I had one day in Belfast to drive up to the Antrim coast which had been a lifelong dream of mine. I pre-paid for a rental in Belfast and had the car about 15 minutes before I clipped another car's mirror. I was told I needed to not only return the car immediately, but that Avis would be unable to issue me another car. The car I was driving had no damage, other than a scrape to the side mirror.
On top of that, Avis wouldn't refund me the day's rental fee I already paid. Ultimately, I paid about $150 to drive a rental car for 15 minutes. The agent on the phone recommended I return the car to the airport (instead of the location around the corner from my hotel) since there were other agencies nearby and they might be able to rent me a car. All of the other agencies were out of cars, so I needed to spend an additional 10 euro on top of that to take a taxi back to my hotel. AND to add insult to injury, calling Avis to let them know I had been in an accident was roaming on my phone so the 30 minutes on the phone cost me another $10 on top of that.
This was an awful experience and not only will I not rent from Avis again, I'll be recommending to my work that we no longer use Avis as our provider of choice moving forward. The littlest bit of courtesy would have helped here, but there was zero understanding or compassion on Avis' end. The day was saved by two strangers who let me drive up with them, and I've told everyone I've met how wonderful they were.... and how awful my experience renting from Avis was. read more