Avis Reviews 

Avis Mallorca Airport - DO NOT RENT A CAR HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, this is an example of why you should thoroughly read reviews and vet vendors before renting. Like several other reviewers, we also were just hit with fraudulent charges for damages we did NOT do (and the photos of the “damage” are unclear as well - a missing parcel shelf (which we didn't even know existed) and vehicle idle time????) and are now in the process of having to fill out additional paperwork and disputes with our credit card company for a very straightforward four day car rental in Mallorca. In addition, the car was rented out having not been cleaned. AVOID this AVIS franchise at ALL COSTS!!!! It is unfortunate that an airport location of a well-known international car rental franchise is repeatedly charging customers false damage charges. In addition, we will be following up with AVIS customer service to complain about this location.

If the charges aren’t removed, we will be contacting our attorney to pursue further. They picked the wrong customer.

Este es un ejemplo de por qué es importante leer atentamente las reseñas y verificar la reputación de los proveedores antes de alquilar un coche. Al igual que otros usuarios, nos han cobrado cargos fraudulentos por daños que NO causamos (y las fotos de los supuestos daños son poco claras - ¿Falta la bandeja portaobjetos y el tiempo de inactividad del vehículo?). Ahora tenemos que completar trámites adicionales y presentar una reclamación ante nuestra compañía de tarjeta de crédito por un alquiler de coche de cuatro días en Mallorca que era muy sencillo. Además, el coche se alquiló sin haber sido limpiado. ¡EVITEN esta franquicia de AVIS A TODA COSTA! Es lamentable que una sucursal de aeropuerto de una conocida franquicia internacional de alquiler de coches cobre repetidamente a sus clientes cargos falsos por daños. Además, nos pondremos en contacto con el servicio de atención al cliente de AVIS para presentar una queja sobre esta sucursal.

Si no se retiran los cargos, nos pondremos en contacto con nuestro abogado para tomar medidas adicionales. Se equivocaron de cliente.

Problem 1
- I booked a car for 32 days from 14th August to 15th September 2026. Pick up at Seville Airport and Return at Gibraltar.
- My booking was accepted and confirmed by email.
- The Avis person who handed me the car keys said “you have rented for 32 days” to which I replied in the affirmative
- By chance I discover the rental contact sent to me by email is for only 30 days. Longer contracts are apparently not possible despite what the person at Avis Seville said.
- I cannot extend the contract until the expiry date, and I have to go to an Avis office to have the car inspected and make a new rental for two days.
- This is bizarre behaviour. Why take the 32 day rental booking in the first place? And why didn’t Avis Seville tell me about this issue?

Problem 2
- I added my daughter to the rental contract as an additional driver week after we had rented the car.
- The person at Avis Puerto Banus said the charge was €11.99 per day and we could take my daughter off the rental contract whenever we liked.
- He said he would send an amended contract by email, which never arrived. I was therefore left in a legal and risk vacuum, which could have been extremely costly.
- I went today to take my daughter off the contract.
- I was told that the additional driver cannot be taken off the rental contract and that the cost was a fixed fee capped at 10 days.

Conclusion
- Avis has very poorly trained staff.
- Most seem lazy and unmotivated, and several are downright unpleasant. Claudia at the Puerto Banus office was a clear case in point.
- Avis Customer Service’s attitude is basically “pay now and after the rental contract expires we will review the situation” if you complete a form.
- Avis is not worthy of anyone’s custom. Don’t use them is my advice. There are plenty of other car rental companies to choose from.

Not the car we booked – and no follow-up

We booked a VW T-Roc Cabriolet Automatic or similar (Group K) at LPA, but were instead given a VW Taigo Automatic (Group E).

The staff promised to contact us the following day with a solution and a car from the category we had booked. They did not. We followed up ourselves in writing, but still received no response.

The most disappointing part is not that the correct car was unavailable when we arrived, but that Avis repeatedly promises to follow up and then does not do so.

We are still waiting for Avis to provide the vehicle category we actually booked.

—

No nos entregaron el coche reservado y no hubo seguimiento

Reservamos un VW T-Roc Cabriolet automático o similar (Grupo K) en LPA, pero en su lugar nos entregaron un VW Taigo automático (Grupo E).

El personal nos prometió que se pondrían en contacto con nosotros al día siguiente para ofrecernos una solución y un coche de la categoría que habíamos reservado. No lo hicieron. Nosotros mismos hicimos un seguimiento por escrito, pero seguimos sin recibir respuesta.

Lo más decepcionante no es que el coche correcto no estuviera disponible a nuestra llegada, sino que Avis promete repetidamente hacer un seguimiento y luego no lo hace.

Seguimos esperando que Avis nos proporcione la categoría de vehículo que realmente reservamos.

I came on 30/08 at the counter with paid reservation via Booking. The didn’t want to start serving me, just communicated with each other and the lazy guy with long haircut and glasses just was not happy I came. After that he took my documents and told me, that the card is not from my country, that’s why he cannot give me the car. Total bulls#t. I gave him the card from my country, he disappointed and told me, that my driving license is not international, but they are, and he refused to give me the paid car again. I called for someone higher, the woman came and they started to push me mentally together. I called booking to cancel, they asked this AVIS workers, they talked, and during the call, the woman told - it’s just not happening. By that time the first guy and his colleagues were laughing. I wish specifically these idiots to have the same treatment they gave to me.

I booked an Avis car through my travel agent and paid for the car as part of the package - 10 days @ €1,094. All good. When we arrived in Palma airport to collect the car I also added a €460 damage waiver to make the excess €0.

At the time I was told that a €900 charge would be taken but that I would be refunded all but the damage waiver. To be honest when I signed the agreement (maybe more fool me) I didn’t query every line item.

I have since found out that my agreement organised via my travel agent was a prepaid package included car hire, collision damage waiver (CDW), theft protection, third-party liability insurance, vehicle registration fee, and local taxes.

Now that I am back I have been charged €776 comprising of a location surplus charge and “additional products” where the former is an extra charge for picking the car at the airport which seems a little excessive. This means I have paid €1,800 for a basic car for 10 days; €180 a day feels excessive for a Cupra car.

I have tried to solve this with the customer service team and their responses have been somewhat unsatisfactory.

Very disappointing experience with Avis. I made a reservation in advance, but when I arrived at the location, there were no cars available. This was actually the second time this has happened to me with Avis, so I honestly regret giving them another chance.

The employee at the location was helpful and called other Avis locations until they found a car for me elsewhere. However, I had to spend more than $40 on transportation to get to the other location.

I rented the car for one week. Two days before I was supposed to return it, I called Avis to extend the rental for another week. The agent who answered told me that I did not need to do anything and that, as long as I did not return the car, the rental would simply continue and the additional amount would automatically be charged to my account.

I followed those instructions exactly. However, when I eventually returned the car, I was charged additional fees for returning it late and for keeping the vehicle for an extra week.

I have spoken with seven different Avis agents trying to resolve this issue. Some could not even see the charges on their system, others said they were unable to make any changes, and ultimately nobody was able to resolve the situation. In the end, I had to pay for an error that was caused by the information I was given by their own representative.

What made the experience even worse was that the last agent I spoke with told me that the information shown on my reservation is not necessarily final and that Avis can add additional charges if the company considers them necessary. That is extremely concerning when customers are expected to rely on the information provided by the company.

After this experience, I cannot recommend Avis. Poor communication, unexpected charges, and a lack of accountability made this one of the worst car rental experiences I have had.

Pre-booked car hire in U.K. Arrived to a huge queue at Avis desk over an hour waiting. Told by Avis representative that the insurance we had paid was not enough and we would have a 2,500 euro excess which we would have to pay and then claim back . We were charged an extra £160 for "full coverage ". We didn't get the car we had booked. Car very shabby didn't feel safe to drive so we only used it to and from the airport. Thought the extra insurance scam had stopped years ago. DO NOT RENT FROM AVIS THEY ARE COWBOYS.......Also check tyres on the car ours were almost bald.

The first impression we had was great and then we learnt never to rent a car with Avis again. That's why this review has 2 stars but if you value honesty and not being charged without reasons given, stay away!

We rented a car from 04.-12.10.2025 are Avis Nice. When we got the manual car we realized in the parking lot that we couldn't deal with the car they gave us and it was very easy and we even got a discount on the surcharge to switch to an automatic car.

We didn't have any issues with the car during the days we drove it and giving it back in Marseille was also ok.

Nevertheless we were contacted on 23.10. by Avis via mail where they told us that an infringement of the driving rules had been recorded on 08.10. at 09:03 for the car we had rented. They sent a reference number and the name of the entity which had recorded the infringement but no link or official document and when we tried finding anything with the entity name and number, we couldn't.

When we contacted the several times about the fact that we hadn't left the apartment we were staying at until 09:45 that day and had parked in the owner's parking spot as they had indicated us to do, we only got answers that we needed to pay a 35€ administrative fee for Avis having had to deal with the infringement recording.

They told us that we had to pay that fee immediately and that the actual fine could take months to get to us. We paid the 35€ eventually and contacted Avis again after 9 months as we never received any fine. We opened to complaints at Avis and didn't get any answers.

Long story short: If they scam you for 35€, they might scam you for more, so don't rent with them!

I've just returned from Fuerteventura, I hired a VW Tiago for a week although I had booked a VW T roc. I waited well over a hour at the Avis - Budget desk which ment it was dark by the time I collected the car.
I had to pay an extra £169 on the car insurance although I had paid before I left.
The car was awful to drive, before I next drove the car after we had arrived at out resort I noted that each of the tyres were bald, very little tread, I didn't feel safe driving the car, I report this to Avis on return and they ignored the complaint.
I would never hire a car from this company again, I found them unprofessional con men.

I rented a car at AVIS BCN - Passeig de Gracia. I signed the car inspection online in the front desk with little scratches before seen the car. Trustin on that, I didn't check and take pictures of the car. After leaving the agency, I found a huge scratch that wasn't marked in the inspection. I didn't have any accident and when returning, AVIS said that I caused the big scratch and charged me in 3.500 euros on my CC. A total SCAM, that I'm disputing it. KEEP AWAY FROM AVIS IN BARCELONA. They are a scam business.

Rented a car from Bilbao. On the website it says you can pay with debit but this does not account for all debit cards. Unclear communication that caused me to be unable to rent. Was told I would get my money back but still haven’t received anything.

DO NOT USE! Terrible experience (second one in a row) with Avis at Girona airport in Spain. My flight was delayed by 30 minutes and despite avis knowing that and having my flight details, they closed the rental location without leaving keys or contacting me. All their phone lines were closed also (spanish, uk and international numbers) so I was left stranded with no means of transport.

I ended up getting an emergency vehicle from Sixt at 3x the price (albeit with great customer service).

Trying to get my money back / compensation from avis is proving extremely difficult with emails unanswered, fobbed off on the phone etc.

This was after hiring a car in Gibraltar with Avis and them attempting to scam me for car damage. Luckily I took photos and videos of the vehicle when I returned it (they rarely have anyone to accept the return) so was able to prove there was no damage.

Their customer service is shocking and fail to deliver any service all frequently.

Avoid

I would never rent a car from Avis Spain again and I strongly advise others to think twice before using this company.
After returning the vehicle, I was charged a location surcharge that should already have been included in the rental price. I submitted several complaints and requests for clarification, but not a single one was answered.
On top of that, I was charged for alleged damage after a tiny spot was found on the windscreen. I clearly stated that I disagreed with this assessment. The return report noted that someone would contact me to discuss the case further. That was over six months ago, and nobody has contacted me since.
The most frustrating part is not even the money – it is the complete lack of customer service and communication. As soon as there is a problem, Avis Spain simply ignores its customers. Emails go unanswered, complaints are ignored, and no explanations are provided.
This has been the worst experience I have ever had with a car rental company. Poor customer service, unjustified charges, and absolutely no follow-up. I will never use Avis Spain again and cannot recommend them to anyone.

The car return process was a farce. In a dark parking lot, the guy found something in 30 seconds that he called a scratch on the rim. We had to shine our cell phone flashlights really brightly—it’s almost invisible in the photo. He knew right away that the car didn’t have that “damage.” Interestingly, he picked up the previous car from the renters without shining flashlights on the wheels. This is fraud and a rip-off. Never again, and I don’t recommend them. Be careful!!!!!!

I had the worst experience here. Travelling with the family, I made reservations for two cars.
When we arrived to pick up the cars the rude personnel told me that I could not make reservations for two cars – even though I could prove that is exactly what I did, and that Avis confirmed them both! I am very dissatisfied with Avis not honoring the agreement.
I had no other choice than to make a new reservation with a 50% higher rate! Next time I will choose another car rental company.

ery disappointing experience with DiscoverCars.
I was refused the rental car because of my Revolut card, even though the booking terms and conditions do not clearly state that Revolut cards are not accepted. The terms only mention that virtual cards are not accepted. My card is a physical card issued by a licensed bank registered in my country. While Revolut describes it as a digital banking card, it is not a virtual-only card.
I contacted DiscoverCars to request a refund. They acknowledged that my card was issued by a licensed bank, yet they still decided that AVIS was justified in refusing to provide the rental and therefore refused to refund my money.
What makes this even more confusing is that just one month earlier, the same AVIS company accepted the very same card without any issues in Italy. This clearly suggests that the problem is not the card itself, but rather inconsistent policies or poor communication between DiscoverCars and AVIS.
If certain cards are not accepted at specific rental locations, this must be stated clearly and unambiguously before the booking is completed. Otherwise, customers end up paying for a service they cannot receive because of unclear and inconsistently applied rules.
For these reasons, I cannot recommend DiscoverCars.

The worst experience ever of renting a car. From the moment we arrived at the desk we were told the price had changed and we needed to pay more - not for a buyer car not for insurance - they claimed because of “rates” we fought this and miraculously the rates changed back to normal and we got our car! We then were told to pay double what the website asked - €200 deposit became €400 deposit! We paid this just to get the heck out !! When we returned the car we got an email that we had damaged a bumper and our insurance had to pay almost €500!! This never happened !! I asked for photographic evidence but I was just left without a reply ! Classic scam!!
So when budget asked me for a review I left my honest feedback - job done !
Until I find an email in my inbox from “Avis budget” giving me stick about my review and how I ruined some guys salary ??? I have no idea how an international company can be run so badly!! I for sure will never use them again!!

It doesn't surprise me the overall rating is 1.3.
Pulling any kind of scam possible in Spain.
Told that I could not give the key back to the staff at Malaga Airport. Only collections are dealt with.
Result? A late return fee levied, when I can prove time of return.
Told on collection RentalCars insurance is not valid. So paid them for nothing. So had to re-insurance full waiver. Both operators then dispute the insurance.
Then have to pay a 'local surcharge'. For what? The receipt doesn't say. Just an extra fee at the look of it.
IF you hire a vehicle at an airport in Spain, FULLY expect to be ripped off.

WARNING: Fraudulent billing scam and fabricated damage claims at Budget / Avis Madrid Atocha. Do not trust this location.

I rented a car for a short trip, returning it early, completely undamaged, and with a full tank of fuel. Because I was in a rush to catch a train, I dropped off the keys. Days later, I discovered they illegally charged over €2,000 to my credit card.

When I demanded the paperwork, their own internal documentation exposed an outright scam:

Charging for Pre-Existing Damage: They billed me €1,400+ for "Accident Repairs" to scratches on the right doors and front bumper. However, my original, signed pick-up contract explicitly logs that these exact same scratches were already present on the car before I ever turned the key! They are actively trying to make customers pay to fix old, pre-existing wear.

Fabricated Customer Log: Their internal report claims the "Customer refuses to sign" a damage form at 13:34. This is a complete lie. Their own system logs the car check-in at 13:47, and my train literally departed Atocha station at 13:42. It is a physical impossibility to be standing at a desk refusing a form 13 minutes before a car is scanned in, while simultaneously being on a departing train. They fabricated the "refusal" to bypass compliance protocols and force the charge through.

Admitted Billing Errors: Customer Service has already formally admitted that their refueling charge was a "mistake" and had to retract it. If their local agents are careless or dishonest enough to fake a fuel charge, their assessment of body damage cannot be trusted.

I have officially launched a formal fraud chargeback with my credit card provider.

On a more personal note: As a regular customer of Avis Budget, I am extremely disappointed and feel a complete refund of the money taken illegally from me is not enough. I will make sure to let the public know what kind of company you are and what a disgrace to your brand the Madrid branch is. Avoid this location at all costs!

Extremely poor and careless handling of traffic fines.

I rented a car with Avis/Budget in Barcelona and later received two French speeding fines that were attributed to me through their fleet/rental process. The problem is that I was not in France at the time of the alleged offences. I was in Begur, Spain, and I have evidence proving it, including hotel check-in confirmation, hotel invoice, booking confirmation, a card payment in Begur, and photo location data from the same afternoon.

Despite this, Avis/Budget charged me administrative fees for processing the fines and sent me a generic response saying they had provided my details to the authority. They did not properly address the key issue: that the driver identification appears to be wrong.

I asked them for the full rental contract, vehicle assignment details, pickup/return times, the basis on which they identified me, and a copy of the information sent to the French authority. Instead of giving a concrete answer, they repeated the standard procedure.

This is not acceptable. If a rental company designates a customer as the driver for foreign traffic fines, it must be able to prove that the identification is correct. In my case, the evidence clearly shows I was in Spain while the fines were issued in France.

I am now forced to dispute the fines with the French authority and the charges with my credit card company because Avis/Budget failed to properly investigate. Terrible customer service, careless administration, and zero accountability.