Originally Posted by
richarddd
In January, I made a reservation for my local Avis for today, Christmas. Web site is still showing the reservation. When I went to pick up the car, the location was closed. Called Avis, they said no cars available anywhere near you, sorry, and no one with any authority will be in today. They could offer me a reservation in a couple of days for almost double the price.
If they had given me some notice I could have made other arrangements. They must have known some time in advance they'd be closed today.
Argghh!
Unfortunately this is not an uncommon scenario. What sometimes happens is that the location will not block their operating hours until some later point. For example, the location might block off Christmas Day on 11/1 so no reservations will be taken, but if you booked on 10/31, then you'd never know the location is closed. What is supposed to happen is that the location staff is supposed to contact any customers with reservations for a time when they are closed and inform them of such. Clearly this is not happen in this case and that is Avis' bad.
We had a similar unfortunate situation yesterday with a customer with Hertz for a pickup yesterday (Christmas Eve day). The location was closed for the day and they never informed us or the customer. Thankfully we were able to book the customer with a nearby Enterprise location that was open, but given that this is now Christmas Day when I'm sure just about all off-airport locations are closed that unfortunately won't be an option for you.
Given that Avis was clearly at fault there, my suggestion is to contact them and ask firmly that they make things right here for you. They obviously can't open the location for you, but they could offer you a credit for a future rental, which I feel is the least they can do for you.