One of the Largest in the World...and in my experience one of the worst (Avis Rent-A-Car)

Member Name: martyfarty69

Product:	Avis Rent-A-Car
Date:	02/01/09 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well....they have vehicles ( sometimes )

Disadvantages: Poor Customer Service, poor communication, poor poor poor

Living in the US I was very excited to be able to return to England for a Holiday over christmas 2008, needing transportation and (Stupidly ) leaving my rental car booking late I booked my car with Avis as they were fairly reasonable and still had vehicles left.

At the beginning of December I reserved a Class C vehicle , the day I was due to depart I ended up being delayed by 24 hours due to bad weather and was unable to collect my vehicle on the day I agreed to, I called avis US reservations ( as I had booked the vehicle on the US website ) and was instructed that to change the reservation I would have to call the Heathrow Airport office in the UK from my Phone in the US , They would not connect me and I would have to make the expensive call to the UK myself which I thought was disgusting, regardless I contacted the office and they adjusted my rental and I was told "my car would be held for another 24 hours "

After arriving at the airport 24 hours later I was told that the class I had reserved ( Class C ) was unavailable and they only had a Class B to offer me, even though that was not what I had reserved, that car was insufficient as I needed the space a Class C would have given me, also on the Avis.com site it states a Compact ( Class C ) is a Ford Focus or similar, however when I arrived at the rental station they told me that a Ford Focus was actually a Class E and I would have to pay more to have something of that size, eventually they found a vehicle in the class I ordered ( which ended up being a Renault Modus, a subject for another review believe me !! ) and I grudgingly accepted it even though it was barely big enough for my needs.

Then when presented with the charges for the rental I was told it would be more expensive than I originally reserved, ( my reservation was for $381 USD and on arrival I was told it would be 339 GPB which would be around $100 more than my initial reservation) I was told to sort if out with a supervisor when I returned the vehicle at Heathrow 8 days later but ended up calling the Heathrow office the day before I returned the vehicle and the rate was adjusted, but it was time consuming and ate into my vacation.

The vehicle I was given was dirty when I picked it up and also I had to fill the Washer Fluid up 2 days after collection which I find unacceptable, then 2 days before the rental was due to end the service light came on the vehicle and I was instructed to return the vehicle and get a replacement with my local AVIS office which actually is East Midlands Airport in England which was about 30 minutes away from where I was staying which ended up consuming around an hour and a half of my time.
The only bright spot of my whole experience was with dealing with "Raj" at the office in heathrow, when I spoke with her she was very helpful and took care of the billing issue very quickly.

Overall as someone who rents cars very often as I travel alot I was left with a very bad impression of Avis, having used them for the first time I do not see myself using them again and instead reverting to Europcar as I have in the past and if asked wil strongly discourage any friends and family from using them

Summary: With so many rental options, I would strongly advise against this company