Everything went to plan

Quick order process, efficient staff!

The final price was nearly double. Too many tricks when picking up the car: constantly trying to upsell you to a more expensive car.

I booked three identical cars several months in advance, but when picking up, none were available. They said the cars were rented out and hadn't returned yet, and I might have to wait for hours with no guarantee of availability. We had to downgrade to smaller models, but the price didn't drop. It was twice as expensive as renting through other platforms.

Before our trip, we carefully inquired with the customer service on the Zuzuche website. The customer service clearly indicated that Avis would accept Chinese driving licenses with translations and notarized copies. However, when we arrived exhausted at Catania Airport, Avis refused to rent to us and directed us to a small company next door called Green Motion. The staff at this small company barely spoke English, but fortunately, I spoke Italian well enough to communicate with them. After a three-hour wait and some hassle, we finally got the car. The only available automatic car was a Mercedes Benz. Since we were traveling with a child who was already tired and hungry, we had no choice but to negotiate. We ended up paying 600 euros for 8 days of rental and an 800-euro pre-authorization as a deposit, with no full insurance. Any issues would be deducted from the deposit. This forced us to drive extremely carefully. We originally planned to rent a small car with full insurance for 485 euros, but instead, it turned into an expensive, uninsured Mercedes. The experience was very frustrating.

Despite booking over a week previously so that Avis would have plenty of time to set things up, when we arrived they did not have our car ready (Merc E Class) and did not have anything comparable to offer. After calling their associates, the only available alternatives were a monstrous Merc G Wagon (imagine trying to park that in the land of the Fiat 500) for more money, or a BMW 3 Series Touring. We took the BMW. Then we were informed that the insurance that we'd already paid for via Easyrentcars would not offer adequate cover, and for fully comprehensive cover we had to book with Avis. Given that we'd already had a car damaged in a car park in Italy on a previous trip, we felt that we had no option but to comply with Avis' advice.