At the bottom of this posting you will see a copy of my post on this page from November 2013. It seems that nothing has changed at Avis UK - you are still "Trying Harder" not to service your customers.

Here's what happened to me on Tuesday of this week:

I had a reservation for a car to be picked up at T2 LHR and had provided my flight number. The flight was delayed with the result that it arrived after 2300. I was accompanying my mother who was in a wheelchair and therefore taking up the time of a member of the airport staff to push her around (since we also had a trolley with checked bags on it). On reaching the posts 7 and 8 we saw the notice saying after 2300 to go to the desk in the terminal and use the phone there to call a shuttle bus. Off we go back up in the lift and all the way over to the car rental desks, only to find that the Avis phone is dead. No dial tone, no ring, nothing. So I then phoned the number given on the reservation confirmation 0844 544 6000 which says it is open 24 hours. After waiting for over half an hour for someone to answer that number, while being repeatedly told I was the "next in line", it was evident that there was no-one willing to talk to me. It was thus again not possible to get a shuttle bus to the Avis office. Accordingly I picked up one of the other phones from a different rental company where there were real people available and willing to rent me a car, albeit at a higher total cost than my Avis discount would have afforded me.

This type of dis-organisation from a major Car Rental Company at a key location is totally unacceptable and, given the similar experience I had in 2013 as described below, appears to be of no concern to Avis. What kind of organisation are you running? What do you intend to do about it? Or do you simply not care?

And here is the story I posted in November 2013 - sound familiar?

This is a story about how Avis UK “Tries Harder” (maybe)

Last night I arrived at Terminal 1 at Heathrow around 11pm. Went to the Avis bus pickup point at the Arrivals level and noticed that after 11pm one is instructed to go to the Avis desk inside and use the phone there (with the Avis logo all over it) to call for a pickup bus. This I duly did. The phone rang for over 15 minutes but no-one answered. There was another notice on that desk that gave an 0844 number to call. Not living in the UK I was not aware that this was a premium rate number so I called it on my cell phone. After going through a seemingly endless series of lengthy “Press 1 for this, press 2 for the” stuff finally got to “Press 6 to talk to a real person” (I paraphrase). So I pressed 6. I was then treated to music and advertisements for Avis’s wonderful service for a few minutes and then a message “No one is available to answer and you cannot leave a message, please hang up and tray again later” and then the line went dead. I dread my cell phone bill now I have been informed that these 0844 numbers are a surreptitious cash grab by the companies publishing them.

What is a fellow to do now? The taxi drivers claimed they were “not allowed” to take people to car rental offices so I went back in and tried the “Avis” phone again. Another 20 minutes of ringing with no-one answering. Fortunately the fellow at the tourist info desk then spotted me and said “go upstairs to departures, there might be a bus there”. This I duly did and fortunately there was a bus there. Woohoo. The driver expressed shock and amazement that I had actually managed to find him, evidently he was fully aware that there were no instructions visible anywhere at the arrivals level to indicate that the other instructions about phoning were false and that one actually had to go to the departures level after 11pm.

Upon arrival at the Avis office I asked the clerk about this and was treated to a belligerent attitude about how there wasn’t much business late at night and anyway the Avis desk at the arrivals level wasn’t really an Avis desk but was put there by the Airport. Oh yes - and he knew that the phone didn’t work. He didn’t seem to care and at no time was even an apology offered.
So I finally got my car and pulled up to the gate to leave the lot. It was now about 1155pm. There seemed to be no-one around. After about 10 minutes wait, intermittently pressing the car horn to try to attract attention, finally someone showed up to check my paperwork and let me out.

I am really struggling to figure out just exactly what it is that Avis “tries harder” to do. Cynics might have a viewpoint - I’ll leave it to them to work that out for themselves. It would be awfully nice if someone from Avis could explain it to me though and also why I shouldn’t rent from Hertz next time.

Oh yes, BTW, I have been a loyal Avis customer for a few decades now - have Avis First and all that.

Hmmmmm.