Originally Posted by
Gorrack
I rented from the Avis ORD location. Great, friendly staff, but when I returned the car from a 3-day rental I returned the Ford Focus at 3/4 full gas. I was charged $93.75 for 13 gallons @ $7-ish/gallon, which is absolutely insane considering I had filled the tank up twice during my 3 days of rental. How could 1/4 of a Focus tank be 13.* gallons? I called to dispute and the best they could do is to charge me for the pre-pay option, which came out to around $33. Is there something I need to know about for future reference? Despite the over-billing that occured, the Avis customer service at the ORD location was great.
An often lamented question, and here is the answer from an avis insider.
When you return, you will be asked "did you buy gas?"
If you put even a DROP of gas in the tank during your ENTIRE trip, you need to say "Yes."
If you DID NOT PUT ANY GAS into the car on your trip, no matter how short or long, then say "NO".
Why?
When you say "YES", the check in computer must use the gas guage to determine tank fullness.
WHHEN YOU SAY "NO", it uses the mileage driven*averagecost per mile at the assigned gas rate.
So if you filled up the tank twice on your trip, that would be roughly 600+ Miles in standard driving situations. So the computer would default to the full tank at the assigned rate.
Remember, they are NOT asking you "did you bring the car back full", they are asking "did you buy gas at all on this trip." They can see if you brought it back full on their own, thank you very much. But to charge you accurately for any gas, you need to let them know if you filled it, or not, at all during your trip.