Avis

RUN As fast as you can!!! Please be aware of this Avis rental company. Wish I could give ZERO Rating My experience was terrible beyond, I had pre-paid everything but when I got to Heathrow the girl said that I never paid for my GPS And then she added additional charges of 114. I told her I did in fact prepay and she said they will refund me if I am charged twice. I WAS CHARGED Twice, I called to have this corrected and to my horror I was told that I had requested a upgrade. I am not stupid, and I know what I asked for hence pre booking. I wrote to Avis and they said that I had requested an upgrade when clearly, I DID NOT. I do not appreciate being lied to and being charged. On looking through reviews here several people have mentioned this SCAM.

Efficient and super friendly service, both on collection and drop off.
Convenient location and near to bath road with all the major hotels.
Like, I don’t get excited about hiring a car nor about writing a review about the experience but this was as literally as painless as it can be.

Charged my credit card after I turned in the car for fees unknown. Will not answer any inquiries from me, do do yourself a favor and stay away from these crooks!

Helpful and nice despite the pain of having to get a shuttle which you don’t need at terminal 5

By far, the worst experience ever. We were charged for having me as an additional driver and when we tried to have me taken off, were told we were «Pompous Americans» thinking we could change the terms of our agreement. We were charged over 100 bps for a service we did not use. Inflexible and completely lacking in customer service. As a result, I will never rent from any Avis anywhere! BUYER BEWARE!

yes, horrible experience. this indian man tried to charge my card 800 usd for a 7 day small car rental. he did not disclose the charges. i booked in advance and also, my credit card number was compromised after this so the sales department women was committing fraud on my account. horrible customer service, illegal uses they did not disclose the car that was booked was a stick shift.
i will email the manager. all these people in london try to steal money from tourists please beware and stay away from this country. full of criminals and theives!!!

Booked a car in advance from the U.S. using a company discount. Arrived after 12 hrs travel to receive a hard sell from the customer rep to upgrade to a diesel because it would be cheaper since we would be driving to Scotland via Wales. Should have known better: when all was said and done we spent twice what we would have with the gasoline powered car. In retrospect, a tired traveller should not be subject to such sales tactics on arrival at a reputable car rental company.

Excellent exceeded my expectations!
Easy to find from Terminal 5 at LHR — follow the signs from luggage collection to their desk and to their parking lot (level 4).
I had a reservation (non prepaid) thru AARP /​Expedia and they actually had my reservation ready!
NOTE: Budget car rental is the same as Avis at London Heathrow airport. Just follow the signs that says «Avis /​Budget Car Rental»
I thought they would do the typical rental car experience of saying they lost my reservation and I would have to pay thru the nose routine. NOPE — not at this car rental location.
They were the lowest cost before we headed out so I was doubtful at first.
When I arrived at the counter in the parking lot (flight ran late and their counter service inside the terminal was closed but a very easy to follow sign was posted showing how to get to the parking lot. See sign photo I posted…
Up the elevator and voila — we were there in a few minutes.
Counter rep was friendly, found our reservation and had us booked in the promised Ford AUTOMATIC transmission car ready to go with keys. But when we went to find it, was nowhere to be found. The rep apologized and then said, how about this beautiful blue Mercedes A180 CDI at the same price? I said, sure of course that would be nice.
So at the same rate as the Ford Fiesta, we got a Mercedes A180 CDI diesel. What a nice upgrade because they could not located the Ford.
See the photos of the Mercedes we got at 25GBP per day ($ 37).
We chose the fuel prepaid option because we didn’t want to have to locate a petrol station before returning it at the busy Heathrow location so we got a deal at 50GBP to pay ahead of time for the fuel. All we had to do was return it empty which was perfect. When we did return it a week later, the fuel gauge was at ¹⁄₈ tank!
Return of the car was easy — just follow the signs at the airport «Avis /​Budget Car Return».
The car was perfect — very economical but powerful diesel engine kept up with the high speeds on the British motorways (similar to freeways, but some areas have no speed limits)…
Diesel is the way to go in Europe due to the cost of fuel @ $ 7USD per gallon !
It was interesting to compare, the Mercedes diesel was not very peppy at low speeds — it took awhile to spool up while my BMW diesel in the US is super quick to take off. Maybe the Mercedes lacks a turbo charger because the rear emblem says «CDI» instead of the common TDI in the US? My BMW diesel has twin power turbos which might explain the difference ?
Definitely rent here again when flying into LHR.

Avis at Terminal 5 in Heathrow
Avis/​Budget have the only car rental actually in Terminal 5 (as opposed to a desk at T5 but the cars are elsewhere). So yes, they are conveniently located if this is your arrival terminal. However, its clear they know they have a monopoly and their service standards are poor. We waited 45+minutes to been seen by a (hopeless) counter clerk on 19/​December/​2014. We had pre booked and pre paid, yet still the clerk took 20 minutes to process our paperwork. Really? There must be a better way to do this. And yes, as others have pointed out, random charges do occur so be VERY CAREFUL when booking.

Worst rental service I have ever used. When I arrived to pick up my rental they asked me if I needed a GPS, which I had pre-​booked and already paid for. When I told them I would need it, I was told it would be about 10 minutes and to «go get a coffee or something». After waiting for about 1 hour 45 minutes, I finally received the GPS. Only to get to the car and realize there weren’t any accessories, making it useless. After going through 2 more GPS’ I was finally able to leave. Upon returning my vehicle, I was approached by one of their employees, while still in the car, and asked mileage. He then reached through the open window, over me, and took out the GPS and the keys from ignition. I received miscellaneous charges to my account, in which I was told they would be returned. One charge was returned, only for two more to be taken out. After paying the initial booking fee, Avis had charged my account over $ 400 more than they should have. I have contacted their customer service to no avail. I will never use this company again and strongly suggest others to avoid them.

Terminal 5.
The great upgrade RIPOFF
Beware of Avis trying their upgrade tactics. I reserved my daughter a car using BA using travel miles. I advised her to ask for insurance as she was out of her home country and ask for a GPS.
The agent said no problem they would put her in a car with GPS built in.
She initialed when asked and did not take notice of e cost. Yes seriously her own fault but she did not expect to get ripped for 860 pounds on a prepaid car rental. I expected to see a charge of 300 for insurance and GPS but this was a shocking email from AX when I got 860 pound charge.
After 30 years and hundreds of business rentals with Avis I expected a better business ethic than this.
So all beware of carefully reading the paper work before signing Avis paper work.

It is a shame that I cannot give them a zero star rating. One star will have to do.
Avis has apparently completely disempowered its staff and also developed an attitude that «we don’t make mistakes.» This leads to a situation where their system is riddled with bugs, yet nobody there is also to resolve the resulting customer issues.
I booked a car online from the USA and then went to collect it in the UK, as I have done for many years, I have been a customer for approximately 20 year. When I collected the car, I saw that they had already charged an old credit card. I was totally unaware of this. The website has not told me that it would charge the card that they apparently had on file for me, and the confirmation did not mention it either.
It turns out that this was the wrong card, and that I would not be getting the insurance I needed using it. I asked at the counter for them to refund to that card and charge another card. They told me that they could not do it and that I needed to call Avis USA. Having not slept for 24 hours, and needing to get where I was going, I took their theft /​collision waiver, doubling the cost of the rental, and drove the rental car to my destination. I then called Avis USA, who said they could do nothing and that the counter had to resolve it.
So I then spent half a day driving back to Heathrow to have them resolve it. Again, they told me that they could not. I drove back to my destination and called Avid USA again. The «customer service» representative told me that they had done nothing wrong and that «we not make mistakes.» !!! Read that again, «WE DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES» !!! She said that any resolution would have to wait until the rental was over and then it would be in their system.
After returning to the USA, I emailed Avis Customer Service. They told me that they could not do anything, that they could not refund me the cost of the insurance because I had opted for it and that they had proof of that. After I complained a lot and said that I would not use them again, they offered me an Avis certificate worth about ¹⁄₃ the amount they charged for the unnecessary insurance. I obviously cannot use this certificate, because that would involve having them charge my credit card, which I would now never allow them to do.
Then I tried to remove my credit card from their site. There is no way to do this. I emailed them and asked them to remove it. I have no idea if they are able to do this. I am concerned that there will now be other unauthorized charges on my card.

I will never use Avis again. The whole experience was fine until we got home and started getting random amounts charged to our bank accounts. We paid in full at the time we picked the car up, even paid extra so we didn’t have to refill the gas tank when we dropped the car off, yet we continue to get these extra charges MONTHS after being in England. We were first charged an extra $ 100 for MSC expenses. When we asked what they were they just e-​mailed a copy of the original receipt with the amount we already paid. This extra $ 100 wasn’t there. Now we receive another bill in the mail wanting $ 110? Are you serious??? E-​MAIL ME A DETAILED BILL EXPLAINING THESE RANDOM CHARGES! We are so tired of trying to get in contact with Avis to figure this out.
If you are thinking of renting a car from here. Beware, and expect to get fun random charges that have no explanation.

I really use Avis all the time and find that the folks here at customer service at Avis in London Heathrow are TOP NOTCH. IT is why I continue to use them and there are many other choices!!!
I usually rent for long periods of time in UK, 2 – 3 weeks or more and there are other local rental car agencies that will drive your rental to your hotel or place of business at a greatly reduced rate. This is advantageous since to rent from LHR and then drive to your place that you are going to is STRESSFUL. However, Avis Customer Service and car selection at Heathrow is fantastic and relieves all issues.
1. Pricing — always competitive
2. Car Selection — Not too strong on what the European cars are and how to compare, but these people are always trying to upgrade me for FREE to a Mercedes or BMW and sometimes I accept. I drive a lot in small towns on the B roads and if the Merc is large, I deny it as I prefer nimble small cars. However, all the cars are clean, easy to manage and diesel selection and manual selection is great.
3. Customer Service — This really makes the experience and makes me continue to come back. LHR is the busiest airport I have ever visited and the people that work here, should be «not bothered» but they really care. Each and every time I come here they are nice. Funny when they wanted to upgrade me to the Merc, I was thinking Mercury and in US a Mercury is no real upgrade. But it is amazing how many times I come here, that they want to upgrade me for free without prodding from me. That is really great feeling that they treat you with respect and care.
I like Avis and look forward to always renting from them at LHR.

Really the best of the bunch at LHR. Transfer bus seems to be frequent and leaves as soon as ya get on. Quite a way from LHR T5 but really only 10 mins.