Advantage Rent A Car
reviews and complaints

We booked a reservation for a car at Advantage in San Antonio. We specifically told them we didn't want to buy insurance coverage because we already have a policy that covers rental cars. The agent gave us a form and pointed to each box we needed to initial in order to NOT buy the coverage. Our daughter was in line for a car after us, and she said the same thing, and the agent again told her to initial the same boxes that we did. When we returned our car, after the agent processed everything and charged our credit card, he handed us the invoice. There was a charge of $103.96 for insurance! When we told him we had specifically said we did NOT want the insurance when we rented the car, he pointed to the form where we put our initials and said that those initials authorized them to charge us for insurance! Later that day my daughter turned in her car, and the very same thing happened to her. When we returned from our trip, I searched customer reviews on Advantage, and there were countless complaints from customers who had said they didn't want insurance coverage but were charged anyway (with the justification that we had initialed authorization). So this their policy is apparently this: When customers state they do not want insurance, tell them to initial the boxes that authorize buying the coverage, hoping they won't question the directions. Appalling! We will never rent from Advantage again!

We arrived at the San Jose Airport in California, we had previously set up a reservation for an economy car at a specific price. When went to pick up the car they told us they didn't have the car we reserved so we had to upgrade. They charged us for this. Then they quoted us a price for the days we rented. We asked them if we could drop the vehicle off at a different airport and they said that was fine no extra charge, and we could drop it off after the office is closed again no extra charge. They also told us we would get a discount for either military, USAA, AAA, or AARP as we qualify for all, discount was never on our receipt. We got charge full price with add ons for different airport drop off, fuel tax, drop off after closing of office, upgrade, service charge? Ca tourism fee ( my wife was born and raised in CA. In all the quote was $450.00 we ended up paying $853.00 Total ripoff, never will use this company or recommend them.

Your sevice center at 2170 Mannheim Rd in Des, Plains need to be reorganization my conformation #Fo722491187 vehicle 1594/3079357 pick car up April 22 return it April 24th, 2011 pd for insurance and 1/2 tank gas before pulling out my bill was for 101.58 car windows leak entire time we travel to Danvill Ill and back the doors didn't lock return car told the service rep. she took statement, so felt maybe the mechanic overlook problem week later rent another smal car vehicle 01594/3079357 it was much nicer the car that is took car out 5/13-return it 515/2011 ran little behind stop too, filled the tank to were it was 1/8 tank get into return keys no problem turn aound went back in to speak with a customer service teenager she rude couln't explain to me what the charges to it from 80.00 to 107.. so spoke to someone else she say the charge me to put gas in car, why I agree to supply car back with the gas I used I never ask for her to charge me then he said charged me for being late I was suppose be there at 8:pm I got there at 8;30 ok it says 3.15 ex hour on my print out she charged me 27.84 then 24.00 for gas in qwhich I put the gas back in the car. one thing too, charge person for item that was not requested then today I get my chase billed I'm charge $221.00 dollards for 1st rental and no one wants to explain for what my 1st rental went fom 164.00 to 221.00 can you or someone tell me what is unessary charges for and why.

We rented a car through Advantage rent a car, on Travelocity. My flight info was entered. It said that this company meets delayed flights. As our plane left the gate they saw a low oil light on and had to pull back into the gate. We never got off the plane. We arrived at 12 18 am, instead of 11 45 pm. I went to the car rental counters. There was no one there. A girl at the Hertz counter was closing up after renting out a car. I asked her if they were on break or someting. She said No, they left at midnight. What was I going to do? The airport was abandoned. I needed to drive to Iowa City. My sister reserved the car for me because she was at home with her 11 month old and three year old. Her husband has been deployed. She probably wouldn't even hear the phone. I called Travelocity. The man at customer service called the local Advantage, he ofcourse got no answer. He called their customer service line. He talked to them first, then would come back to me. Which is good because I was hysterical and probably wouldn't have said anything that made any sense. He said that the counter was closed for the night. He suggested taking a taxi to a hotel and coming back in the morning. I had no cash. I knew I couldn't afford that. I asked him if the car company was going to pay for that, my response was they couldn't guarantee it. I asked if they could call someone in to get my car. They couldn't. The travelocity customer service eventually transferred me to Advantage customer service. I spoke with that woman for awhile. Asking the same questions, and not hearing an answer I liked. I finally called my mother. She told me to go to those one call kiosks and find a hotel that had a 24hr shuttle. The Des Moines Holiday Inn gave me a ride and a room. The drivers were nice even though I couldn't tip them. The front desk clerk said the rental car companies do this all the time. I went to sleep at 2 am and was up at 7 to go back to the airport. The girl there said they usually wait, and she had left a note telling them to wait. I had taken medication to calm myself down, so I wasn't irate. I told her I was really upset that this happened. She apologized. She showed me the rental agreement. I asked her if there was anything she could do for me. She got the manager and told him what happened. He was very calm about it and said he would address it. He said he would give me a day free. Which becuase this was an economy car was like 17 dollars. When we finally got to the car I was a little disappointed that it had manual locks and windows. But I knew it was cheap, so we went on our way. I was ten minutes on the highway when I was searching for cruise control and couldn't find it. I couldn't believe it, I asked them for directions to I 80 they asked where I was going. They knew I had a two hour drive. They didn't even think about the fact that cruise control would be necessary? When I got to my sister's I searched my reciept for a local branch #. There wasn't one. I went online and emailed every Advantage email I could get a hold of. No one EVER responded. NO ONE! When I finished my trip and returned the rental car, I had to wait at the counter for 5 minutes before an agent came. She was outside. I told her that I had been abandoned, she said "Oh yeah, I heard about that, " I told her I would like the mgr to call me becuase 17 dollars was nothing on the 140 I had to spend on the hotel for five hours. She said ok. I never heard from the manager. My calf had a cramp the rest of that day, no cruise control!

Booked a rental car via travelocity. Encountered the "bait and switch" tactic used by Advantage Car Rental and apparently approved by Travelocity. ACR refused to give me the car type I reserved; ACR would not rent me another car type without charging more money. I refused, I went to another car rental co. instead.Travelocity did very little to address this issue. I will not use Travelocity or Advantage Rental Car nor would I recomend them.

We rented two cars from Advantage for our company staff. On return, we arrived late for our flight and in a hurry, left a large sized GPS device (Magellan RoadMate 1700) in the car.

There is absolutely no way the Asian staff who took back the car could have missed that device (8" wide by 4.5" tall). We have called FOUR times including to the Phoenix station manager and they promise to call back and no one does. I just want everyone to know and beware that Advantage is not dealing with Lost and Found correctly and they are acting in a dishonest manner. They may be protected by the legal fine print on their contract but they must not allow their staff to live a dishonest life and cheat their customers daily. The GPS should be returned. All I can do is to ensure that although we have rented from Advantage at least 30 times in the past year, we never do that again under our company and to let other renters know. HERTZ & ADVANTAGE ARE the double-dishonest companies.

Got to denver, took 45 minutes to get the bus and three hours in line to get the car. Didn't have the car I reserved and tried for 10 minutes to get me to upgrade, holding up everyone else. Finally gave me the upgrade because that was all they had and the air conditioning didn't work.

This was my worst car rental experience of all time. Every step of the way.

I rented a car through Travelocity for the Advantage location in Toronto. When I arrived, I called the toll-free number for the shuttle pick-up. No one answered, and I called at least 5 times. Someone finally answered the local number on my 3rd attempt with it.

The car smelled terribly of smoke and a strong perfume was used to try to cover it up. It was dirty. No windshield washer fluid. It was not filled with gas (as advertised), and the guy wrote down it was at a half-tank and it wasn't... he rounded up! He had no other cars available, so I was stuck with it. I confirmed the original price ($64.87) with him and left.

However, when I returned the car, I was told that they had to do add an exchange rate on that. I told them that it was already done (I had another file online that had the rental at $52.11 usd, which is $64.87 cdn, but it seemed redundant, so I didn't bring it), and that I confirmed the price when I first rented the vehicle. It didn't matter, nor did he care about the state of the car, he still charged me an extra $13.28.

Not a large sum, but it is the principle; and on top of that, the service was so poor.

I have called the location 3 times, and have always been told the manager is "busy." I have never received a return phone call. I have emailed twice (with the document clearly stating the usd and cdn amounts) and received no response.

Now, I am going to write travelocity and every consumer website to warn people. They think I will drop this... ha!

Horrible doesn’t begin to describe my experience. I had originally reserved a compact car online for the KC Airport. Casey at the service desk informed me that they did not have any cars in this class left (at noon). HOWEVER, for an additional $30/d I could receive what they did have remaining. I rejected the offer and was informed I would have to wait, potentially hours until the next size came in. I chose to wait. In the mean time, I was told I would have to pay $10/d for an additional driver though the website indicates a military rental would have no added charge for this feature. As I continued to wait, Casey made no attempt to remedy the situation, rather disappearing apparently for break and clearly avoiding the situation. As I was flying on military orders, I did not have the time to play around with this ridiculous situation. In the meantime, I had my husband search online for the available car pricing and found that I could get it for $10 additional for the entire week rental. I then spoke to Hussein who indicated that I would have to pay double the original quote for the next available size rental (which is a different rate than Casey quoted). When I indicated the website quoted a different price, he said I should go ahead and book it, "If its really that cheap". Offended but stranded in Kansas City, I had no other choice. My husband booked the reservation and I promptly left with a rental. Having never rented from Advantage before, I found the customer service non-existent and staff unwilling to try to work with my circumstances. If this is the level of customer service that advantage finds acceptable, its a company I will chose to avoid. Additionally, I will make sure all that I know hear about this experience so that they too may avoid such an unpleasant circumstance.

We waited in line for over an hour at the Denver location to check-in with a reservation. There were approximately 10 customers in line ahead of us and there were three reps working the counters. Employees were running around and the entire operation was disorganized. Even once we reached the counter it took over 20 minutes to check our reservation, find a car and then deliver the car. One solution may be to have a line for reservation holders and a line for those w/o a reservation.

On the 29th when we returned the car we waited 30 minutes for a shuttle to arrive to take us to the terminal. After the check-in experience I kind of expected the check-out experience to be equally disastrous so we showed up with enough time to still make our flight.

We chose Advantage because the cost was less than other companies but I would rather pay a little more for better service. I have rented from Budget, National, Alamo and Hertz and I have never had to wait for service like I did with Advantage. I guess you get what you pay for, needless to say next time I will go with one of the other companies.

My wife recently had a very bad experience with Advantage Rent-a-Car at LAX. She signed the damage acknowledgment form that showed pre-existing damage on the rear bumper. When she returned the car one of the workers jumped on the shuttle van and accused her of the damage, she told him it was there when she rented it and didn't have any accidents with the car. The guy grabbed some of the rental paperwork out of her hand and went back to the rental office. My wife stayed on the van and went back to the airport thinking that they can't charge her with the pre-existing damage. She tried to call the office back while waiting for her flight and after 30 minutes on hold she was told that the manager had left for the day and to call back later. Well we just got a letter from a third-party "Subrogation Management Team" telling us to pay for the damage, but we will absolutely not pay. We have a copy of the form my wife signed when she rented the car the showed damage on the rear bumper. I would never recommend such a shady rental car company to anyone. Avoid the lure of cheap rates, it's not worth the hassle.

On today’s date, August 07th 2007, I had the misfortune of dealing with Advantage Car rental. A company has never treated me so rudely in my life; upon returning a vehicle to your Matheson location here in Mississauga, Ontario.

On Aug. 03, I was in an accident with my two children. Luckily no one was hurt. I was told I could have a car rented and delivered to me at the scene of the accident. I was more than willing to accept this offer and obliged to use this service. I was happy to see Advantage showed up within 20 minutes for my two children and myself.

Upon returning the vehicle after having it for all of 3 days, I decided I had used the car long enough. I was bombarded with aggressive questions as to why I was returning it, and now I’ll be charged a $100 early drop off fee. First of all, the Advantage representative who showed up at the scene assured me there were no additional charges. Secondly the rep behind the counter proceeded to tell me in a very offensive, humiliating manner “why did you have us show up on a Friday before the long weekend to deliver a car when you didn’t need it?” Thirdly what constitutes an early drop off fee; I had the car for 3 days. Because this is an insurance claim Advantage thinks they can get more money out of my misfortune!

I will not be satisfied until 1. the rep is reprimanded for his actions and 2. reimbursed for this so called drop charge (cancellation) fee. and other unexplained fees.

I will never use this company again.