*still charged

When booking on Avis.com "Pay Later" option, isn't the rule that if you don't pick up the car (for whatever reason), your contract is simply cancelled after 2 hours and you aren't charged?

For my Denver Airport rental last weekend (Friday-Sunday rental), I ended up not picking up the car (for whatever reason). On Friday I did get the usual notification saying "Your car is ready at stall M09 with licence number etc etc", along with the email saying that they'll keep the car for 2 hours.

I didn't think much of it, assuming it will cancel after 2 hours (the system would not let me cancel online once the rental has started).

On Sunday, I get a notification "Car checked in!" along with the contract closure email, with the $90 charge on my credit card which has posted (I initially thought it was just a hold). Inspecting the return contract, it shows that the car was driven ~100 miles over the weekend (who drove it? I never picked it up).

Checked T&C, and there are no such no-show penalties. Called customer service and they have said they will investigate and undo the charges in 2 weeks, but really, I shouldn't need to call for this.


Honestly, this kind of makes me want to put an expired card in my avis profile so that my cars are not automatically checked out. But then you have to wait in line since contract isn't ready when you show up.

Denver Airport is one with a gate-id-check so I'm surprised someone even was able to take the car out for a 100 mile spin under my non-picked up rental contract. Calling the denver avis number just dumps me into the generic customer service line who can't do much but say "investigation will take 2 weeks".