Avis USA Car Hire problems

sidewayssyd

I know I'm going to get hammered for this but it's a salutary lesson in thinking that what you've agreed with the attendant at the hire car desk is what's on the forms that you sign. I booked an Avis car through Booking.com, pickup at Orlando airport. The price included full CDW and I purchased a top-up policy (for tyres, keys, refuelling errors) with a UK company. So it was agreed that everything I needed had been paid for up front and there was nothing to pay, just the deposit. I signed the form on a tablet...and no, I didn't check every page in detail..I'd been travelling for well over 24 hours and was knackered. It never occurred to me that everything we'd spoken about had been ignored. There was no paper receipt, it was emailed to me in the early hours of the morning. I saw I'd received it and filed it the next day. I had asked to make sure that the car had GPS - he didn't know if  it had so he gave me a stand alone tablet and said there as no charge. The car did, so I never used it. I handed the car back and all was good. When I got home, I checked my credit card and there was a near £500 charge which I assumed was the deposit but it only appeared the day I handed it back which I thought was odd. The US has 28 days to refund the deposit but after 28 days it was still there. The credit card company said they'd investigate - the message back was that the booking.com voucher didn't cover the price of hire and as I'd signed the forms, there was nothing Halifax could do. Only then did I look at the email receipt and there were two charges on there, GTL and RSN totalling nearly $600. After many emails to Booking.com and Avis (my local Avis didn't know what GTL and RSN were), Avis agreed to refund me about $470 for GPS adjustment...GPS wasn't even on the invoice! I asked them again what GTL and RSN were as they hadn't been forthcoming - the next mail back was they refunded the rest of the overcharge and would give me a few days free on my next hire. I still don't know what GTL and RSN are. It took 3 months but it was finally sorted. On the positive side, the car hire was ridiculously cheap...an excellent Subaru SUV for $756 all in, for three weeks. The top-up charge in the UK was about £43 for a 12 month world wide policy

RachGW

Hi, I am about to hire my first USA car hire from Atlanta airport. Please can you tell me which company / what was the UK annual insurance you picked, as I am really confused with sll the extra insurances , thanks