Off brand car rental agency experience

[Carlsbadguy]

I used fox in Las Vegas once and had such a horrible experience I said never again. A few years later they were $100 cheaper for a week in Salt Lake City so tried again. Waited 30 minutes for the shuttle and then almost an hour in line to get my car. Now I do not even check rates with them.

 

[DEScottzz]

I used Payless one time.

We had four people plus luggage. I reserved a Kia Sorrento or equivalent. They put me in a subcompact Kia Soul, which they insisted was the equivalent of a Sorrento. There was no way the tiny thing would fit four people and 6 bags. I ended up paying themextra for a Ford Edge or something.

Never again.

 

[mdurette]

OP here - not gonna help with the question. I had Sixt booked but the day before our trip both Alamo and Dollar came down to their price point, so I switched.

 

[bogey21]

I always had good luck with "Off Brands" but only used them when showing up in person at their counters, never when making reservations...

George

 

[pittle]

I used Sixt just this past week in Atlanta thought rentalcars.com for a price I thought was reasonable. I had reserved a GMC Acadia, but they were out of those and gave me a Lincoln MKC for the same price. I could have had a Yukon for the same price but with a higher deposit. I wanted the Acadia because I have one at home and am familiar with all the controls. The MKC was nice, but it took a while to figure out all of the controls. I did not choose the Yukon because the lady I was visiting is 87 and would have a more difficult time getting into a Yukon when we were going places and I did not want to drive her vehicle.

 

[mcsteve]

I've rented with Avis, Hertz and National for the past 30 years as I traveled a lot for business before retiring last year. The point programs always worked well to get free rentals when I traveled for personal use. This has been one of the perks that I have started to miss this year, beside the Hilton Honors points. The first trip we made this year completely on our own dime we tried a discount rental through Amex Travel.

We had a terrible experience with Sixt in Ireland. I booked them through Amex travel and when we arrived in Dublin they tried to deny acceptance of my rental coverage through Amex. They kept insisting on a 580 Euro insurance coverage for the week. Once I got Amex on the phone, they insisted that a copy of the coverage be faxed to their location before they would accept it. Once the fax arrived the 580 Euro coverage became a damage waiver required in case my CC insurance didn't cover the damages. Then to top it off, they required another 200 Euro just to allow my spouse to drive since it was my CC and they would not cover her since her name was not on the card. It took us 2 hours to get through the hassle just to get our car. After we returned it we still had to fight for the "deposit" because they claimed we had photo radar tickets but could somehow they could not produce any record of the tickets. 4 months of fighting just to get our deposit back.

After our trip I watched an "expose" show that looked at almost all of the rental companies at airports in Ireland and most of them were doing similar tactics to jack the rental price because they made commissions on the add on sales. Sixt was the worst of them all as the location managers, according to x-employee testimonials, forced the staff to attend training on how to jack the add ons. Tons of complaints about this on TripAdvisor as well. I guess I should have read that before I went.

I've spoken with people outside of Ireland who have not had anything near as bad with Sixt but the experience in Ireland will keep me from ever renting with them again.

 

[Icc5]

We used Sixt once in Las Vegas. Everything went fine except it was off site, not by far so still no problem.
This was about 10 years ago. I wasn't too worried because at that time I had read they were much more widespread in Europe and just making inroads into the USA.
Bart