We’ve been very aware that our policy on cancelling and amending pre-pay bookings has been inconsistent across Europe. This week we hope to have addressed this by re-launching our policy so that it is the same across our European network. We also like to think it is now much fairer to our customers!
Now if you cancel a pre-pay booking, a cancellation charge of £20/€25 will apply (or £40/€50 for any ‘special’ fleet such as Select Series cars in the UK). However, a booking can be cancelled free of charge within 48 hours for call centre bookings or 24 hours for website bookings. If a customer does not turn up for the rental then she/he will have to write in for a refund although a no show fee of £70/€95 will apply (or £150/€200 for Select Series /’special’ fleet bookings) .
If you wish to make an amendment to your booking then there is no charge. However, there will be no reimbursement if the amendment would have resulted in a cheaper rental.
Of course the alternative to pre-pay is to ‘pay later’ where no payment is taken until the rental has completed. But I would recommend going for the pre-pay prices as they are generally a fair amount cheaper than ‘pay later’ prices.
May 31st, 2008 at 4:59 am
I did a pre-pay booking in the UK for a car to be picked up in Madrid and returned in Granada. The document said that “all mandatory charges were included” – yet I find myself being forced to pay a 91.64 Euro “one way charge” as well as an 9.28 Euro airport/railway/port surcharge.
This comes to considerably more than the original pre-pay rental price that was supposed to include everything.
This is a rip-off.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Something similar happened to me with Avis pre pay.I booked a car in the Uk to be picked up at Marseille airport on the basis that my prepayment included all mandatory charges.When I returned the car after 2 weeks I had to pay a further 55.20 euros for what was described as “montant de location”.The fact that this was not mentioned when I booked surely amounts to mispresentation and does Avis no credit whatsoever.No other hire I use at marseille employs such a tactic.
June 9th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Hi Dudley,
Please can you send me details of your rental agreement to comments@avis.co.uk so I can look into this.
Thanks,
Stephen
June 10th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Hi Mike,
I contacted you through your other comment and I hope the matter is now resolved.
Stephen
June 10th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Stephen – yes thank you for looking into this and resolving the matter.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:55 am
It is a great pity that you do not reund or give a credit against future bookings if an ammendment results in a cheaper hire charge. I would love you to explain why you need to do this as even a £5 or so ammendment fee should cover the cost of epaperwork.
I had to amend a booking which I had already altered – so I first had to pay extra because the rental moved into the “Summer” rates, but moving it back meant I lost that money.
Also, you do not mention that there is a difference between internat and phone bookings regarding this. I was told if I had made a phone booking I could have the refund, but as the original booking was over the internet I could not. This is not a great incentive for the use of the internet. It also seems rather silly as although the original booking was over the’net I had phoned in the ammendment – so the booking was then being dealt with by phone.
These ways of increasing revenue do seem unfortunate.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hi Tony, sorry for the late response on this. I was just waiting for clarification on our policy.
On the first point you can actually use the difference between the price paid and the actual cost of the rental towards additional extas such as Avis GPS, fuel, excess waivers, etc.
On the second point, I can only assume that you were told this before the new policy was put in place (otherwise we will need to follow up wiht our reservation team) as this is not true. A booking can be cancelled online. The only difference with the policy for the internet versus the call centre is that, when you first make a booking, you have 24 hours to cancel the booking free of charge and 48 hours for the call centre.
I should also note that the cancellation charge not only includes the cost of paperwork, it covers the cost of the operational disruption that occurs, the original cost to take money from a credit card and to refund it, the cost of the cancellation call if it was called in, and the cost of administering the refund from a paperwork handling standpoint.
We feel that our cancellation policy is the most generous in the industry but I welcome any further feedback on this.
Rob
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 am
Can you clarify your policy: “Now if you cancel a pre-pay booking, a cancellation charge of £20/€25 will apply (or £40/€50 for any ‘special’ fleet such as Select Series cars in the UK). However, a booking can be cancelled free of charge within 48 hours for call centre bookings or 24 hours for website bookings.”
I assume the booking in the second sentence refers to non pre-paid rates. Can you confirm please.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:15 am
This refers to pre-paid rates, Chris. There is no cancellation fee for non pre-paid rates regardless of when you cancel the reservation.
Rob
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I use Avis regularly in the USA and find the processes there simple and honest.
Last week, I had to use the Avis UK call centre to book a car for use in the UK.
There was no mention in the script used by the call centre operative of any pre-pay policy, or any charges for cancellations / amendments, or of the scale of the one-way surcharges.
Imagine my surpise then when a charge of £153 appeared on my credit card two weeks before I used the car. This was almost 50% more than the quoted rate, due to the surcharges.
Also, imagine my surprise to be told by the USA Call Centre that they could cancel my booking, but could not make any refunds (apparently these have to be made in writing to the UK office), and that I would have to pay a GBP £20 ‘administration’ fee.
I will post again to this blog as the situation develops in the next few days. However, in the meantime, this policy seems to not be applied in a fair, simple or honest way.
Frankly, it seems to me to be a deliberate rip-off, designed to ensure customers pay (and do not reclaim credits) for services they do not use.
My verdict: avoid any pre-pay deals and, if that cannot be done, avoid Avis together and go somewhere with an open and honest policy.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Dear David,
Firstly let me extend my apologies that you were not fully informed of the prepay policy. I do assure you that explaining the modification process and potential cancellation charges are part of the script here in the call centre and agents are regularly monitored and marked upon this criteria. The fact that you weren’t therefore does disappoint me. It also surprises me that the charged amount varied from the price you were quoted as the prices we give here are all inclusive so there should have been no variation at all.
Could you please email the rental details to me at comments@avis.co.uk and I will look into this further?
Chris
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Hi,
Brining up this old blog post (just over 12 months after the last one!) as I came across an issue with the pre pay today.
Pricing up on the UK website for a rental in the US, it’s giving me a pre pay and post pay option.
The problem is that while I know you can cancel the pre pay rate for a fee there is nowhere during the booking process that tells how much the cancelation fee would be.
I don’t know if the fees discusses above are still valid for UK/Europe, but even if they are I assume the US might be differ, so could someone confirm please?
Many thanks!
Robert
December 4th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Hi Robert,
The cancellation charge for prepay rates is £20. This is irrespective of the pick up country. if you are on the website and look at the links at the bottom of the page there is one called BOOKING CONDITIONS, via this link you will find all the terms and conditions and costs of cancellation etc.
I hope this helps
Chris
December 4th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Cheers Chris that does help indeed.
So basically it is £20 for a pre pay booked through the UK site regardless of the pickup country.
Good to know!
Can you just confirm there is no fee for date change?
Thanks again,
Robert
December 4th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Sorry Chris,
No need to answer my question re the change, found the answer in the above post.
Have a good weekend!
R
April 30th, 2010 at 2:51 am
Hi I live in Barbados. For the sake of areas am I considered by Avis to live within the US.