Avis Reviews 

This is the most unprofessional car rental company I've ever dealt with. I'd strongly recommend avoiding this company. The process was riddled with problems, nothing worked as it should, and the overall experience was extremely disappointing. Save yourself the hassle and choose a more reliable rental provider.

Excellent service from start to finish. Tai at Bristol airport on Monday 6th July 2027 did everything possible to see to our car hire requirements. Tai. meticulously and, may I say patiently researched every available option for us, providing the best price for our needs, clearly explaining and guiding us through every step. His colleagues were also on hand to provide any assistance required.

Disaster from start to finish. Hired a car from Denver Airport, took 90 minutes to get a car, the last hour sat waiting for it to be delivered. When returning the car, nobody there to check us back in or help and then we get the invoice! I had prepaid with my BA voucher and for a full tank but i'm hit with nearly $1000 of extra charges, for what I still have no idea as nobody wants to talk or explain.

BEWARE BEWARE Avis are scammers, they took £700 from my sons bank account 10 days after he returned the car. First they said he left the car in the wrong place (he didnt) then they gave another reason that he posted the keys in the wrong place (he didnt) They refused to show him the cctv footage as it would prove they lied. I searched on the Internet forums and they have done this to so many people, they're lying scum AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE

Car damaged in a hail storm in France. Impossible to get hold of anyone in customer services and no communication from them for 2 months even though they managed to find the time to take £2600 off my credit card for damage to the car. Truly dreadful and i would rather walk than use them again

Very poor customer service experience with Avis Heathrow / Long Term Rentals. I repeatedly tried to arrange a monthly rental renewal, sent emails, left voicemails, and raised a formal complaint, but communication has been slow and unclear. I was also left without clear confirmation of my rental agreement and charges, which is unacceptable when a customer is actively trying to resolve the issue. Extremely frustrating process and not the level of service I would expect from Avis.

I was charged twice by the guy in the Blackpool branch, 2 lots of £495. I have been back and forth for days fighting with customer service to refund me, I’ve sent bank statements and screenshots but they are keeping my money. They have not once agreed to refund me the 2nd charge

Having rented a vehicle in Gatwick Airport dokument "Avis RA 674236275" I was unlucky to have a puncture on the rear left tire. I called Avis immediately and ended up with your "Tire Support". Having found our location (luckily in a bus stop in Bucks Cross on A39 near Bideford in Devon), tire size etc. they made a case and gave me the file number "3538289673". So far so good. But 10 minutes later they called and informed me "we don't have this size of tire in our stock, so unfortunately we cannot help you. Have a nice day". Click !!!! And gone they were. No hint as to what I could do, who to call or anything. He didn't even say goodbye.

So what do you do? When you call Avis you are met with a chatbot, which is not very forthcoming. So I called FDM Travel in Denmark, where I had made the booking, and they asked me to call Avis Gatwick. Which I did and got the line "All representatives are busy right now, We shall be with you as soon as someone is available. I heard that a hundred times and waited for close to two hours. No one answered the call.

I then called the AA and explained my situation. They seemed quite competent and an hour later a van turned up and made an emergency repair, telling me that AA would call me back a little later suggesting which garage I could drive to for a proper repair or change of tire. They still haven't called....

Luckily there was a small garage in the village Parkham, where we had rented a cottage, so I went there and they then made a proper repair, so that we could drive on the next morning.

That took the whole Friday afternoon. And where was Avis. Completely absent and obviously not answering any calls.

I have never experienced a more arrogant and completely incompetent *service" as from the tire company and a completely absent service from Avis.

Hired a car in the US and they added a load of extra charges on and doubled up on things we were covered for without telling us. Only realised at the end of the trip when we had a huge bil. Tried to get the money back but they didn't care.

Appalling company.
Choose any other rental company but not Avis.
I didn't take out insurance and had a minor accident .
My excess of 2721.69 euros was deducted but the repair was only a fraction of this amount but in their desperate attempt to not give any money back, they applied disingenuous admin and other charges to the damage which equalled the exact balance of the excess after deduction of the repairs . Complete gangster behaviour . A disgrace for a company like Avis and i have been a Preferred Customer for years choosing only to use Avis.
I would not use them again now even if they gave a me a car for free. Totally dishonest company

I’m a longstanding ‘Preferred’ customer of Avis Southampton Airport (12 hires in last 30 months) and hired a car there on 22 May 26. On pick up I took a photo of a minor scrape to the alloy wheel rim. After return of the car, I was sent an Avis damage report with photo of the alloy wheel rim scrape and £370 estimate of repair. Avis took the payment immediately which was unauthorised as I challenged the damage report. The Avis damage report photo had also been edited to enhance the size of the scrape, very clear in comparison to my photo. Subsequent email and customer service exchanges have now had the damage payment returned to me, and a portion of the car rental charge refunded. I have however continued with emails to obtain a reason why Avis edited their photo and why they took the damage payment when unauthorised. I continue to wait on an explanation as, apart from AI standard auto replies, they remain silent. From this episode I recommend customers looking at Avis Southampton Airport take note of this conduct.

What a horrific experience hiring a car from Avis! It all started well picking up the car from East Midland Airport where Vartan did a wonderful job helping us getting the car in good time.

All started to go downhill when I needed to make a minor adjustment by extending the hire for 3 more days. The nightmare started by calling in, waiting for very long time till you give up. Then I tried to email them, only to get responses by AI. After many email exchanges, I was told that someone will contact me soon.

Days passed and nobody called me! I had no choice but to call in again and to wait for long time till someone answered. They asked me to go to airport station just to extend the hire for 3 days as they can't do it themselves! I am more than 100 miles away from there but that didn't make any difference to them.

All in all, avoid AVIS at any cost. They need to do serious work on their customer support if they want to stay in business.

DO NOT HIRE WITH AVIS. Unauthorised charges taken from credit card of £300 3 days after return of vehicle that was returned with no damage. No explanation of charges, customer services 1hr + to even get through. Still not resolved. Biggest regret is not checking Trustpilot first as we clearly aren’t the first to experience this. Complete fraudsters.

Whilst on holiday in Corfu 1st car broke down i was asked to return it got charged for petrol even though it took time off our holiday, few days after mechanical fault with the wheel area of the second car i was asked again to return it back to the airport or organise for the breakdown to pick up the car then organise a taxi to pick up the third car, I returned the second car myself (again missing part of my holiday) with full tank (photo taken) but latter found out i got charged by Avis for filling up the tank. I have sent several email to Avis too avail.just an automatic return email it's been over five week and nothing. Also I may be wrong but there is something not right about the insurance or fuel advise we were offered at the desk. This is a short edited version of the email sent

Initially we had no issues, had really good service at the depot upon collection, extended the hire by 2 days, no issues getting through to do that. They we returned the car 2 hours early but it needed fuel (other hire companies have charged us no more than £50 for fuel) but avis charged us £161 for a tank that only takes £80 to fill. Tried to call avis, after 1 hour 15 I was placed back in the queue, and after waiting for another 45 minutes my call was just ended. It seems they found every reason to take the whole deposit. So,it cost me £435 to hire a car for 5 days. I wouldn't recommend this hire company. Looking at the reviews, it seems this is a common occurrence for avis.

Very disappointing post-rental experience with Avis Budget UK.

I rented a car in London and returned it on 20 May 2026 at Hartmann Road, London, E16 2PX. Almost a month later, my card was charged GBP 120.00 by “Avis Budget UK Bracknell GB”. I contacted Avis and asked for an itemised invoice, receipt, PCN/toll notice, damage report, cleaning report, or any other supporting documentation explaining the charge.

Instead of providing evidence, I received only a generic response listing possible reasons for post-rental charges. No invoice, no charge reference, no vehicle details, no PCN/toll/damage document, and no clear explanation were provided.

After that, another charge appeared on my card from Avis Budget UK, again without any supporting documentation or proper response from customer service.

I understand that rental companies may charge for tolls, fines, damage, cleaning, or admin fees when justified. But charging a customer’s card after the rental without providing documents, then failing to respond properly, is unacceptable.

I would not recommend Avis Budget UK unless they can provide transparent billing and timely customer support. Customers should not have to chase for basic evidence after unexplained post-rental card charges.

AVOID! Genuinely criminal practice.

My parents live in France and I visit quite regularly, often using hire cars (including from Avis) when I'm over there - previously without issue. This was my first experience with Avis at Toulose and it will be my last with Avis anywhere.

I arrived at the depot following a late flight with there being about 20 minutes till closing time so understandly staff were hurrying me through.

I had booked my car through a third party website and paid for additional, full insurance with this other provider. When I arrived at Avis I was genuinely surprised when the clerk acknowledged that I already had full insurance and didn't try to upsell me their own insurance, upgrades or any additional products. Previously in similar circumstances when I have booked and taken insurance out with a third party company, sales clerks at the rental desks have attempted 'pressure' or 'scare' tactics to encourage me to take additional insurance, claiming third party companies may not cover X or Y, or that they may be slow to pay leaving me initially out of pocket. It was a genuine relief when this didn't happen. The sales clerk said words to the effect of "I can see you already have full insurance so that's all fine". This same clerk then asked for my credit card telling me this was for the security deposit only and this was refundable.

The clerk asked me to sign the rental and showed me a copy of the agreement on screen, however the copy was in French (I am English and am not fluent in French). In hindsight I should have asked to see a copy in English and read it properly but as above they were closing the shop and I was conscious not to keep staff late. I had no reason to distrust the clerk, he had acknowledged my booking, acknowled the insurance and asked for my credit card, clearly and specifically telling me this was to take the refundable security deposit payment.

It was only when I returned home and was sent a copy of the rental agreement in English did I see that no security deposit had been taken and instead the sales clerk had added additional insurance to the rental as well as "additional products" - all to the value of €186.80.

I immediately challenged this with Avis and provided them proof of the insurance I had taken out at the time I had booked the car through the third party company and explained that it would make no sense for me to have knowingly agreed to buy a second insurance policy providing me with duplicate cover. Avis told me that I had signed the rental agreement in store and was therefore liable for those additional costs. I asked Avis to escalate my complaint, to confirm exactly what the "additional products" were that had been added to my bill and for the CCTV within the branch to be retained and reviewed as that would show the conversation between myself and the clerk. This request from me was now over 2 months ago and I have had no further contact from them. Prior to me asking for the CCTV to be reviewed the customer service team had been quick to reply.

Genuinely appalling service in store and appalling aftercare from their UK customer service team. It appears staff are allowed to act dishonestly and to fraudulently take money from customers in order to earn commission without penalty or intervention from those who employ them.

I wish I had read the reviews on this branch before booking, it doesn't appear that I'm the first person to have been conned in this exact same way by staff from this branch.

Absurdly difficult to contact Avis. Clearly they’ve decided that customers will continue to use them regardless of the experience. Not me.

They delivered the car with 90 miles of fuel and I returned it with 75 miles… they’ve charged me an additional £139 for that.

I used them because the company I work for actually has a partnership/deal with them. Explains why we are transitioning to Enterprise.

Unfortunately I was in a rush after collecting the car and therefore couldn’t take a picture, however I would assume they haven’t done the same from drop off…

Awaiting to hear a response.

You live and you learn for next time, but I suggest avoid Avis.

It’s unfortunate, but there was no element of the use experience that was considered well done. It was a complete mess from start to finish. The one star was for the BYD, which was not unpleasant.

Right at the start they started by charging me more than I was expected to pay, on account of a one- way fee. This was fine but very annoying to be told of it on the day , rather than when booking.
In spite of returning the car on time and the date promised, Avis did not register the return. The man at the counter, who I returned the keys to, told me he was going to take care of it but didn’t. What followed next was a case of extremely poor customer service across the board from Avis.

Firstly I get a call from their loss department stating the car wasn’t returned, 3 days after I returned it. These people had no account of a car that was parked in their lot for 3 days. Thankfully I had a full video walk around of the the car on return which had a location and date stamp so I quickly showed them the proof and they moved on to closing my booking finally, but not before delivering the Coupe de Grace, and charging me 3 days extra charge and a late fee, taking my 80 pound booking to over 300 pounds.

Then it was 5-6 calls to their helpline (which took a minimum of 1 hour , most often 1.30 hours to connect). Each call lasted a total of 2-2.30 hours including the hold time. No call centre person was really helpful in closing the queries, they just move it to another stage, so it took a total of 6 calls to finally get them to cancel the charge. This is still to be approved but is in progress. I expect to make another call when this process stays unresolved in 3 days. My last call, the call centre lady called Crisly had the audacity to tell me that she won’t refund my late charges because I picked up the car at 11.45 am instead of 11.30 as planned. I cannot explain here how absurd that logic was, anyone that had ever rented a car knows thats just nuts. Another 30 minutes ot explaining to her why I cannot accept that and finally she relented. She even threatened to cut my call if I wasn’t polite. I can assure you all i wasn’t rude, I was just frustrated and it sounded like it, but wouldn’t you be? Does it justify a customer service rep threatening me with a call drop? I think it’s a breach of their service commitment.

I’m exhausted but I felt I need to write this. You need to know this.. you cannot rent from Avis.. ever! I will never … ever! They provided unequivocally the worst customer service I have ever experienced, ever in my life.