Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Seething

I am completely and utterly pissed at Avis right now. I am NEVER going to rent a car from them again if I can help it.

The story goes something like this, we left Ithaca around 11:00 am sharp and drove to JFK in NYC to catch out flight scheduled for departure at 5:15 pm. With no bags to check in, I figured 5 hours should be more than sufficient to make the trip that usually maps out at 4 and half hours. Boy was I wrong. While we negotiated Lincoln tunnel and Manhattan with ease as we approached JFK with we were stuck in a grid lock. I couldn't believe that so many people want to go toward JFK. With time ticking down and nerves getting frazzled due to the wait we inched our way up the Van Wyck expressway. The whole experience of people driving any which way they pleased (up the sidewalk, converting single lane exits into double lane ones and blocking the traffic for miles), was just crazy. We ultimately drove into the rental car parking lot at about 4:15 pm. The lack of time available to us and the absolute dearth of gas stations meant I could not fill up the tank before returning the car. With less than one fourth the tank empty, I figured that Avis won't charge me an arm and a leg for the difference and with more pressing things like a plane waiting for us on the tarmac, we ran for the AirTrain. After successfully negotiating a fat obese woman's pile of bags with straps like tentacles lying in wait to trip people and security guards who wanted to pass my poor GPS through the xray several times, and did all but sniff at the bloody thing, we finally made it to the gate as the plane was boarding.

Now while all that drama was taking place Avis representatives were rubbing their hands with glee, "Ah! Fresh meat today!" said they and promptly charged me 56 $ for a one fourth tank of gas. That was almost one and a half times the cost of the rental and enough to almost fill one fourth the gas tank of the plane we took to California. (Yes I exaggerate but you know what I mean).

Damn damn and double damn. I am taking my business elsewhere. This is daylight robbery and I will make sure I bitch and moan about their company till I loose them that much in business.

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