A pregnant Avis customer had to drive for three hours in the middle of the night to avoid a $1,000 drop-off penalty

• A pregnant customer drove three hours in the early hours after Avis got the dropoff location wrong.
• After a 12-hour drive to Knoxville, Tenn., Sara then had to go to Nashville to avoid a $1,000 fine.

A pregnant Avis customer had to drive for three hours in the middle of the night following a 12-hour journey to avoid a $1,000 penalty after the wrong drop-off location was entered in the car rental company's system.

Sara, who did not want her last name published due to concerns about her employment, told Insider that she and her husband were travelling back to their home in Knoxville, Tennessee, after a cruise holiday that docked in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

When they arrived in Knoxville, Sara noticed that the contract said she had to drop off the car in Nashville – an error she said was made by Avis. While Sara accepted she should have double-checked the contract, she was still frustrated by the error.

After arriving at the depot at 11 p.m. following a 12-hour drive from Florida, the couple were given two options by Avis staff: drive three hours to Nashville by 8 a.m. the next morning, or pay a $1,000 penalty.

Sara, who is six weeks pregnant, pleaded with employees in Knoxville, but had to drive the couple's own car while her husband drove the rental car to Nashville.

"I was just so early in my pregnancy and I'm a first-time mom. I was just terrified that my husband was going to fall asleep behind the wheel, or I was going to fall asleep behind the wheel, that something would happen to one of us or that it would put too much stress on the pregnancy," Sara told Insider.

"And also we just bought our car so I didn't want anything to happen to it, and it just seemed ridiculous that they couldn't do anything."

The following Monday Sara called Avis and said an agent told her she should "learn how to read" when she filed a complaint.

She said she has since been forced to deal with difficult communication channels, with one email from customer care, while her Instagram comments were deleted, she said, alongside complaints from several other customers when the company turned off its comments on the site.

"I wish my story could have been resolved, but I feel like they just have a lot of work to do," Sara said.

After Insider contacted Avis, Sara said the company issued a full refund and offered a rental credit.

An Avis spokesperson told Insider: "We are very sorry about this situation and have apologized directly to [the couple] for the poor customer experience.

"Unfortunately, due to miscommunication their drop-off location was recorded as Nashville, Tenn., which they only discovered at the Knoxville location after a long drive. We wish a better solution was offered to them right there and then, instead of having them drive an additional three hours to return the car the following morning.

The rental company said the matter had been resolved "amicably".

Last week, Avis charged a customer $6,000 after claiming she drove 23,000 miles in three days, a feat that would have required driving 310 miles an hour for 72 consecutive hours. The company refunded the woman after her story went public.