Avis Rent A Car

Terrible customer service and company. I made a reservation online yesterday for a car. A pay at the counter reservation as opposed to a pre paid reservation. I just got a call indicating that they have run out of cars and are cancelling my reservation. It’s the biggest crock of s@&t I’ve ever heard! Luckily I’m local so I may be able to get another somewhere else but if I was traveling and this happened I’d be cracking some heads. Avis will never get my business again since this is obviously company policy to rent cars out from under other customers. I hope you Unilocalers will do the same.

I hate to write a negative review. I really do.
Yesterday I picked up my rental car which I had reserved for a 9am pick up; I arrived at approximately 9;45am. The gentleman who handled the check-​in paperwork and payment did a fine job. He was friendly enough and efficient. He used a walkie talkie to let the pick up area know we were coming down.
Getting down to the Avis car pick-​up area was a little daunting because, while the gentleman upstairs told us where to go, it’s on the lowest level of the underground parking ramp and the lighting is awful. A few more directional Avis signs would have been helpful and would be a simple, relatively inexpensive benefit to first-​time customers at this location.
As we approached the corner to which we’d been directed there was a man (another customer later referred to him as Carlos). The lighting is so awful (truly…AWFUL) and I still wasn’t sure if we were in the right place. Again, a sign would have been helpful. He was working on something and didn’t acknowledge us. I asked, «Is this where we pick up the Avis rental?» to get his attention. He seemed flustered (I’d observe why soon) and said it was. He seemed a bit confused about which car we were taking. From what I could gather, he had one car ready to go but we’d been assigned the one that he hadn’t cleaned yet.
I asked if we should wait upstairs and he said no. My son and I stood there (no seating available) and watched him for over 20 minutes while he scrambled to clean the car. (Thank goodness I was late!) While he was trying to get our car ready, he was interrupted by 3 – 4 people returning their cars. Each time he was interrupted he said, «Jesus Christ!» He was apologetic each time he was pulled away and commented that it had been busy like that all morning. He was clearly doing his best but was very frustrated and overwhelmed. I felt really sorry for his situation AND his working conditions. He had a bright light that he carried around with him because the overhead lighting is so, so terrible and the poor man needs to be able to see what he’s doing! That corner felt like a dark, grubby dungeon to me and he works there every day trying to clean what he can’t see WHILE dealing with customers.
He commented a few times that the car wasn’t that dirty (on the outside) and he was just giving it a quick pass so we could take it. When it came time for the pre-​rental inspection I was frustrated because there was clearly some damage but the lighting made it impossible to see everything clearly. On the far side of the car, it was even worse because the cord to his super bright light didn’t reach all the way around so it only served to blind me, not illuminate the car. Each time I pointed out a ding, scrape, or chip he said something like, «That’s fine but I’m not sure how picky they are there.» (We are returning it in San Francisco.) It was really stressing me out to have the worry of potentially being charged for pre-​existing damage.
I then asked to inspect the inside. He opened the door and exclaimed, «Jesus Christ! I forgot to vacuum.» Then he explained that it wasn’t that bad. I said I was concerned about inspecting for stains and he came back with, «It’s fine, I’m just not sure how picky they are there.» Argh!!! I felt like saying, «Carlos! You’re busting your butt in this hovel. I see that. But I do not want to be charged how many hundreds of dollars on the other side because your (clearly terrible) manager won’t spring for decent lighting so YOU can see to clean the cars and I can see to inspect them!» I didn’t say anything but must’ve looked skeptical because he grabbed the vacuum and did a super quick pass.
When he was done I was over an hour behind schedule and just signed for the darn car. I immediately drove across the street to Trader Joes and took photos of the interior. There are two stains on the back seat. Hair, sand, bits of grass and sticks… all present. I used some wipes to clean the smudges and fingerprints off the control panel and other hard surfaces. Uff.

This is the story of a traveler who wanted to rent a simple car but ended up in a complex fairy tale web of meh. The adventure started with a reservation for 9AM on a Saturday … simple enough, one would assume. On Saturday morning, however, a grumpy gatekeeper sat behind the desk at Avis, busy with a personal conversation that made the traveler feel like an interloper rather than a customer. As the paperwork was hastily prepared, the gatekeeper let the traveler know that she wasn’t having a good day. The day had just begun … how bad could it be? Plus, is that really the traveler’s business? With paperwork in hand, the traveler departed the front desk.
Next, the traveler was sent deep underground where a cranky troll washed cars all day. When the traveler reached the correct car, there were no keys. The troll approached and was angered when he learned that the car was about to go out — the gatekeeper hadn’t told him about it. Repeating his toll mantra, «Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!» over and over, he began preparing the car … the one that had been reserved for 9AM … and it was 9:30. He paused frequently as he cleaned to complain about the gatekeeper’s lack of professionalism, stretching the already frustrating delay and making the traveler stand in the hot, humid underworld of the parking garage. By time the traveler was allowed back into the sun, 45 minutes had passed and the traveler was now in as bad a mood as the gatekeeper had been.
To top it off, when the car was returned the next day, the manager on duty obviously didn’t care on wit about the bad experience. But, alas, there is a happy ending … an Enterprise car rental is fairly close.

I had rented the car for a week, usually we get a drop back home. But the lady at the counter was very very rude and not professional at all. She denied the drop also when I told her that the car aux wasn’t working she did not bother about it. Also when I told her that I am a Avis preferred she suggest preferred is meant at airport only. Which was new thing I heard. I have become preferred renting cars at local avis and not airport. This lady is really unprofessional and misguide the customers.

We have rented from this location many times and usually have had no problems. The cars are nice and Raj who we usually deal with is very nice and professional. BUT! Today we dealt with Alba who was NOT nice or professional AT ALL! She was very rude! She was rolling her eyes at customers who were asking her things on the phone, she barely looked at us the entire time we were there (trying to figure out what happened to our reservation), and basically made us feel like we were bothering her by being there. She made NO effort to help us out. She is the reason this place gets 3 stars. We left and took our business to budget where they were MUCH nicer and rented us a nice car without a reservation.

I rented from this location twice and I have never had any issues with the car or the staff. In fact, this past experience over the holidays was pleasant and friendly. I received a very nice car and had no issues with the transaction!

This place is actually in the Hilton Hotel. Go in the hotel from the front and go left. I had to rent a car for a month and these guys here did a decent job. You still gotta deal with these lame corporate rules so pay attention. Their rules are usually extremely inconvenient for most people. My biggest gripe was the fact that you have to get the car back to them by noon. That is their return time. So you have to race it there and get a friend to pick your ass up (the valet will let them park up front for a few) or arrange some sort of transportation in the middle of the day. They are uptight about this rule unless you are going to extend the rental. So you have to go 4 floors down in the parking garage to pick up your car. Just don’t wonder what happens when you are down there and an earthquake hits. I had a Nissan Altima which was a mid sized sedan for a week. I hated the drone from the continuously variable transmission. Its really weird driving those cars with that transmission: the revs go up and hover around red line and makes this moaning sound. I then got a Ford Escort that had 1600 miles on it. The car smelled new. This car exceeded my expectations. It had an mp3 player, satellite radio, and you can play mp3s of a usb memory stick. The coolest thing was the multicolored mood lighting. I got a kick out of that and changed the color frequently. I flogged that car like a medieval criminal and it still managed to average an overall 25 MPG. The stereo was above average. Decent bass! I think the weekly rate I got was about $ 40/​day.

I rented an avis car from the Hilton in Glendale CA, I was driving it to Las Vegas one way. The lady at the counter was very rude and not professional at all. Because I had a Canadian license she didn’t know how to handle it, she kept having to call someone for help. I was finally input into the system OK. However, she was unable to input my sister as a second driver (also with a Canadian license), I ended up being the only one allowed to drive on a 4 – 5 hour drive. This woman didn’t know what she was doing. She told us it was a ford focus, I asked if she had any other cars, to which she replied no, it’s the only one.
Anyway, we get down to the dark underground parking garage where our car is. On first glance it looked alright, but it was hard to tell in the poor lighting. But inside the car, it hadn’t been cleaned out as there was still garbage from the previous renter. It’s not until I’m already on the highway when I notice that the gas was only three quarters full! This car hadn’t even been looked at since the previous renter! Not to mention the car obviously was in a previous accident as the rear bumper was coming off and the side mirror was coming off too. We got there OK though.
I would never trust my life to an avis car again… I guess I now know why they’re so cheap!