Overcharge on rental car = $10K in lost business to Avis
 

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.:td:

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. ^

Okay, let me summerise this, and make changes as you see fit.

1, You're Avis First and wanted a compimentary upgrade for your rental.
2, You were upset that they wouldn't upgrade you over the phone and had asked you to go inside to request an upgrade and recieve your paperwork for the new car.
3, You chose to take a vehicle that was not issued to you assuming that you could just take your upgrade that you felt was yours.
4, when you got the new paperwork you chose to not look at the newly issued paperwork to review what charges you'd be billed for and then left.
5, when returning the vehicle you chose to not look at the amounts that you were billed for on the paper receipt.
6, when you finally got around to checking the amount due you were upset that a few weeks later it was larger than you anticipated, when this could have been resolved BEFORE leaving the airport.
7, you're disputing this with Amex (which will likely not work)

TL;DR - I was issued on rental car, and then took a different one with out asking about the cost and am now upset that it is $190 for the day.

Being Avis First (and Pres Plus to boot) myself, I've been upgraded pretty regularly, but not all the time. In the "grab and go" cars if I hadn't liked the car that I've been issued going inside is not that much of a hassle and I've generally been able to get what I want.

Let me know how Hertz works out for you. When you do as you wish at Hertz and get charged where will you go then?

YOU SOUND LIKE A DYKWIA KIND OF PERSON WHO THINKS YOU ARE ENTITLED TO DO AS YOU WISH.

When do you take responsibility for any part of the mess you got yourself into?
You do not check before acting and this carries over into YOUR customer service. You got billed more than expected because of your action or lack of following direction. You never verified your bill and then you over billed your client without verifying the charges you billed him for. Poor business practices on your part.

How about you do your job from now on.

Aren't Avis First upgrades subject to availability and not guaranteed?

Nothing to see here folks! DYKWIA at it's finest. Enjoy Hertz.

This is 100% OP's fault and it's only Avis' own silliness that it apologized and consented to the chargeback. OP:
1. Took, without permission, a vehicle to which he was not assigned. Whether entitled or not, the key is permission."
2. OP ought to thank the lot attendant for catching OP's scam and changing the paperwork. Else the missing vehicle would be reported stolen and OP answering some unpleasant questions to folks who carry guns.
3. OP didn't read the paperwork when he left the lot, didn't read the paperwork when he returned the vehicle and didn't read what he submitted to his own employer.

Neither Hertz nor any other car rental company will be any different. They may screw-up, but you can't use self-help to fix the problem.

Whatever it is that OP says he spent -- actually his clients spend -- this is a customer Avis can well afford to lose.

Good riddance GeorgeBurdell. Less people like you renting from AVIS will make my experiences better.

P.s. a "Status Match" to AVIS First? Thats hilarious... You know all you need is 10 rentals to make AVIS First right? Its a b.s. status level that entitles you to a "space-available" one class upgrade.

Over on the Hertz forum, a lot of people complain about Hertz not giving upgrades, not giving upgrades to clean, fun, low-mileage vehicles, such as an upgrade to a 35k mi scratched up smelly Impala, or giving an upgrade within the same class without much of a discernible difference, such as Camry without a sunroof class F to Camry with a sunroof F6. If you want real "choice," go with National.

Rather surprised to see a DYKWIA post by someone from a September 2001 join date.

Everybody else in this thread seem to be spot on. You took a car that you weren't issued or supposed to take and got charged for it.

No sympathy here.

Please reconsider and stay with Avis. I dont want to ever be stuck behind you at Hertz!

After some of the posts in the Marriott forum, I had to click and read this thread for entertainment...

LOL
 

Avis First gets you a ONE class upgrade, when AVAILABLE.
Ford Escape is not one class above an intermediate car. You were lucky to get that before, but you are not entitled to it. Avis was right to charge you.

I had a look at the Marriott forum and didn't find anything especially amusing or angsty. What threads are you looking at?

Maybe I have high standards for "angsty" after reading the constant angst-fest that is the United (scuze me, COdbaUA, thanks $mi$ek!) forum.

Oh, and just so that this thread isn't totally off-topic, I'd like to share everybody else's big "Haw haw" at the OP. I hope, OP, that you will be stepping in to personally reimburse from your own pocket the $160 that you cost your client through your impatience and DYKWIA behaviour.

It seems they have either been deleted or merged into other threads (I am too lazy to search through all of his posts to find them), but the OP has a reputation in the past on the Marriott Boards for DYKWIA (perhaps some of my fellow Marriotters can point you in the right direction).

Post a link please, would be highly entertaining I think.;)