Avis Reviews 

The worst company to rent a car from is Europe, they treat their customers really badly. I prepaid for a 9-seat car with all the insurances in Paris, they gave me a 6-seat car, told me the code in my contract didn’t exist so they gave me a much higher price for the car, the insurance, etc or just leave, that’s right they told me to accept or just leave! I was so frustrated and angry! When I called to complain they said they would take care of my case and send me an email with my complaint, they never did it and charged me 600 euros more for a week! Incredible !! But that is the company policy because after I also rented a car in Bologna, Italy, the same thing, the manager treated me as an idiot, shouted me and my wife, and when I told her to treat us well she said she had a bad day and that was my problem 😡
I think that if a company has employees who treat clients this way is because they don’t care about their clients!!! Impossible to understand!!
I have been a client of Avis for 30 years, never again!

Was told at the desk when I collected a pre-arranged rental from Avis Marseille Airport that I would be getting a new car. With this in mind, I didn’t check the condition of the car as carefully as I would have done if it wasn’t a new car before driving off. I return the car on time 5 days later and I’m charged 1,935EUR for cosmetic damage which I hadn’t even noticed and then had no way of proving I didn’t cause. The Avis employee I returned the car to had no interest in what his colleague had said on the frontdesk about the car being new and just said ‘that’s life’ as he pulled the figure of 1,935EUR out of nowhere, which I had to pay so I could be allowed to leave to catch my flight. I was also made to sign a document in French (not my first language), which is illegal. Followed-up with Avis head office afterwards and of course it transpires the car had been used before and so I was misrepresented to. Avis will not refund the money and I’m not going to a small claims court, which unfortunately is how they can get away with this behaviour.

Was given a car with a flat tire and asked to inflate it myself, had to call Assistance, waited 2 hours to no avail. (they could not see what was wrong with the flat tire from the outside), wasted 4 hours on the first day in total, right after picking up the car, No substitution possible (no other cars available), had to inflate the car ever day, since no time to drop off the car somewhere for repair during my vacation. To make it worse, decided to drop off at a nearby Avis station to make 100% sure that I would not miss my flight on the return date, and got whaled with $330 fee, when had been told by an agent, that it would cost $50! To add insult to injury, impossible to reach anyone at Avis hotline. Always busy since!!! NIGHTMARE LOCATION, unacceptable from a firm like AVIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What an absolute disgrace! Our Avis rental car broke down and there is no way to get hold of Avis to try and help us. Eventually after 5 hours and 7 agents we are stuck in Albi in France without a car. When we eventually go hold of the 7 agents - NO ONE COULD HELP! What are we to do ? We paid for a car, got a car with brake problems, bubble in one tyre and many scratches. When we asked about the scratches and bumps the answer was very simple - you have insurance, don’t worry.
Someone out there that knows what to do? We did not get any contract because that is apparently send via email, which we did not receive.

AVOID Avis at Marseille airport. They charged an extra $700 on our credit card upon returning our car in June. I have spent 6 weeks trying to get them to explain the charge and to provide me with documentation and an invoice. I opened a case 6 weeks ago and gotten nowhere. They refuse to explain the charge or provide me with documentation. Horrible experience.

I booked a small van for moving furniture at Avis in Sens, France.

The handler at the Avis site was not very polite, but most annoying was the blocked of the deposit of 1000 EUR, as he gave all kind of excuses why it was not unblocked post my return of the car ( which was done perfectly in time and in perfect conditions ).

I had to ensure that we pushed him to unblock the deposit after successfull delivery of the car, but he lied about why it was not unblocked, and subsequently after complaining to him directly, it was finally unblocked. i.e. he stated it was a problem from my bank which is absolutely untrue, but it was all due to his refusal to unblock the deposit, I can only say "never use Avis for renting a van or car".

Arrived late because of a delay in the flight. Could not make it to the rental by midnight. My mistake was forgetting to put the flight no in the reservation. The next morning I go get my rental car and they charge me 50% more than than the pre paid rate, while de facto using the car less than paid for originally.
Manager on site completely useless and unhelpful.
While I can’t complain for the late arrival, the surcharge is just completely unreasonable and unacceptable.

We wanted a compact SUV and decided to book on location instead of pre-booking. Staff were really helpful and attentive, I noticed how attentive they were with a man who looked in distress over a booking error.
Our car was brand new and the whole transaction was quick and smooth.
The only small problem we had was the fault of the airport itself which had faulty petrol pumps preventing us from topping up before handover.
Avis simply checked the level in the fuel tank and we were only charged 17 euros which for the precise amount short of a full tank.
How refreshing!

Avis Nice office. Just useless. Just do not pick up their phone. Gave me car with no instruction on operating it.
Awful. Avoid.

Avis Cannes has a catastrophic service level !!

People waiting for more than 2 hours for Avis Preferred Quick service !!!

Avis.fr has currently rating 1.4 of 5 based on 913 reviews

If you want to spare your time in Cannes, try SIXT which has slightly better ratings here (2.1),

Hello,
I wanted to thanks from Mr.Jefferson in Avis Company Paris Airport.
He is so kind and helpful, He did the best as soon as he could.
I would like to thank him again for his service to customers and his support.
I appreciate it your patience and understanding and consideration.

Warm regards,
Farzan F

In April 2024 our photographer and I - we work for a Swiss magazine - were on a reseaech trip near Bordeaux. The tourist office booked an Avis rwntal car for us. It had two different set of tires in the front and rear which steuck us odd. And a Spanish license plate. On our second day on the autoroute vers Limoges one of the tire exploded. It was hard to reach someone and took hours until a very friendly French pannier got us and the car. But in the end we were stuck un the middle of nowwhere in Limoges. Avis promised us a taxi that would bring us to our hotel in Limoges, but it never came. I had to call the taxi service and got informed the the taxi driver hat felt unwell and coumd not show up and that Avis would solve thw problwm. But Avis had not bothered to inform us. Finally a kind of Uber driver picked us up.
The next day at an agency where they also rent Avis cars, we spent hours getting a replacement car because that agency was not directly connected with Avis.
Today I arrived in Ajaccio in order to research another travel report. Again the tourism office there booked an Avis rental car for me. This time the boite de vitesse did not work. The engine died one me several times in heavy traffic and a bus almost run into me. It was awful. I saved myswlf by getting into a private driveway.and the car was totally overheated. It had to be towed away.
My conclusion: In France nwver rwnt a ca at Avis!

I booked a car with them for a short holiday. A few weeks after my holiday, I noticed in my credit card statement that they charged a fee: I was NOT informed of the charge and they simply took the money from my card.

After contacting the customer service, they said I returned the car 2 days late. Thankfully, I snapped a picture of the car in the return location, and I actually dropped the keys in the agency to an employee, so I could send them the picture (with the corresponding EXIF information) and ask them to verify my physical presence in the CCTV footage. With that evidence, they backpedaled and refunded me.

Guess what? A month later, they charged me another 42€, again without notifying me of anything. When I inquired about it, they said I was getting a fine for some infrigement and the 42€ were the admin fees.
When I asked for the details of that fine, they went radio silence.

Other customers here complained about the same thing: they charge money without telling you as they hope you will not notice, especially if you do not regularly check your statements.

As an AVIS Preferred customer, I thought I could expect a smooth experience. Hell no, these people will invent things to charge your money, but not too much at a time. Once you scale these to all their customers, it becomes a huge robbery. This was my last rental with them.

Hire a car from Avis for one day to get family including young kids to La Rochelle for one day. I ended up having to pay €700 in total for the experience including fine for returning car 10 mins late whilst driving around to find service station to refuel as there was none near their offices. Not informed of charge when I handed car back and money just taken from account. Totally unpleasant and awkward to deal with. My best advise, bring your on car abroad and stay away from the lot of them

Horrendous experience, they have not returned my 950 euro deposit, which in there terms was supposed to be 250 euro. Avis beauvais airport in Paris, they did not respond to me for one month, hung up on three calls. It is now 31 days since I returned the vehicle, no extra charges confirmed by the teller on return and told 2 to 5 days for the deposit return.
They then claimed it would be 30 days, again not anywhere on ts and cs. Today they claim it was returned a month an ago, bank have confirmed it was not.
DO NOT EVER USE AVIS OR BUDGET, use sixt, they do things professionally and return deposit in a week.
Have had to begin legal proceedings with help from my bank and visa as Avis will not respond to me in France, even Avis Ireland are trying to help me and they can’t get an answer.

Beware of this company! My employer had rented us a car of a certain size/class as a work car from Avis car rental, Paris Roissy CDG Aeroport 2E/2F terminal. When we got to the counter, we gave our driving licenses and they went through a few things really quickly, such as the fact that you don't have to return the car with a full tank. We trusted that everything was in order according to the agreement made by our employer. We only had to give driving licenses and sign an electronic signature on the tablet. At any point, we weren't asked which car we wanted, but the key was slapped on the counter and everything was ready. They didn't even come to present the vehicle. No contract was visible anywhere, as the contract had been made in advance and only the signature field was visible on the tablet screen. The customer service person told us where to find the car outside and we went to look for it among ourselves. Later it turned out that Avis had increased the size class from size L to size E and charged thousands of euros extra for the size class increase! Avis claims in the sent document that we ourselves would have decided to increase the size class of the vehicle on the spot! This is definitely not true! We have completely lost our trust in this company. The complaint has received a negative response. We definitely need to contact the police and file a criminal report for fraud, because we are allegedly doing something that didn't happen. You can't trust anything.

Charged £26.39 as a scam saying car was returned short of petrol. Complained and shows evidence as we filled it just before dropping it off. Told i would be refunded, but only £21 returned. Having to do a chargeback on my amex on monday to get a full refund
See my amex statement attached showing petrol payment then charge from avis for more petrol. Beware!

Avis rented my friend a car in Bordeaux and they do not include a spare tire in the back or a fix flat kit in the back so my friend and I were stranded for a weekend . It was a holiday so garages were closed and Avis gave no refund to my friend. We had to rent hotels in a town that we did not want to be in and we had to rent another car company’s car. Avis never offered us another vehicle and their 24 hour number does not work on holidays. Worst car rental company in the world ! Make sure you look in trunk to make sure spare tire is there before you drive away .

I have booked a car with Avis in Bristol last weekend at 10pm without knowing that the offices closed at 10:30pm - needless to say that as my plane was delayed I found no one at the offices I had no car for the weekend and have wasted over 100 pounds - no refund not even for the insurance I will never use Avis again
Emmanuelle Taylor

This team at Marseille needs to understand that they need to treat their customers (even foreign customers) with respect. If a customer would like a receipt emailed, they should arrange to send it.