Avis Budget: car rental in 2026

Avis Budget car rental company is sufficiently tech savvy to take bookings, and receive prepayment, through a banking app. But demands a plastic credit card on collection of the rental car. Plastic credit cards have all but disappeared in the USA and Europe, and banks universally recommend the use of virtual cards. I offered a virtual card (I don’t have a plastic card) and pointed out that they had contacted with me through my bank and could debit the same account as they did for the prepayment. But no chance: They wanted to do this old-style. They refused to deliver the car, refused to refund the prepayment, and (when I wrote to them) refused to entertain my complaint. So, if you deal with them, wind back your technological expectations by a decade or two, and grow a thick skin.