Avis

I'm used to excellent servis when used AVIS before and choose AVIS when I needed a car in Catania, althouht the price was almost double to other rental companies. My experience with AVIS in Catania was not good. I have avis preferred but still spent 30 min waiting for my turn at the counter and then 20 min for the agent to process my request, and in most of the time it was really just waiting. The AVIS agents said their system is slow. After that with very little explanation and unclear signs I finally found the car assigned to me, which was scratches on the front, back, all over right side and a bit on front left and top. The car was also a bit dirty so I had to clean it with napkins and use my cellphone flashlight due to low light conditions on the parking, so that I see which one were real scratches to document, all while my wife and kid had to wait yet again. I pointed the scratches to the car agent and politely asked him to fill up the paper and document this, and while he was doing that, his behaviour was grumpy and unapologetic. He clearly indicated he was not happy with me asking him to fill up the papers or give me another car in good condition. I also had rented a child seat, which was given to me damaged, no belts. Initially I thought that maybe I don't know how to use it since i have a different model and asked the agent for help to show me how to operate it, he refused and told me that it's not his responsibility. I spent more time looking for instructions and figuring out how it works, then it turned out that belts are missing from the seat so he finally replaced with another seat in working condition, but extremely worn out and old model. When I returned the car the other agent was very polite and nice. I really had a bad experience this time, I wish AVIS will look up the quality of service provided by Catania office and make it same as other offices I've rented from before where all was excellent. Did the agent not know the car was scratches before they assign it to me? Why do I have to look for scratches all over and push someone to document them? If I was a little bit more careless I could have easily missed these and then have to pay for them? That's really felt like the people were trying to cheat and scam me. Not good.

This is the worst car rental service, Ive ever experienced. We arrived with a late flight and had to wait 2 hours just to get our car. With two small kids, that wasnt a pleasant experience. You would expect that the company would know how many people are coming in for a pick up due to the reservations and have more people work at the counter. We only had one person. I ended up taking a taxi with the kids to the hotel while my husband waited for the car. The costs were reimbursed due to this online review. However, our car unfortunately also broke down on the way down from Mt Etna. The engine didnt work anymore and we smelled something was burning. We called the road side assistance and they said we would be called back because the callcenter people didnt speak English. It took them 40 minutes to call us back. It was around lunch time and our children were hungry, so we decided to walk to a restaurant nearby but one of us had to stay with the car. The person who called from Avis couldnt help with arranging a taxi for us to get to the Avis car rental for a new car. She wouldnt even give me a number so I could call for a taxi ourselves. We had to arrange it ourselves by asking some locals. She said Avis would reimburse our taxi costs since it wasnt our fault the car broke down. When we got to Avis, the person at the front desk tried to charge us a premium rate for the petrol because the car broke down. We refused and they changed it back to a regular price per liter but it left a bad taste in our mouth. It took us from 11.30 am till 5pm when we finally made it back to our hotel. So it was a whole sunny afternoon wasted. Handing in the car was no problem but getting our taxi costs reimbursed at the front desk (140 euros in total) took a lot longer and some discussion around paying for the road side assistance because it doesnt include broken down car. They only paid back one taxi cost, one baby chair and will give us some vouchers but we will contact our travel agents about the taxi trip due to the broken car because this is unacceptable. We HAD to get road side assistance not because of our fault but because the car Avis rented to us broke down. Its not even about the money, but my valuable wasted holiday time because of Avis (either waiting hours in line or spending half a day sorting out a broken car). The people are so friendly in Sicily and we had no problems besides the car rental on our holiday. But Avis really need to improve their customer service and experience in general because we left Sicily feeling like Avis really ruined part of our experience here in Sicily.

Was a bit apprehensive about booking a car here given the poor reviews but everyone here was super helpful and friendly and helped us cancel and erroneous booking. Car return was easy (after working out which one of the many car parks to return was for Avis) and got invoice promptly with no exorbitant extra charges some of the others seemed to have encountered. They did charge us extra 5 euros per day for snowchains as they said it was regulatory for this time of the year.

I have only positive experience with Avis/Budget from Spain, Portugal and Germany. After the online reservation, I was called by the Avis office in Milan to prepare some details of the contract so the paperwork in Catania was smooth. I've got a car with some scratches that I had to show to the Avis employee and we marked them to the contract before leaving the airport. I strongly recommend to do it. The return of the car was also without problems and I was charged the amount I confirmed at the time of reservation. It was not easy to find the office (outside the terminal) and then the parking. Avis could improve the indication of both locations to spare their client's time. Although CTA was maybe not as pleasant as other A/B offices, in the end, everything was OK.

Returned the car in the same condition as when it was when rented - with no visible damage. The "return inspection" revealed a mark under the front of the car. I went back to the car and was able to wipe the mark off the car, it appeared to be a narrow strip of something sticky. The staff refused to acknowledge that there was no damage, instead pointing to their photographs before I wiped off the mark. You are in a hopeless situation, with a plane to catch and no chance of support from anyone, hence in my case I had a bill for 299 Euro for a "repair" which is not required. Avis international did not provide any support with my complaint even though I provided my own photographs. Hence I will no longer be using Avis anywhere in the world.

The agent tried to charge us 700+. Thought this was unusually high and booked same exact car/days with same insurance on the Avis website - turned out to be around 300. It’s either a bad branch or huge disconnect between agents and corporate. Also of course the usual up-charges on my card after the fact. One redeeming thing is the car was nice and well kept. In general I always have had way better dealings with Avis in the states so maybe it’s a tourist/location thing.

DO NOT RENT A CAR FROM THESE PEOPLE. As many other reviewers have said here, they are thieves and basically run the same scam over and over again. I rented a car from them and the agreed price was $238.63. The car was returned in perfect condition and with a full tank. The person at the car rental received the car and said that everything was fine and that I could leave to catch my flight, which was almost departing. A few hours later, Avis sends me an email saying they would charge me an additional approx. 600 EUR for alleged damages (one very minor scratch) to the car. This allegation is false, as I have pictures from before and after the rental to prove that this minor scratch was already there (also, even if it was true, it wouldn't be worth anywhere near 600 EUR!). I emailed Avis (to the email they provided) four times, attaching the pictures from before and after the rental. It's been a week and they haven't replied. I've also tried calling them and they don't reply. I think this is a known scam here, where the car rental knows you're a tourist who is about to get on a flight and leave the country, so they make up additional charges, knowing that it will be hard for you to dispute the fraud from another country. In the end, they charged me $1,045.80. That is $807.17 above the price agreed ($238.63). I am currently reporting this fraud to the Italian police, the European Anti-Fraud Office, the E-consumer platform, my bank, Expedia, etc.

It’s shocking how such a well known brand can have so little quality control over its branches! Had a prepaid rate car booked in October. At arrival the agent spent an excessively long time trying to sell various additional extras and upgrades which we didn’t want and was a little patronising in his efforts to make us upgrade. We were then allocated the most battered out car in the yard with only some damages marked down which resulted in more time wasted going over everything else with an agent. Obviously annoying as there were many other similar size cars around in better state of repair and not being used during the low season. It hardly left us with a valued customer feeling. The car was also filthy inside. On return an additional charge was made, tried to discuss with agent but he just kept stating that it’s all in the contract. Overall very bad experience. Felt like this Avis branch was determined to charge us for something extra one way or another. We managed to have the additional money charged on our credit card incorrectly refunded since our return home. We were lucky to have booked through British Airways who arranged for the refund.