Hate the airport car rental ritual — the queue at the counter, the shuttle bus, the clipboard paperwork? Avis thinks it has the fix. In July 2025 the company rolled out Avis First, a premium service that removes almost every friction point from picking up a hire car, and it has since grown to more than 30 airports across Europe and the United States.
How it works: you book through the Avis app, choose a time and place, and skip both the rental counter and the shuttle. A concierge brings the car to you — often right at the kerbside — helps load your bags, pairs your phone with the car's infotainment system, and answers questions before you drive off. If something comes up later, the app has its own concierge chat so you're not stranded without support.
The cars themselves are drawn from Avis's premium fleet: current model year, low mileage, and a simplified fuel policy where you pay for petrol at local pump prices rather than inflated desk rates or prepaid schemes. There's no line-by-line upsell moment either, which is half the reason airport rentals drag on.
For European travellers, the network now covers 14 major hubs: Barcelona El Prat, Frankfurt, Geneva, London Heathrow, Madrid, Munich, Nice, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Porto, Rome, Venice Marco Polo, Vienna and Warsaw Chopin. That's a solid spread of the airports where rental queues are traditionally the worst — Heathrow and CDG in particular.
Across the Atlantic, the service operates in 17 locations, including Denver, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Honolulu and the Hawaiian islands of Kauai (Lihue) and Maui (Kahului), Houston's two airports, Kansas City, New Orleans, Norfolk, Orlando, Palm Springs, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose, Tampa and Washington DC.
Why should a holidaymaker care? Road trips are one of the best ways to see a country, but the pickup experience can sour the first hour of a trip. If you're landing in Rome or Palma after a red-eye, having a concierge hand over the keys curbside — no bus, no queue, no fuel-scheme fine print — is a genuine upgrade, especially for families juggling kids and luggage. The trade-off is that this is positioned as a premium product, so expect to pay more than a standard Avis booking; it's worth comparing against a standard reservation if price matters more than speed.
The service is live now at all the airports listed above, bookable through the Avis app. Worth checking whether your destination airport is on the list before your next trip — the network looks set to keep growing.
