Beware of advance booking with Avis

I was booked on an SAA flight from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town that was due to arrive at 10:40 am today, 2 November. The original flight was cancelled due to a "technical error" and all passengers on that flight were to be put on a later flight due to arrive in Cape Town at 2pm. This later flight was in turn postponed indefinitely. Because I was traveling to Cape Town for a funeral, and a later flight would mean missing the ceremony, I cancelled my travel arrangements. Whereas SAA were immediately understanding and their PE Team Leader Thulani Totyi immediately assured me that SAA would furnish a refund, AVIS's response to my attempt to cancel a car I had hired for use in Cape Town today has been abysmal.

Having no luck attempting to cancel my car rental on the AVIS website, I phoned the Cape Town International Office where receptionist Norma gave my situation a hearing before passing me on to Andisiwa who cut off my call while attempting to forward it to a senior. Upon phoning again I was advised by Precious Mokoni to change my booking (thereby incurring an extra cost) and _then_ attempt to cancel it. As this seemed counter-intuitive, never mind outright dishonest, I asked to speak to someone more senior, whereupon _she_ then cut off my call while attempting to forward it on.

So I called AVIS's 0861 number, spoke to Nikelwa Mzantsi, who in turn managed to cut off my call while forwarding it to a customer service advisor. To her credit she called me back on my cell phone though by this time I was speaking to Thando Luthombo on AVIS's ********** number. She managed not to lose my call, but - failing to to get a reply from a customer service agent upon forwarding my call - advised me to email ********** but to first cancel my booking online, which as I had repeatedly explained was impossible on their webpage.

My huge frustration is that my cancellation happened under exceptional circumstances, and AVIS are utterly unwilling to understand that sometimes flights can be cancelled indefinitely, and that if one's aim is to be at a funeral, then there is little value in arriving after it: I've generally had decent experiences with Avis (primarily in Durban) but this experience has left me with the sad sense that the company that claims to "try harder" is mired in its own calcified bureaucratic apparatus and ill-equipped to respond to cancellations that happen for good reasons.

My advice to others; DON'T book in advance with AVIS; they're incapable of dealing with unforeseen circumstances; and their customer 'service' - if that's what it can be called - in such unhappy situations is callous, cruel and inflexible. Rather go with one of their many capable competitors.