal activity, even without a subpoena, warrant or court order.

If you come to our site through an affiliate, we may also disclose your information to our affiliates and non-affiliated business partners for their use both on our behalf and for their own business purposes. For example, our affiliates and business partners may use such information to send you information about their products and services and other information and materials that may be of interest to you. You may opt-out of us disclosing your PII for these purposes through one of the methods described below.

We may also share your information with other non-affiliated third parties, such as entities that provide services for or through our Site or for our business (e.g., advertisers, ad servers, content providers, services providers, credit card processors, fulfillment services providers, e-mail list hosting companies and distribution companies) that use such information on our behalf consistent with this Privacy Policy. These types of third parties are not permitted to use your information for any secondary purposes.

We may also transfer or assign your information to third parties as a result of or in connection with a sale, merger, consolidation, change in control, transfer of assets, reorganization or liquidation. For more information see our Privacy Policy Effective Section below.

Licensees

Our Licensees.   Some Budget locations are owned and operated by an independent licensee that is neither owned nor controlled by Avis Budget, Budget or any other Avis BudgetAvis Budget subsidiary. Each licensee collects PII and uses the PII for its own purposes. Budget does not control the use of this information or access to the information by the licensee and its associates. The licensee is the merchant who collects and processes credit card information and receives payment for the car rental services. The licensee is subject to the merchant rules of the credit card processors it selects, which establish its card security rules and procedures.  This policy does not apply to a licensee’s Web site.  Licensees may also use e-mail campaigns and other methods of Phone, electronic, and direct mail solicitation without our consent or knowledge and are solely responsible for their content and methods of identifying and contacting addressees.

Web site and Internet Privacy

If you use our Site or otherwise interact with us via the Internet, the following privacy-related policies also apply:

Web site Tracking and the Use of Cookies and Other Technologies

If you use our Site, certain PII may be collected in the course of your use of our Site. As with many Web sites, we may use both session based and persistent "cookies" and/or other technology (e.g., web bugs, e-mail bugs, clear GIFs, web beacons, tracker GIFs and “clickstream” data logs) in our Site and other Web sites, or in our electronic communications with you, to enhance the functionality of our Site and services and to make your transactions and other activities more convenient and efficient. These technologies may vary, but in many cases may involve a small file stored locally on the computer used to access our Site (commonly referred to as a “cookie”), and may be used to store and collect information relating to your viewing and use of our Site and our correspondences with you. We use cookies to track Web site trends and patterns. This helps us understand our users needs better and improve areas of our Site. We store information we collect through cookies to create a profile of our users. A profile is stored information we keep on individual users that details their travel preferences, rental history and behavioral activity, and to help expedite the reservation process and minimize the need for you to re-enter information on our Site. Consequently, collected information is tied to a user’s PII to provide offers and improve our services and content within our Site.

Most cookies expire after a defined period of time, or you can delete your cookie file at any time. Most web browser software is initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your web browser software to refuse cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some parts of our Site will not function properly or may be considerably slower if you refuse cookies. For example, without cookies, you will not be able to set personalized preferences, and/or may have difficulty completing transactions.

We may collect your computer's IP (Internet Protocol) address and domain name address, the identity of your Internet service or access provider, the type of web browsing software you use, your computer’s operating system, the URL of the web page from which you came to visit our Site and the language you selected for your web browsing software (collectively referred to herein as “clickstream data”). We use these technologies, for example, to identify our users, to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer and promote our and our affiliates’ and business partners’ Web sites and services.

Third parties (including, but not limited to, software vendors, advertisers, ad servers, content providers and services providers) may also use similar technologies by or through our Site or third party Web sites. In connection therewith, such entities may collect information about you and your usage activity on this and other Web sites. We have no responsibility with respect to what information such third parties track or collect, or for any tracking, data collection or other activities of such third parties. Please check their terms of use and privacy policies for such information.

We use third party ad serving technology, currently provided by Mediaplex, Inc., to serve ads when you visit our Site. The third party may have access to and use non-personalized information about your online usage activity. This technology uses information about your visits to our Site and to our affiliates’ and business partners’ Web sites to serve ads to you. In the course of delivering our advertisements to you, a unique third party cookie may be placed on your computer used to access our Site. You may occasionally get cookies from our affiliates and business partners if you use the links on our Site to reach their respective Web sites. The use of advertising cookies sent by such third party web servers is standard in the Internet industry. Budget does not control these cookies. More information about our third party ad server, its use of cookies and how to opt-out.

We also share Web site usage information about visitors to our Site with a reputable third party, currently DoubleClick, Inc., for the purpose of targeting our Internet banner advertisements on our Site and other Web sites. To do this, we use web beacons and cookies provided by our third-party ad server on our Site. In connection therewith, such third party may have access to and use non-personalized information about your online usage activity. The use of advertising cookies and web beacons sent by such third-party Web servers is standard for commercial activity in the Internet industry. More information about our third-party ad server, its use of cookies and how to opt out.

Web Beacons

Web pages may contain an electronic file called a web beacon that allows a web site to count users who have visited that page or to access certain cookies. We are partnering with Yahoo! who utilizes web beacons in the following ways:

  • Yahoo! uses web beacons to conduct research on behalf of certain partners on their web sites and also for auditing purposes.
  • Information recorded through these web beacons is used to report aggregate information about Yahoo! users to our partners. This aggregate information may include demographic and usage information. No personally identifiable information about you is shared with partners from this research.
  • When conducting research, Yahoo!'s practice is to require our partners to disclose the presence of these web beacons on their pages in their privacy policies and state what choices are available to users regarding the collection and use of this information. You may choose to opt-out of Yahoo! using this information for this research.
Note: This opt-out applies to a specific browser rather than a specific user. Therefore you will have to opt-out separately from each computer or browser that you use.

Links to Other Web sites

Our Site may contain links or references to other Web sites outside of our control, and the privacy policies of these sites may differ from our own. Please be aware that we have no control over such Web sites and our privacy policy does not apply to such Web sites. We advise you to check the privacy policies of such sites before disclosing any PII via such sites.

Framing

Occasionally when linking to another Web site from budget.com, you may still see Budget’s logo or a budget.com frame. This is to provide you with a seamless experience when visiting our web site. In these cases, you are no longer on budget.com but a different, third party Web site not owned or controlled by Budget. The information collection practices of the third party's site may differ from Budget’s. The privacy policy of a third party site will govern how information collected from you is used by the owner of the site. You will always know what site you are on by checking the location bar in your browser.

How We Protect the Security of Personally Identifiable Information

The security of your PII is an important concern to us. We exercise reasonable care in implementing generally accepted standards of technology security in order to protect information collected via our Site from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction, such as firewalls and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption for some of your more sensitive PII.

Unfortunately, “perfect security” does not exist on the Internet, and no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your information, we cannot guarantee that any information stored on our servers, or transmitted to or from a user, will be free from unauthorized access. For example, and in particular, unencrypted e-mail is not a “secure” means of communicating with us, since e-mail may be intercepted by a third party in the course of its delivery. By using our Site and corresponding with us, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to assume these risks.

You are responsible for maintaining the strict confidentiality of your account passcode, membership numbers and pin numbers, and you shall be responsible for any access to or use of our Site by you or any person or entity using a passcode provided to you, whether or not such access or use has been authorized by or on behalf of you, and whether or not such person or entity is your employee, relative or agent. You agree to (a) immediately notify us of any unauthorized use of your passcode, account or membership number, or any other breach of security, and (b) ensure that you exit from your account at the end of each session. It is your sole responsibility to control the dissemination and use of your passcode, control access to and use of your account and membership number, and notify us when you desire to cancel your account on our Site. We will not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with this provision.

We will never request that you send us any sensitive PII, such as your credit card number, passcode, membership number or pin number, in an e-mail or into a Web site that is not located at the Budget.com domain name. If you receive an e-mail or other correspondence requesting that you provide any such information via e-mail or to a Web site that is not on such domain name, please do not provide such information, and report such request to our privacy officer at budgetcustomerservice@budgetgroup.com

In the unlikely event that we believe that the security of your PII in our possession or control may have been compromised, we may seek to notify you of that development. If a notification is appropriate, we would endeavor to do so as promptly as possible under the circumstances, and, to the extent we have your current e-mail address, we may notify you by e-mail.

How to Correct or Update Personally Identifiable Information that Budget Maintains Or Opt Out of Receiving Marketing Materials from Budget

You can opt-out of our use and disclosure of your PII for marketing purposes and customer satisfaction surveys, and/or withdraw your prior consent for same, by the methods provided below. Your consent will be withdrawn; however, it is possible that you may receive correspondences scheduled prior to our receipt and processing of your opt-out request.

To Opt Out of E-mail Campaigns: You may reply to a promotional or marketing e-mail that you have received from us or you can E-mail us directly at budgetcustomerservice@budgetgroup.com. Please put the word “Unsubscribe” in the subject line.  If you use more than one e-mail address, then send your opt-out e-mail from each of your e-mail addresses.

To Opt Out of Postal Mail from Budget and/or our partners: You may e-mail us at budgetcustomerservice@budgetgroup.com with the words “Opt Out of Postal Mail” in the subject line, or write to us at:

Budget Rent A Car System, Inc.
6 Sylvan Way
Parsippany, NJ 07054
ATTN: Privacy Officer

We may also provide additional methods for you to opt-out of having your PII used or disclosed for promotional and marketing purposes, such as by clicking on a checkbox located on the page of our site on which your PII is collected, or otherwise made available when you make reservations.

Your option not to receive promotional and marketing material: (a) shall not preclude us from corresponding with you, by e-mail or otherwise, regarding your relationship with us (e.g., your account status and activity or our responses to questions or inquiries you pose to us, confirmations for existing reservations); (b) shall not preclude us, including our employees, contractors, agents and other representatives, from accessing and viewing your PII for our internal business purposes; and (c) shall not preclude us from disclosing your PII as described in this Privacy Policy for purposes other than sending you promotional and marketing materials.

If you wish to contact us to: (1) inquire about our privacy practices; (2) provide feedback and comments regarding our privacy practices; or (3) access or correct your PII we have, contact us as detailed above.

Applicable Law and Jurisdiction

This Privacy Policy shall be governed by the laws of the United State and the State of New Jersey, without regard to conflict of law principals. By providing any PII to us, that you fully understand and unambiguously consent to the transfer of such PII to, and the collection and processing of such PII in, the United States and other countries or territories. You agree that any cause of action that may arise under this Privacy Policy shall be commenced and be heard in the appropriate court in the State of New Jersey, County of Morris. You agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within Morris County in the State of New Jersey or the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions from this Privacy Policy at any time so visitors are encouraged to review this Privacy Policy at the inception of each session.

Your Acceptance of this Privacy Policy

By using our Site, or otherwise providing your PII to us, you signify your acceptance of our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our Site or provide any PII to us.

Privacy Policy Effective Date: March 8, 2006

If we materially change the way your personal information will be used, we notify you by way of either prominent posting on our site, e-mail and/or mail. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy in order to keep apprised of minor changes and of our current privacy practices.

 

 back to top

 
home | PRIVACY | terms of use | site map | moving truck | contact us | about us | search | Car in the shop?
travel agents | affiliates