Tips to deal with rental companies:
-book at least 2 days ahead of time
-book online
-book in full weeks (better pricing)
-book a third party "rental car excess insurance" before the start of the rental period has begun (important, as these covers will exclude any running rental periods before the cover had been bought), instead of say £250 for 2 weeks of extra cover charges at AVIS to lower your excess for accidental damage, you can buy a one year long car rental excess cover form a third party company online for only £50 or less, that could include more than one rental period over the course of one year, the trade off is, that you need proof, that the vehicle was in good shape before start of rental period and proof of damage, if damage was done and proof of undamaged vehicle before after drop off. AVIS might help you with this, or they might not. Do follow the next tip, if you take a third party excess cover
-!!! Always take pictures of the whole vehicle including mileage yourself, before driving off and after parking the vehicle at AVIS at drop off. Pictures in line with the sides of the vehicle will show any minor and soft dents or such (tip from another customer recently). I had this save me at least once from having to pay damage, that I was being charged for, but I could proof was on the vehicle, before I even drove of the yard.
-If you had booked something, that turns out to be adding too much cost, just cancel the whole thing and book it again, if you still have time before you start on your trip. It pays to have plenty of time in your rental period before the actual start of your trip (usually it costs almost the same, when you book 7 days instead of the requires 5 or 6 days.
-Avis has price brackets for specific time periods, depending on available cars and demand, if you book in a time period, you will be stuck in this rate, even if you extend the rental period further. So if you book in an untypically cheap period, then you can extend it with this rate, instead of a new rental period, that has the current rate. This is good to know, if your first rental period was particularly expensive and instead of extending it, you just get a new rental at the end and get a much cheaper deal.
Tips above were learned over almost a full year of rental car experiences with AVIS, with some mistakes, I paid good to learn these things.
Last experience with AVIS:
Recently I was in need of a van for a move from England to Scotland. As usual I went online to select a rental vehicle from Avis, as I had no real issues with Avis before and the staff was always polite and helpful.
When I selected the van including the minimum cover, I noticed, that the cover with less damage excess (only £250) was indicated to cost £39 less than the minimum cover with £1500 excess for damage. So i went ahead and selected the cheaper one, that was going to cost me less in the case of an accident, as I usually not drive vans with closed up backs and sides, especially hard to park in cities and such.
I paid online and thought all good to go.
Then I come to the counter on the airport only to discover that the excess reduction cover will cost me hundreds of pounds extra additionally to the price indicated online. No time to change the booking or cancel and book a new one and could not get a third party cover, as rental period had started, I had to commit to this booking. The lady on the counter was trying to be helpful and is not at fault with not disclosing the fees online, but was at times impolite and seemed confused to what the customer could and could not do with a rental. (open the hood up, charge another vehicle with jumper leads etc.)
If the online practices with pricing would be full transparent for the customer this review would have been 4 stars, instead of 1.