We are
Avis fanatics...always have been probably always will, but the office we rented from in St. Maarten which was basically a shack that sits in a bar parking lot surrounded by a fence and is not too far of a walk from the port. We paid $50+ for a 1 day rental of a Suzuki.
That said- We had made reservations in advance. The vehicle that they gave us was SO damaged that we had to spend about 15-20 minutes before we left filling out a damage report. The entire time we are filling it out, the woman kept making comments about do's and don'ts of where to take the car and if we broke these rules we would be charged for the damage. My husband and I were both getting the distinct feeling that this is not what we should be doing.
We were told we could keep the car as late into the evening as we wanted, just to park it in the bar parking lot and drop the keys in the box by the bar door.
Besides every surface being dented.... the convertible top on this suzuki was missing several windows etc. which made it unsecurable if we wanted to stop some place. A couple of the windows obviously came from another vehicle (?) as they didn't fit ours but were sort of velcro'd in there. The tires were dangerously UNDER-inflated. We could not turn a corner at 10 miles per hour without them squealing. The brakes on the vehicle weren't in great working order nor was the clutch.
We decided to make the most out of the day anyways, but started finding additional items wrong with the car that were not noted on the form. We also noticed that a few of the items that we had noticed.... the woman had never written down.
We got to one of the beaches and my daughter put her foot on the rear bumper to tie her shoe and the entire bumper came down on one side. It was merely tied up loosely. Of course now I am again looking at the rather lengthy list to see if this item is on the damage list and of course it is not. Now, DH is really feeling uncomfortable and pretty angry too, so we cut the day short to drop off the car before the office closed because we wanted any damage that we could be blamed for pointed out to us and signed for by us. So we fill up the tank, drive back to the office and it is probably now around 3:30 pm. The office was supposed to be open until 6:00 pm. Much to our horror, it is already closed, 2.5 hours early. So even after cutting the day short...we still can't catch an agent and have to leave the car in an unsecured lot with the keys in the box. DH is Really furious now. So now we get to worry about the stupid car the rest of the trip. When we finally got home, I called my credit card company and much to my shock had a $500 charge on my card from Avis in St. Maarten. Evidently to rent a car there they have a user fee of $500 that is not returned until the vehicle is proven to be in good shape. Luckily this money was returned to us. But the terrible service and the feeling that the car was going to break down any moment made for a terrible day.
After we got home, I did contact Avis in the states and let them know about the terrible service and what had happened on St. Martin. They sent me $25 toward my next rental.
We had friends that walked off the ship and rented vehicles right in front of the port. They were really nice cars. as a matter of fact of all the vehicles that people we had met rented that day, ours was definately the worst. And the worst part was....none of the vehicles on that lot....looked good.
smiles patty
