Avis Car Rental Reviews 4,780

Made a reservation in December last year and paid the full amount of £534 at the time of booking online. The total price clearly included:

Car rental: £373
Vehicle cover plus insurance: £161
Total paid: £534 for 7 days

when arrived in Iceland to collect the car, I was informed at the counter that the £534 I paid only covers the car rental and that the Vehicle cover plus insurance was not included. I was further told that I would need to pay again for the Vehicle cover plus insurance when returning the vehicle. Showed them the confirmation email they said insurance is included, but havent been paid for.

It was too late to cancel or rebook, this is scam. DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY.

Avis Car Rental’s entire IT system was down across the UK on 22 March 2026, yet they provided no proper communication to customers and seemed to have no effective recovery or contingency plan in place. We needed a rental car urgently to attend a wedding, but there was no clear next step, no alternative arrangement offered, and even the timeframe they had communicated had already passed.

This is completely unacceptable from a company providing an essential service. Businesses like this should be required to have an immediate disaster recovery and continuity plan in place, not only to offer compensation afterwards, but to protect customers from being left stranded when their systems fail.

The app has significant room for improvement, especially the search functionality. The biggest issue, however, is billing—my invoice showed only half of the prepaid amount, which is unacceptable. Customer support is equally frustrating, hiding behind automated replies and failing to address the issue.

If zero stars were an option, that would be my rating. Despite being a preferred customer, I will not book with AVIS again and cannot recommend them to others.

Be warned this company is an absolute shambles from the people on the front desk right through to their supposed customer service. Rental desk at Orlando airport was so slow I thought we were going to miss a day of our holiday. When we eventually got to the desk and refused all the hard sell extras the agent tried to get us to take he was extremely rude muttering something about stupid tourists. Used the Florida visitors toll pass as we have done on 5 previous visits with various rental companies with no issues ( none were with Avis) but have now been charged $50 dollars (for $11 worth of tolls with the pass) because we should have turned the transponder off. This was NOT pointed out by Avis even when we said we had the visitor toll pass. This was like going back to our first USA visit 30 years ago when rental firms tried to get you to buy every add on going. Not a pleasant experience and one I will never repeat with this company anywhere in the world. I would rather walk than be ripped off like this again.

We booked our car for our 14-day Norway road trip from Avis via Booking.com.
Our payment was made to Booking.com, and the only extra payment for tolls was to be paid at Avis.

As soon as we landed @ Oslo Airport, Gardermoen (OSL) we headed straight to Avis car rental. Luckily the queue was short and we were attended by a lovely lady. She explained all the required information to us and handed over our key. For documents she only asked for our driving license, and it was quick. She also took credit card details, blocking 1,000 NOK as a security deposit. She said the deposit would be returned after returning and inspecting the car, minus any tolls, tickets, or late drop-off fees.  
Going to the pick up section was easy and we got a lovely VW ID3. We loved how smooth this car was; it gave us no problems during the whole journey.  Finding charging stations was never a problem and charging the car was easy.
After finishing our trip the process of dropping the car off was easy and we just had to drop the car key in the assigned Avis rental box. (We dropped our car exact date promised)

Cut to 2 weeks later: we received a bill and they had blocked 5600 NOK. This was after debiting Toll charges. We were in shock. Avis phone number given in the pamphlet (I have attached an image) does not work. No one answers the call and it's useless, as I have tried multiple times. I even emailed the AVIS COMPANY and they do not respond to emails other than the autoreply. After emailing and complaining repeatedly to Booking.com (who were helpful) and waiting two months, we received a refund of 5000 NOK but 600 NOK was not credited for a reason that made no sense. One cannot ask for an explanation because there is no customer service, and no one answers calls or emails. 

We have traveled to 40+ countries and hired cars everywhere (not through Avis though), but we have never had such a bitter experience.  
No wonder AVIS rental has such bad reviews. When we hired the car we had such a good experience and we wondered how they could have such a bad rating; well, now we know!

Don't ever hire a car from Avis.

We rented a car in the UK for our holiday in Morocco. On the website it clearly say that the hold on the card for the duration of the hire to cover any damages over and above the standard insurance would be a maximum of US$300. There was no asterisk next to this comment. On arrival in Marrakesh, we were told that, either a hold of £1,600 needed to be put on our credit card, or we'd need to pay another £198 for extra insurance. When we questioned this we were told "it's in the terms and conditions". While, if you read through the terms and conditions the information is there, given this is in direct conflict with the information on their website, it seemed like an intentional con.
As well as that, the car was in an incredibly bad state with parts of it covered in some sort of gaffer tape. We only used them because they were the only people showing as having a 7-seater available for hire. In the future, we'll stick with Enterprise as we've always had good experiences with them.

Made up damages after return without any evidence. Avoid at all cost!

I have rented from Avis Bratislava multiple times for long periods and have always been a loyal and reliable customer. I have even recommended Avis Bratislava to my friends and colleagues in the past.
During my latest car return, the staff inspected the vehicle in person and clearly stated that the car was in perfectly good condition, with only two tiny scratches on the rear bumper, which he acknowledged were normal wear from loading and unloading luggage. He explicitly told me they were insignificant and nothing to worry about. I saw the two small scratches myself—each only about 5 millimeters long—and did not give them a second thought.
The very next day, I received an email claiming these minor marks as “damage” and demanding a charge of 400 euros. I was shocked and extremely disappointed by this completely unreasonable and excessive charge.
When I tried to resolve this matter in person and show the staff the actual condition and my photos, they refused to take responsibility and simply told me to contact customer service by email. There was no willingness to inspect the car again, no willingness to listen, and no respect for a long-term customer.
This is a clear case of unfair billing and misleading customers.Charging 400 euros for two tiny, normal-use scratches of just 5 millimeters is outrageous and unethical. It is obvious that the company is over-exaggerating minor wear and tear to overcharge customers.
I cannot believe a company I once trusted would treat loyal customers in such a dishonest and unprofessional manner.I do not recommend this location to anyone and strongly advise other customers to be extremely careful when renting here.

Beware, scammers!

Last year we rented a car from them, and unfortunately the return date fell on Easter. We returned the car to the parking lot and left the keys in their drop-off box, as instructed. Unfortunately, my husband forgot to take photos of the car before leaving.

They didn’t return our deposit for a long time, so I contacted them. They replied that the car had “damage” and was also “not refueled” (!) and therefore they would not return the deposit. I was shocked and asked them to provide documents proving this. A couple of weeks later they wrote back saying they had made a mistake and returned only part of the money. They kept the rest, insisting that the car had supposedly not been refueled.

I never wrote this review until now, but I will never forget this experience. I always warn my friends about what Avis is really like. Be careful!

This is kind of funny, but I wrote to their support on Google Maps 4 months ago, on the same day they replied to me here, and they just ignored my message.

We had a 500km return trip to make and are still waiting for our deposit plus a free days hire promised to us due to two dangerously threadbare tyres (same as Adam), one was down to the wire! We had a 500km return trip to make, the guy who replaced the tyres told us he was disgusted with the condition of the two tyres and surprised we made it.

Rented a 12 passenger vehicle for a team event and was told at the counter they did not have a vehicle of that class for me. Given a much smaller vehicle. Afterwards when I asked for compensation for the extra expenses I was incurring in Ubers and extra trips to move people around, I was given the runaround by Avis. Terrible experience.

I would like to give them a -1 review. We had a reservation for a Kia Telluride and had been promised they would have one set aside for us to pick up. When we got to their office to get the vehicle they had already given it to someone else and wanted us to settle for a smaller vehicle. The people who got it did not have a reservation and were just walkins that morning. The person at the counter was non-caring and made no attempt to satisfy our request.

Picked up a car and got down the road and noticed there was fresh blood stains all over the car. I called amd reported it amd the lady said there nothing we can do until u return it so I cleaned it my self disposed of my contaminated clothes and returned the car. And after their careful consideration they came refund me the price of 1 day. Blood born pathogens can live outside the human body for over 2 weeks. Not even close to the effort I put into cleaning that car

Kennesaw, GA Avis was fantastic! The service, quality of vehicle, and professionalism was wonderful.

Awful service and genuine desire to pull the wool over the eyes. Quoted pricing before VAT, even though we are all subject to it, and provided assurance of facts blatantly untrue

I called this company before purchasing a hire car. The rental was £70. It was confirmed in a call that i would only have to pay the £70 even after advising i had £1,000 limit on my credit card - they advised I can purchase at no extra cost with a my debit card. I stated so i only have to pay the £70 and nothing else - they confirmed this is correct. I got to the Airport to pick up the keys and was told i cant have the keys unless i pay £375 on top on hte £70 for full insurance because of my credit card limit - I explained the phone call and they said no keys until i pay - I had no choice i needed a car as i was visiting and taking my nanna to her cancer appointments. I didnt not get any funds back - ADVOID THIS COMPANY!

Allready Booked a roadside assistence via. Booking.com
They charged me extra on another one. There was nothing mentioned like this to me and i never agreed to this......money is away

Ii is fraud. They should be investigated and have huge class action for unauthorized charges and pay 💰 in civil courts not arbitration for the frauds. Do not rent there!

Avis came up with false claims of damages and even claimed we didn't refuel the car which was obviously wrong. They finally stopped the claim and then came back with different claims weeks later. This is such a scammer company. It's too bad we booked with them. Hope other people won't make the same mistake...

I rented a car from Avis at Munich Airport through Rentalcars. At pickup I was given a better car than the one originally booked, but it was not clearly explained that this upgrade would result in an additional charge of about €90. I only realized this later when I received the final invoice.

In addition, when returning the car they noticed a very small scratch on the wheel rim and charged about €250 for it. So the total extra costs was about 350€.

The most frustrating part was that it was very difficult to reach Avis customer service afterwards to clarify the charges.

I have rented cars many times before and have never had any issues with any rental company until now. I will most likely choose other rental companies in the future.