About a month ago, I had a car reserved in Charlotte. I received the email as I was sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting to board my flight to CLT. I saw that Avis had not upgraded me as an Avis First should have been. I called the location and asked the person who answered if they could go ahead and swap me out for an upgraded car. They refused to do it and told me I'd have to come inside when I got there to do that. The conversation continued on for a little while as I attempted to point out that he could just switch the reservation to the upgrade as they should have done already. Finally, I gave up. Even the guy sitting next to me was shaking his head at the stupidity of the conversation. This was also not what I expected since Avis in Charlotte has generally treated me very well in the past and upgraded me to some nice cars.
When I arrived in CLT at Avis, I noticed a Ford Escape on the upgrade line. It didn't have any upgrade price on it and I've been upgraded to these from an intermediate rental many times in the past. Irritated at being told I'd have to come inside for an upgrade, I grabbed it and headed out. For some reason (which I found out why later), the gate person had to do some paperwork before he gave me the agreement.
I didn't check the receipt when I returned it the next day since I trusted Avis and knew they'd email me one. Little did I suspect that they had grossly overcharged me for my rental.
The next week, I was reconciling expense reports and saw a charge for $190 come through. I thought it was for a full week rental so I billed it to my customer in Denver.
The following weekend, I was reviewing my Amex statement and noticed that the charge of $190 was for a ONE DAY rental in Charlotte of the Escape. Now I've billed this to a customer in my company's expense system. Understand that it's really difficult to back out an expense once it's gone through.
I had already dinged Avis on the survey they sent me. The station manager had responded and apologized for the lack of customer service. So I sent him an email and outlined the issue and asked him to fix the charge so it reflected the correct amount of $40. He replied back the next day and said he'd take care of it. That was the last I heard from him.
So 2 weeks later, I called Amex and disputed the charge. Meanwhile, after numerous internal emails to my admin staff and my time, I managed to get the credit from Amex associated to the correct internal account and so forth.
After this lovely little incident, I decided to move my business to Hertz. My total spend for both business and personal last year with Avis was $9,797. So because the Avis manager dropped the ball, I'm now a Hertz customer. I've also requested a status match from Hertz for my Avis First level.
BTW, some of you may point out that I could have called the customer service line and had the charge corrected. But I (wrongly) assumed that since the manager had told he'd take care of it, that I didn't have to do that.
My gripe is not only their lack of follow through but the way they treat elites. Since they implemented that upgrade line of cars thing, the attitude of the Avis employees is that I should have to take whatever un-wanted PoS is out there and move on. I'm sick and tired of having to spend time negotiating an upgrade when it should be already done and ready for me when I arrive.
Now when I get an email from Hertz telling me where my car is, I can see what's available and do the switch from my phone as I walk through the airport. ^