Winning Against Avis: How I Overturned a $450 Cleaning Fee

Renting a car can offer convenience while traveling, but you have to be careful to avoid unexpected fees. I rented from Avis for years for its competitive pricing and perks, but encountered a surprise $450 cleaning fee when I returned a vehicle to San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport (OAK) a few months ago.

I didn’t agree with the charge and pushed back until it was removed. See how I successfully got the $450 cleaning fee reduced and then removed altogether with a Chase dispute, plus the steps I plan to take to avoid similar issues in the future.

Renting From Avis

I rented cars exclusively from Avis for the past couple of years for 2 reasons: price and perks. In fact, Avis Preferred Plus status is one of the benefits of my Chase Sapphire Reserve^®. That status offers me discounts and upgrades, and with my loyalty discount, I found Avis almost always had the lowest prices on car rentals.

I’ve had some minor hiccups renting with Avis, like having to swap out a car in Las Vegas that smelled like smoke and had malfunctioning headlights. I also tried to return a car close to home, but found the office closed early — and I was charged a small late return fee that wasn’t worth fighting.

I was willing to deal with trivial annoyances from Avis in exchange for unbeatable prices. That is, until the price jumped by $450 with a bogus cleaning fee after I returned a vehicle.

The Unexpected $450 Avis Cleaning Fee

I returned a vehicle to Avis at Oakland Airport, and it went just like any other Avis drop-off. I pulled into a return lane, removed my items from the vehicle, and took a quick video of the inside and outside while an attendant confirmed I’d left the keys in the car and told me we were good to go catch the shuttle bus to the terminal. The attendant didn’t mention any concerns about cleanliness, and I didn’t expect to hear any. 

We rented the car for what I consider an extended period — 10 days — in San Francisco. We always try to avoid messes in rental cars, but especially in the Bay Area, which is notoriously plagued by smash-and-grab car break-ins. I was advised by a local not to leave anything more than a toothpick visible, so we took our items out of the car every time we parked it. We didn’t even eat in the car, so there was no risk of leaving behind wrappers or crumbs that might suggest to thieves that other items could be inside. 

A few days after I returned the car, I got a notice that I’d be charged $450 based on an inspection that revealed what Avis called “excessive interior dirt/sand” with “heavy” severity.

I was dumbfounded because I didn’t consider the car excessively dirty upon return.

We used it for 10 days to get 5 people around, so it certainly wasn’t spotless. But we didn’t go to the beach, pick up mud on our shoes, eat crumbly food, transport animals, or do anything else that could have generated a mess worthy of such a hefty charge.

The floor wasn’t perfectly clean, but couldn’t have needed more than a quick vacuum job — which I would assume Avis does as a regular procedure with returned vehicles. 

I’ve vacuumed up rental car floors before returning them in the past, like when we genuinely got a lot of sand in a different Avis rental that I drove to Death Valley National Park where we visited sand dunes. Nor did I consider the debris left behind in the car I returned to the Oakland Airport to be extraordinary, but Avis clearly disagreed.

I did a quick online search and found that I’m far from alone in getting hit with a surprise Avis cleaning fee. If you search for “Avis cleaning fee,” you’ll see many customers of Avis (and its partner Budget) who were as surprised as I was to owe hundreds after returning vehicles.

Contacting Avis About the Fee

After I received the notice, I immediately contacted Avis via email to fight the charge, but didn’t get anywhere with the initial contact. Here’s what I got from Avis customer service via email: “The location is reporting the vehicle was dirty at return. Attached to this email is the report by the location including pictures. We can see the floor was very dirty.”

The image below is what Avis considered a “very dirty” floor that warranted a $450 cleaning fee. Not spotless, but far from excessively dirty after a 10-day rental. I felt gaslit because I didn’t think it was awful, but Avis continually insisted it was.

Another image showed some dust on the car’s dashboard — as if I had been expected to do a full detailed wipe down before returning it.

After I struck out on email, I asked the Upgraded Points team for advice, and content contributor Brett Holzhauer helpfully suggested reaching out to Avis on X. I made some headway there, though it still required some back and forth.

In an X message, Avis tried to claim that renters are required to clean before returning a vehicle. I took issue with that, as that’s not what the rental terms say. I’m paying to rent a car, not prepare the vehicle to perfection for the next customer. If I trash it, I should expect a fee, but I’m not going to stress about returning a spotless vehicle when Avis can quickly clean a car with a bit of dirt tracked in.

I reminded Avis of the terms in the rental agreement, which do not say renters have to clean but do say renters will pay a “reasonable fee” for cleaning if there are “excessive stains, trash, dirt, soilage, odors, or pet hair.”

Avis quoted the same policy back to me to justify the fee, but I continued to push back and told them that the images didn’t show anything excessive enough to warrant a $450 charge. A $450 fee is in no way reasonable for 10 minutes of vacuuming. The next day, I got a message that Avis dropped the cleaning fee down to the “tier 1” charge of $125 and that would be the best they could do. 

Avis claimed it had to take the vehicle out of the fleet to have it cleaned, which to me says a lot about how they prepare vehicles for customers if a quick vacuum job interrupts the normal flow of renting. Are they counting on customers to return super clean cars so they don’t have to spend any time cleaning before renting again?

Disputing the Charge With Chase

I paid for the car rental with my Chase Sapphire Reserve card, as it offers up to $75,000 in primary rental car insurance (it doesn’t cover cleaning fees, though it does cover damage) and earns 3 points per dollar on travel expenses such as rental cars. The same afternoon I contacted Avis on X, I filed a dispute with Chase. I hadn’t gotten the message about the partial refund yet, and I wasn’t confident the conversation would offer any results.

Logged in to my online account, I selected the $450 charge, which had already cleared, and filled out the dispute form. Once I submitted the dispute, Chase provided a temporary credit to my account and notified me that the charge was being investigated under merchant review. 

While submitting the dispute, I ran into a snag with documentation, which I suspect caused a delay in resolving it. I had a video of the vehicle as I returned it, but I think photos would have been much more effective.

I always take a quick video of rental cars at pickup and return so I have evidence in case I’m accused of damage I’m not responsible for. I hadn’t needed any of the videos until this incident, but discovered that the video wasn’t as helpful as I thought it would be because Chase didn’t offer the option to upload a video with my dispute.

I could have uploaded images to file the dispute, but didn’t want to take the time to capture screenshots from the video. I guessed that Avis would respond to Chase with the same images I saw in the incident report and decided that would probably be good enough. It wasn’t.

A few weeks later, I received a notice that Chase “didn’t find evidence of a billing error” and reinstated the amount that I’d been temporarily credited. I paid the amount when that statement was due so I could avoid interest charges. It appeared I lost the dispute, but I didn’t want to let it go.

I followed up with Chase and sent a secure message, explaining that I was not able to attach the video I took that showed the vehicle was not excessively dirty when I returned it. I asked how I was able to send the video file so that Chase could review it. I also clarified that I’d been refunded $325 by Avis after I filed the original $450 dispute, so $125 was the remaining disputed amount.

There wasn’t a response to that message other than automated notes that my inquiry was received and being reviewed. I figured I’d lost the dispute and accepted that getting stuck with a $125 fee was better than a $450 fee. 

But a month later, I got a notice from Chase that my dispute was resolved and that I was credited for the disputed amount. It was somewhat confusing, as there was no request for the video that I offered, but I took the win nonetheless. 

All told, it took almost exactly 2 months to win the dispute and get the full $450 refunded.

Hot Tip:

In my experience, Chase is helpful in supporting customers with disputes, especially if your claim is well documented. See how to dispute a credit card charge with Chase and how I got more than $300 back in another dispute.

6 Steps I’ll Take To Avoid Future Cleaning Fees

I thought I was doing OK with avoiding surprise fees after returning a rental car. I always fill up the tank, return it on time, and clean up beforehand if we’ve made a real mess like leaving sand all over the floor or food in the cracks of the upholstery. But after this incident, I’m adjusting my approach.

1. No More Avis Rentals

While I got a full refund in the end, it took months and way too much of my attention to fight the fee. I can’t do business with Avis knowing I might have to deal with a situation like this again. And after filing a dispute, I’m not confident Avis will allow me to rent again, anyway. I’ve moved on to National Car Rental, where I have Emerald Club Executive Level membership from my Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I’ve found National is slightly more costly than Avis but that it offers excellent service I don’t have to worry about — and I haven’t seen other customers online complaining about surprise fees from National like I did with Avis.

2. Take Photos, Not Just Videos

I thought video evidence would be all I needed to show I returned the car in good condition, but it didn’t help me much in this situation. I could have painstakingly gathered screenshots from the video, but it was tough to get clear shots since I moved pretty quickly. Next time, I’ll take at least a few photos from various angles that I can easily share if needed.

3. Document the Return

If an attendant helps me with my return, I’ll politely ask them to confirm on video whether the car is in acceptable condition when I return it. However, attendants aren’t always at rental car returns.

4. Clean Vehicles Before Return

I might not take time out of my travels to hit the gas station vacuum unless there’s an excessive mess, but I’ll look more closely at what’s left behind before I return a rental car. I’ll take a more careful look for food items or other trash, and I can at least wipe down surfaces if needed and shake out the floor mats if it looks like we’ve tracked in dirt. I bet if we’d taken a few minutes to shake the mats before returning the Oakland rental, the fee would have been avoided.

5. Inspect Vehicles at Pickup

I always take a video of rental vehicle conditions at pickup, but I’ll be more careful about inspecting before I load up and drive off the lot. When I rented a stinky car from Avis in Las Vegas, it took a couple of miles of driving to notice the odor and a problem with the headlights. It took time to make the switch to another car, and it put me at risk of fees for the car’s poor condition. I could have avoided that if I’d looked more closely before leaving.

6. Escalate and Appeal Claims

I had to make multiple contacts to shake this charge, and I would do it again. My first step was Avis email, then Avis on X, then a Chase dispute, and finally a follow-up to the Chase dispute. I was polite and professional in all communications, though I definitely wasn’t friendly because I was annoyed I had to do this at all. Not every charge is worth this kind of effort, but I’d be out $450 if I had just accepted the initial email answer from Avis.

Hot Tip:

I’ve had better experiences with National than I did with Avis, but you don’t have to take my word for it. National ranked second in the latest J.D. Power North America Rental Car Satisfaction Study, while Avis came in below the industry average.

Final Thoughts

Renting a car shouldn’t lead to surprise charges, and you can fight back against unfair fees. Although it’s annoying to take photos and videos of rental cars, doing so can be helpful if you’re expected to pay for damages or cleaning you don’t agree with.

I’ve learned some lessons from this incident, like not trusting Avis, being more critical about rental car conditions at pickup and return, and taking photos instead of exclusively relying on video. I’m thankful my persistence saved me money but frustrated I had to do the work to get the charge refunded.