pac3

I tend to have the same opinion now. It is quite surprising from Avis, never expected this. Lousy, lousy attitude towards Customers. And while SIXT has had active online community managers scanning these forums (and they've been of great help to a bunch of people, me included), Avis apparently has nil.

I commented back my issue with SIXT staff in Barajas a few days ago, and even them they were aware of longs waits widespread with Avis for a while now, and that they already knew that someone had waited hours on end for a car one of these days.

Mackle

My girlfriend has remarked that quite often our LHR hired Avis cars have a smell of smoke in them. The insides tend to be dusty too. Maybe it's hardwork keeping a large fleet clean.

Recent bad experiences with Avis; booked a "Nissan Juke or similar" from LHR for £80. When I arrived my name was not on the preferred board. Eventually they said that they could either give me a Golf, or if I paid £40 I could have an upgrade to a Mercedes C200. So I went for the Mercedes, and was then charged £120 when the car went back as Avis claimed it was always £120 on top of the £80 I'd already paid and that I had misheard. But on top of this, I left a pair of prescription sunglasses in the centre console, and Avis have not contacted me back each time I have called them; "we will check with lost and found and call you back" is all I ever get.


I see Sixt has been mentioned; only used them once in FRA East, but overall the experience was good. Unlike Avis who always just assign a car, when I checked in with Sixt I was given a choice of three immaculate and spotless cars (a 3 series saloon, 3 series estate, and an A4 estate) which was nicer than my usual Avis experience of booking a Nissan Juke, being given a Hyundai or a Focus and told it's a presidents club upgrade (I really want to try a Juke out!) and not being able to change it.

Vinotraveller

Certainly if (like me) you generally hire BMW 3 series (or equivalent) or bigger, then Sixt tends to have far more of these type of vehicles at Airport locations in Europe, so that if there is an issue with a vehicle then there are alternatives. As a platinum I tend to get more "real" upgrades with Sixt compared to Avis; very regularly a BMW 5 series when I have booked a 3 series for instance. I think if you are hiring smaller vehicles then Avis has plenty of choice though, and in that instance upgrades have been better in my experience.

Price wise though Sixt are often a bit more expensive, but worth it to avoid the arguments I was having everytime I visited their TLS location. I always booked a C class or equivalent and here is a list of vehicles they tried to con me in to taking instead;

Citreon C4
Volkswagen Passat
Peugeot 3008
VW Transporter Minibus (!)

Always in the end after around 30 minutes argument they magically found something better, but life is far too short and I ended up dreading my encounters with them.

Mackle

Vinotraveller

It was very bizarre - I said that a VW Passat was not equivalent to a C-Class (which it isn't) and asked for something bigger. The agent pointed to the minibus and said I could have it if I wanted something bigger! On that occasion they ended up "finding" an Alfa Romeo Stelvio in the end.

Anyway, I have booked my next four rentals at TLS with Sixt and was delighted to find they are significantly cheaper than Avis on luxury vehicles too, which was an unexpected bonus. That had not been the case for the last 30 months,