Avis Craptastic Service in Miami, FL.
Summary: it took about an hour to go from boarding the bus for Avis rentals, to getting into my car at the Avis lot. National > Avis any day.
Details:
When I boarded the Avis bus at the MIA terminal, it was already fairly filled up (no seats were left / standing room only / most of the luggage racks were full). Several people then continued to fill in behind me. After we were already filled to what had to be capacity, the driver then proceeded to ask each passenger for his/her last name to enter them into the computer – while he left the doors open at the terminal. Each time he couldn’t find someone by name, he would ask to see their Avis card and do a lookup by wizard number. Since the doors were open, additional people crammed onto the bus – and the driver would get back up, walk back to the new people, ask them for their names, and begin the process again. This repeated several times as folks crammed tighter and tighter onto the bus. During this time, the busses for National, Hertz, and others made at least three passes of the terminal while we stood packed into the bus.
Only when we finally pulled away from the terminal, did the driver call for a second bus to be deployed. At this point in time, there was not a single space left to stand – people were crowded onto the stairs of the entrance way and pressed against the luggage racks. Unfortunately, we only went down to the next terminal where the driver then stopped, and began the process of gathering names / Avis cards of the people who had boarded the bus before he got the doors closed after the last round of name entering at the original terminal.
We then proceeded to the Avis rental center. When we arrived, rather than unload the bus, the driver proceeded to attempt to drive to each preferred plus members car and attempt to unload one at a time in this order – a difficult task when there is no room to move on an overcrowded bus. Several people, myself included, saw the problem with this and walked off of the bus at the first stop and proceeded to the Avis First booth, where there were only three people in line. After waiting for several minutes with the first person still discussing the contract with the single booth employee, I walked towards the main Avis building to find roughly 30 people in line waiting to be helped.
I proceeded back to the Avis first booth and waited in line again. The second bus arrived within a few minutes and unloaded the total of five passengers all into the Avis First booth line, since the computer system on that bus was down. It took roughly 5-10 minutes to help each person in line at the Avis First booth. After 15-20 minutes the first bus that I was on had completed dropping off its preferred passengers and unloaded the rest of the group at the main building. The driver of the bus then called me out of line by name (since I was in the computer) and said that my car was in a particular spot.
He went with me over to the spot and found that there was no paperwork in the car. He then went back to the bus, confirmed the spot number, and returned to tell me that I would need to get back in the line that he had just called me out of to get my paperwork. I refused and demanded that he retrieve my paperwork from the booth himself. He declined to do this at first, reiterating that I had to wait back in the original line. I assured him that this was not an acceptable solution and he finally went to the booth and retrieved my paperwork.
Overall, this process too between 45-60 minutes from the point where I tried to board the bus at the MIA terminal, to the point where I had paperwork in hand. I don’t find this acceptable – but maybe I am just spoiled by being able to get in my car within 5-15 minutes with National Emerald Isle selections.