This was the worst rental car experience I’ve ever had!!! upon landing. I went directly to the Avis office to pick up my vehicle which had been reserved two weeks prior. I was traveling with my elderly parents, and I asked them to wait at the baggage claim area in the airport since they do not have mobility and it would be difficult for them to take the shuttle to the Avis car pick up. It typically takes about 30 minutes to get a rental car and that would have been an easy way for them since we did not have any checked-baggage to pick up. . upon arrival at the Avis counter. I was met by a crowd of 300 people standing in line. Approximately four agents were working that day, December 25, 2025 at 12 noon there was a very slow process to check in everyone … nowhere to sit… no way to charge your phone no way to step out of line to use the bathroom. The crowd was hostile and it took over four hours to get my rental car. if I had any way of getting another rental car I would have left, but at this time other car rentals were sold out, and I got stuck having to wait for the service that Avis was able to provide! the workers seemed angry to work December 25. They seemed unhappy to be there. One female employee walked away from the desk at least 7 times to go get coffee as if to be sure, she didn’t work the crowd that was lined up in a speedy way… she made every effort to slow the process. Once her shift ended, she happily put her purse on her shoulder and walked off while the crowd was yelling. What’s happening? Where are you going? She turned to the crowd and said I’m going home!! some employees huddled while in view of customers and chatted with each other. As if to plan when their exit would come. When I finally got to the front of the counter four hours later, I was grateful that I had not needed to use the bathroom and I was grateful that I had a few peanut butter cups in my purse to survive on for food since I had traveled from the East Coast and have been traveling all day ! my phone battery had died, and I had asked my neighbor to loan me her charger pack, since I now had no way to contact my elderly parents still waiting for me at baggage claim in terminal one.. It only took me five minutes to get my vehicle once I made it to the front of the line. I had created an Avis profile in order to speed the process up. the young man who checked processed my rental was very efficient however he was the only employee that seemed to care that we were in need of help and stranded until someone had the heart to work our rental . People began to scream out loud asking if there were even any cars in the back for us once we made it through the line. Will we be able to get cars. I knew in my heart that there was going to soon be a riot and I pray that I could get out of there before that happened. . While I stood, there are signing the agreement other customers bombarded the desk asking about their particular cases saying that they needed help. Angry that they were not able to get SUVs for parties that were larger in size. They were promised SUVs and they were unable to get them that day. I got angry and asked them to please step away since I have waited in that line for four hours. It was now my turn to be serviced once I got the vehicle. There were no issues thereafter, but I still promised myself. I would never use Avis again.
Fortunately we arrived early to pick our car, as the check in really took a long time, even though there were hardly any people there.
It took one hour (literally, 60 minutes) to get to the front of the line. It then took 20 more minutes to be told where my car was, as "they were temporarily out of cars" when i got to the front of the line.
We waited in line at the service desk over an hour to pick up our car. Once we went out to the parking lot, and attendant had already given the car assigned to us to someone else so we had to wait for another car. When we went to leave out of the Avis parking lot, there was a problem with one of the exit lines so we had to merge with the one that was working which took even more time.
Give what they promised
We were supposed to get a Chrysler 300, we got a dirty and too small Cadillac CTS (no room for 2 suitcases) as luxury car… we finally switch to a used SUV 4x4 with a AVG consumption of 15MPG 😱. Bad experience with Avis this time…
