Car hire in Beef Island, the British Virgin Islands

It was a bad showing by Avis. We had to reject two cars before accepting a third. The first car had bald tires that had wear bars above the tread, and which showed separation between the tread and the sidewall (pictures available). Dangerous! The second car had an air conditioner which was not working. These cars should not have been offered. When it was time to turn the car in, there was no desk agent present, and no instructions as to how the desk person should be contacted. (We were helped by non-Avis personnel.) The Avis people with whom we dealt were polite and pleasant, and did try to accommodate. But the overall operation is very shabby.

they could have cars there for me. and i got charged for the insurance on a car i did not get.

The drop off of the car after our rental was very simple. And we were glad to get a shuttle back to the airport very easily. HOWEVER: When we arrived to St. Thomas, getting to the car rental from the airport was a little bit crazy. The shuttle was not marked that it was the Dollar/Thrifty shuttle, so we did not know when or if it was arriving. The phone number listed with our reservation through KAYAK was not correct, so we were unable to alert the agency that we were at the airport and needed to be picked up. We ended up taking a cab the 1 mile from the airport to the rental agency and were charged $35! Then, though we had reserved our car pick up for 3 PM and arrived at 4:15pm there was no car available for us FOR TWO HOURS!! We did not get our car until 6:25 PM. Because we were staying on Saint John, we had to make the car ferry at Red Hook—Which was located 30 minutes away. We literally pulled up to the Car ferry as the LAST boat OF THE DAY was departing. We barely made it. Needless to say it was extremely stressful. All the while we were waiting, the staff kept telling us different stories as to the status of our car. There was no straight answer. Unfortunately we were not the only ones in this predicament. Several other families were waiting for hours for their vehicle. Making this even more delightful, was the fact that the facility is under construction, so the only place to wait was under a tarp in folding lawnchairs. It was hot and humid and dusty. I am typically an adventurous kinda person, AND I had prepared myself for “island time”, but this was a bit ridiculous.

I booked a car and received a confirmation by e-mail, but when I wanted to pick-up the car, I was told that there was no car available. It took quite a while to fix that. Nevertheless, it was not the agent's mistake - he was really doing his best - but rather a "system feature" for car rentals on Tortola.

My flight was delayed, I called to let them know. During that call there was no problem, they told my that they would be there and thank you for letting them know. When I landed , hertz was close, someone who works at the airport could reach them. They told me to take a cab and I could get the car in the morning. It cost me 60 usd to reach the hotel, in the morning i called , I needed the car to go to work, it was still closed. It cost me 50 usd to reach work. After work, I called an other car rental enterprise to rent a car so I would not have to spend an other 50 usd to reach the car rental stop.

I could write 100 sentences and I wouldn’t be able to explain all of the ways in which Hertz BVI was unacceptable bad. The short version is without a flat on a tire that was almost bald and I were no tools to remove and replace it with a spare. I called somebody came put a new tire on left me with no spare and no tools, and the company charge me $150 for a new tire and $50 for a service charge. Meanwhile, the right front window went down but would not come back up so we waited in the rain, radio was broken so nothing to listen to, no windshield wiper fluid, a rattling sound from the rear underneath, which I checked out and was a loose muffler bracket. The car was missing numerous parts including coverings for the rearview mirrors and parts of the roof rack. The check-in and check out agent didn’t have a pen didn’t have an office wasn’t able to give me a receipt showing what I was paying. I got the bill later the day I returned it with all these extra charges. Honestly, I should not be paying any of the extra charges and I would like a refund for half of the rental. This was the worst car rental experience I have ever had and I’ve been doing this for many decades.