Waiting until afternoon to pick up my car at a neighborhood Avis car rental office in Germany proved to be a bad idea: I was told there were no cars left.
Avis Ran Out Of Cars – Agent Simply Shrugs
My wife and I planned a dive to Bavaria to a certain town in which rail travel was quite difficult from where we were. Consequently, I reserved a car at our usual Avis (yes, the one that refused to rent to me because I did not have an international driver’s license after a decade of renting from them without being asked for such a document).
We showed up at about 2:00 pm on a Friday…in fact, we walked from the house…to encounter an incident unfolding in front of us.
There was a German man yelling at the clerk as the clerk yelled back.
Man: “I have a reservation!”
Agent: “We have no cars.”
Man: “But I have a reservation!”
Agent: “I said we had no cars.”
This went on for a few minutes, but it was futile. There were a few cars in the lot, but this man was not going to get one.
He stormed out in a huff.
I looked at the agent and smiled. Rather than speak in German, I wanted to play the part of a naïve foreigner who came all the way to Germany to rent a car.
No dice.
Since I was calm, the agent was calm back…we did not raise our voices…but even as a President’s Club member, there was no car. The cars that there were three were to be picked up tomorrow.
I did ask why they got the car instead of me and was told, “Well, you just made your reservation. They made their reservation long ago.”
That’s an interesting approach…
I was going to say that next time I will prepay, but there may not be a next time. I was not even aware there was a Europcar in town, but we went over there and had no trouble renting a car on the spot. In fact, the lot was full of cars. It was twice the price, which hurt, but at least we could keep our appointment.
CONCLUSION
I’ve had drama after drama with this particular Avis office, but running out of cars is still a thing. If you want a car, wherever you are in the world, I do suggest you show up earlier rather than later and if a neighborhood office, call and confirm availability before you leave.
The same thing happened to me this past Saturday in Austin, TX. No cars and lots of frustrated people. I cancelled my prepaid reservation (just got the money back on my card) and took an Uber to my hotel. Avis is by far the worst (along with Budget since they’re owned by same company!). Say what you want about Hertz, but at least they have cars and I’ve never had a problem with them.
Deja vu – I had an exact issue, also in Austin. The saving grace is keep refreshing the app for car availability, and grab the car off the app before someone else does.
Cars also have to be returned on time as well.
I’ve had that happen at National many times, especially on the East coast, even though I was at the top of their food chain. I started insisting that they grab a car from their sister company, enterprise.
This will never stop being relevant or funny!
https://youtu.be/ZTvtSKXwu0o?si=XFxvZJ7tMMDfMclp
The lesson appears to be that Avis location has good prices but not terribly good service and they aren’t getting the message. It’s probably an individual franchise that’s making good money and doesn’t see a need to change their ways.
Your interaction reminds me of the classic Seinfeld skit: youtube “Seinfeld the car reservation”
Is it ok to post URL’s if they are relevant? Seinfeld’s experience seems to be EXACTLY what you went through.
I’ve seen it!
I probably told you this story before (so apologies in advance if repetitive) but the Bavarians seem to be more easygoing than the rest of Germany according to my Polish friends. Here’s a fun story of what happened when they did the traditional Polish rite-of-passage: Buying a high mileage/kilo BMW from Deutschland and taking it back to Poland:
He and his brother were planning to buy it, drive to a hotel, get a night’s rest, and drive to Poland but they couldn’t register it because it was too late or something like that. So the guy who sold it to them gave them an old license plate and they were on their way. But of course… they get caught up in a DUI dragnet just outside of the town they were going and the police questioned them:
[in German]: “Are you aware that this plate is for another car?”
“Keine sprechen sie Deutsche!”
[in English]: “Are you aware that this plate is for another car?”
“I don’t speak English!”
The cops dragged them back to the station and were trying their best to communicate with them but they stood firm but the Germans were NOT going to release them. So one cop said to the other: “OK, we bring in a Polish translator from Berlin. They’ll pay for his time.”
My friend, who actually is a German instructor, said in perfect High German: “OK, I speak German. We just bought the car.”
The cops were LIVID! They said: “OK, you’ll pay a 100 Euro fine!”
My friends laughed. If they knew it was so little they’d probably have not resisted so much. After the cops calmed down they laughed about it and were cool and sent them on their way.
It turns out that the other friend works as an English translator too.
You’re not alone the same thing happened on this side of the Atlantic in Atlanta, Georgia at a neighborhood Avis. My husband and I made out reservation 3 days in advance at the Midtown Avis location. We show up and was told they have no cars. They agent was Avis hasn’t been shuttling cars between locations or the airport and neighborhood locations like they have in the past. The agent did ask if we prepaid and we were like no and he was like good because if we had prepaid we would have to call the 1-800 number to get our refund because he couldn’t issue refunds. We ended up going to a neighborhood Enterprise location they had a lot full of cars we had no reservation at Enterprise but we ended up with a car and it cost us less than Avis wanted to charge us.
I was thinking of the Avis on Courtland St in Atlanta while reading Matthew’s post and about to mention it when I saw your reply. That place is a madhouse especially every weekend. President’s Circle or prepaid, no matter. They are almost always out of cars. Apparently this is a favorite for people to go and rent a car to drive Uber for the weekend (though I’ve always questioned the cost/benefit of renting a car to drive Uber, but I will admit I’ve never been in a situation where driving for Uber was a thought or didn’t have a reliable car of my own at home). The issue with that Avis location is that it is a consistent issue of being out of cars… and it has been that way for at least 15 years so it isn’t anything new. Usually they are telling people to get on MARTA and ride to the airport to go rent a car.
Matthew is lucky there was a Europcar in town. I’ve faced the issue in my own travels in the US where in a smaller market, especially post-COVID, there may be just one rental car company. Some airports, they aren’t even open for all arrivals (which I find fascinating when there is only one airline arrival a day and they close 3 hours before that time but won’t do after-hours rentals). I had one occasion where I arrived, it turns out the on-site Enterprise was really just a phone to the off-site office, I had a reservation as a National Executive Elite, confirmed it the day before, and they forgot to drop off the car, and were closed when I arrived. Better yet, middle of nowhere with no Uber and only 2 local taxi drivers. Thankfully the nice agent from Cape Air allowed me to change my return up by a day and hopped back on the plane I just came in on, and left.
The Avis on Courtland forget about it that location is a ****hole. We went to the Avis location located in the Lowes Hotel right off Peachtree Street a much more civilized location but they still didn’t have my car even though I reserved it 3 days in advance.
Avis is just horrible. Rented a car in DXB. Non prepaid. Got in to find out they had a different car than ordered. Fine. Returned 2 days earlier agent argued that I won’t be able to receive any money back where nobody said anything, it wasn’t prepaid and….. it is not written in the contract.
Long story short – they played games, I had to do a chargeback for the amount which I won. But just horrible customer service. Of course Avis Filipino customer service couldn’t have cared less/do something/help/assist apart from reading from a script
Had this happen with Enterprise in rural New York state while my car was in the shop. The reservation went thru, but then received a call that no car was available. Was told if I had any further questions, talk with regional manager which I did. To accommodate me, he gave a Chevy Suburban at a second location at a compact car rate. Drive the SUV for the weekend, and paid more in gas than the final bill for the rental.
I’ve seen this on a number of airport authority websites under their Ground Transportation… they say the stuff Enterprise/Hertz/etc can’t say on their own sites like: Call the local office to reserve to receive actual car availability as national reservations may not be up to date.
Go to Maui… lots of Avis cars available there right now. Maui needs economic help in a sensitive way.
There is such a difference between Avis corporate locations (generally at the airport) and the franchisees (generally the small neighborhood in-town offices). I’ve had mostly excellent service at the corporate locations, and mostly troubled times at the franchisees. The Avis website tells you if it’s a corporate location. If your considering a franchisee, my advice is, just don’t.
I used to work part time for Enterprise driving cars around town. Keeping the right inventory at each branch kept us busy – shuttling cars from branches. And when someone kept the car for an extra day or two, it sometimes meant disappointing a customer. Sometimes, even the airport ran tight, with us taking cars immediately from the car wash to the waiting customer.
Happened to me in Cleveland in July. My flight was a couple hours late (I included my flight info with my reservation) so they decided to ditch my reservation even though I was still on the way. I ended up snapping at the manager over the phone. His excuses were terrible. I even brought up the Seinfeld scene.
Fortunately the very kind and understanding lady at the desk was able to count the number of people left in line (it was near closing time) and determine that there were just enough cars left to get everyone a vehicle. I made sure to give her a glowing review.
I never learn my lesson. I’m going to use Turo more often.
Where were you able to dive in Bavaria? I thought that area was fairly landlocked.
Avis was such a great company pre covid and my go to. Since then it has vastly changed and they are heading right down the path of Hertz. I have switched over to National and Sixt. National being my favorite….they are leaps and bounds providing better service and technology (as well as cars) and Sixt is a good back up when National is too expensive – with perhaps the best cars of all in their fleet.
Agreed. In US I choose National.
Oh dear! So at what point did you switch to german? 😉 Did heidi get involved?