Avis Rent A Car

By far the worst customer service I have ever experienced. The manager «Paula» is incredibly rude. I could hardly get a sentence in before she cut me off, pushing me to contact a corporate office that has absolutely no one available to answer my calls or respond to my voice mails. I’ve been trying to simply speak with someone since February 2^nd ! Not one decent non-​automated voice there. An absolute nightmare. Paula refused to give me her supervisors name, (corporate companies always have a ladder of supervisors) and after cutting me off every other sentence, she hung up on me. It was shockingly horrible, I could hardly believe what I am experiencing. How is this company still functioning?

By far the worst rental company at the airport. I should know – I deal with all of them for my job. My recommendation is Hertz. They have the friendliest and most helpful staff. Enterprise is great as well. But never, ever use Avis.
Avis staff is very unhelpful, and outright rude. It’s next to impossible to get a hold of them via their office phone number. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ll spend a few hours of my day just trying to get through to them. And then, once you’ve managed to actually get on the phone with them, their phone automatically cuts out after 5 minutes-​not joking, this is a company policy. And good luck getting back onto the phone with them. They’ve even written my number down so they can «call me back after the disconnect” – but they never did.
Their documentation is also very poor. We’ve had multiple clients be charged for not filling up the gas tank when they return the car, even though they did fill it up, and had the receipt to prove it.
Please, stay away from Avis if you want to maintain your temper and blood pressure. Their customer service is just one big rude, incompetent tangle of phone trees and angry, angry people. Go with Hertz!
**Update: While waiting for Avis to «call me back», I’ve written this review, called them three times. scheduled 2 other rentals with two other companies, and had lunch.

Big applause to the employees here! I was in Santa Barbara for summer intern, but I don’t have a car. In order to make my stay comfortable, I drove most of my stuff and some furniture to Santa Barbara for this 3-​month intern using a minivan rented at Bay Area’s AVIS. When my intern ended, I have to go back to the bay area for school. I reserved a minivan online using a discount code (much much cheaper than u-​haul), but when I was picking up the van, they said they can’t rent me an minivan because I was under 25. I freaked out a bit, do I have to dump my stuff or use expensive u-​haul? Both options are very expensive. I explained my situation to them, and they offered me a 7-​seat SUV at no extra charge! I’m so relieved. I drove back to the bay area in this huge SUV with my bed, desk, bike and tons of my personal belongings (packed in Home Depot boxes). I have to say their customer service is awesome, they do look things from a customer’s perspective. Keep it up!

I am a big fan of Avis, and especially of Avis at Santa BarbaraAirport. The counter is a 60 second walk from the gate. The car will be, at most a 90 second walk from the counter. No bus, no train, easy peasy. The staff is very friendly, and very helpful. The counter can, at times, get busy, as there are usually only one or two employees, but after all, you are in Santa Barbara. Take a deep breath. The cars are almost always in good shape and clean.

Keep your gas receipt! First, we left part of our car seat, seat belted to the car and they can’t find it. Secondly, we filled up the tank at a gas station a mile allow, showed them the receipt. On the final receipt they charged us for basically a full tank of gas. Providing the credit card charge was not enough, they refuse to refund the charge.
So keep your gas receipt!

Disclaimer: I am in no way connected with Avis or this employee. This is my first Unilocal review and I actually signed up as a new Unilocal user to create it.
I reserved an SUV from a competitor of Avis whose counter is right next to Avis. I had reserved the SUV on Priceline just a few hours before. When I came in to pick it up, the competitor’s attitude was like «Sorry, man. All of my SUVs are booked.» I absolutely needed this for day trip I needed to take so I started to panic. The only reassurance the guy could give me was that maybe he might get an SUV in in a couple of hours. When I asked him how I could have successfully booked a non-​existent SUV, he told me that this is common in the airline, hotel and car rental industry. His advice was to try Avis at the next counter because they might have an SUV in stock and often price match.
While it may be true that airlines overbook, I also know they have an extensive set of procedures in place to deal with this, including bending over backwards to get you on an alternative flight, giving you a voucher for free travel, etc. etc. None of the inclination to help in any way was present with this agent.
I went to Avis in a panic and the agent Steve Cirillo was staffing the counter. I told him my predicament and he immediately went to work finding an SUV that was eligible to be dropped off in the location I was traveling to, price-​matching the competitor’s price, reassuring me, etc. I asked him if it was true that car rental agencies overbook and he said yes. I told him about how when airline agencies overbook, they have these contingency measures in place and he agreed and told me that personally, if they have to break a reservation, he scrambles to try calling other agencies and doing everything he can to help the client. I told him that none of that helpfulness was present at the other counter and he found that a shame.
The Avis car rental itself was one of the smoothest rental experiences I had. I drove the car to the alternate location, an agent checked it in within minutes, and a shuttle was there within minutes to pick me up. I’m grateful to Steve and Avis for saving my skin and am going to consciously choose to rent from them in the future if the circumstances support this.