Avis Car Rental — Local services in San Francisco

When I picked up my rental car they didn't have a full-size car available. Despite promising a free upgrade to a Honda CRV. I ended up with a dirty Nissan Altima that had just been returned. this was a minor inconvenience, I proceeded to clean it myself. At pickup, I informed the Avis representative that my company's reservation included LDW and third-party liability coverage, which was confirmed on my Avis app with screenshots as proof. However, the representative was impatient and rushed me, ultimately canceling my original reservation with accepted coverage and forcing me to accept a new one. After leaving the city, I discovered an error in my reservation. I tried to contact the location but no luck. I called Avis customer service and spoke two Avis agents who confirmed that my rental did not include coverage. They tried but couldn't resolve the issue over the phone, advising me to visit a physical Avis location. I drove over an hour to the nearest Avis branch at 6751 Woodrum Circle, Redding, CA 96002, where I met with Debbie. She made every effort to help, even coordinating with Avis customer support on the phone. Despite their efforts, including attempting to add the necessary coverage separately, the issue remained unresolved. Debbie can verify these details. It became clear that nothing could be done until I returned home. Instead of focusing on grieving and being with my family, I was consumed by the frustration and effort of fixing this rental mess. Upon arriving home,I immediately requested to speak with a manager at the rental agency. To my dismay, the person who assisted me initially turned out to be the manager who handled my rental. I confronted him about the rushed pickup process that led to a disastrous trip. He avoided taking responsibility and offered no apology, attributing the issues to being busy. Having worked in customer service myself, I emphasized the importance of patience and care for every guest, especially during challenging times. I was already emotional and stressed, apologizing for my outburst but explaining the significant toll this rental ordeal had taken on me and my family. Feeling unheard and exhausted, I decided to leave. I made one final attempt to contact Avis, calling customer support and requesting to speak with a manager. the person I spoke with seemed lacking in empathy. I requested that they review any available audio recordings of our conversations. They assured me they would escalate the issue and that a manager would call me back within 24-48 hours: Avis case number 6566 1687. Regrettably, to this day, I have not received any follow-up or acknowledgment of the situation. It has been incredibly frustrating...

PLEASE READ (I am a long time, frequent renter from this facility for the past 5 years):

1. If you do NOT have a reservation, please don't even bother renting from this location spontaneously. The chances you will get a car are very low. Go to Avis at Post Street instead (a quick $2 ride on the bus will get you there) or take the BART to the airport and rent from there ($9).

2. If you are visiting SF, here is your FAQ: (A) No need to rent the toll pass -- just pass through toll gates and pay the bill later online ($10). (B) Stop trying to pick the car if you are at this location -- you get what you get. (C) Yes, you can return to the airport / a different location. Just call ahead of time. (D) Read the signs -- don't leave anything in the car. (E) Refueling -- unless the gas price offered by Avis is cheaper than $5, just go fuel it yourself. Don't buy the fuel pass. (F) If renting an EV, YES, you should pay the $20 for peace of mind to return the car not full charge.

3. If you DO have a reservation, come at least 1-2 hours early because there is only one agent and that person takes ~20-30 mins on average to process a reservation, and another 10-15 mins for the car you reserved to arrive. YES, they have closed the counter on customers before, even if they have reservations, simply because they couldn't get through all reservations before closing time. I witnessed this firsthand sometime ago.

AVIS leadership: Where are you? I have been renting from this location for over 5 years and the service quality has severely degraded. Your systems need an overhaul - the agent said it's preventing them from processing reservations quickly. You need to prioritize those with reservations or only accept those with reservations. This is a huge embarrassment to your company at such a prime location for tourism. The line is about to spill out...

I love the check in and out process. The staff were friendly at both the Embarcadero and post street location. The only thing that is super frustrating is that the cars are NOT cleaned at all. AC has a funk smell and I had to take the car in to wash and personally had vacuumed it out. We even had to buy car fresheners because we were traveling to Arizona and we have to rely on the AC. 100 plus degree weather.

the Honda accord hybrid I rented ended up having some issues and I struggled to find a place to get rental swapped out. I went to 2 different AVIS Locations in Arizona and was told that they don’t have cars…. I had to drive about 200miles out on a car I didn’t feel comfortable with just to get it swapped out near the Palm Springs.

I wanted to same car I had or something similar because I upgraded and paid extra for an Honda Accord Hybrid which is better in the gas mileage. the choices I was offered at the airport location was Toyota Prius and Honda CRV. I originally went with the Toyota Prius since it had give nice gas mileage and I’m use to driving smaller cars but when I went to check out the car IT WAS NASTY and DIRTY!! SEATS were so dirty and stained. The Honda CRV was a bit cleaner so I just ended up taking...