CarRentals.com
reviews and complaints

This is the worst company to use for car rental. I recently booked my reservation in Jan 2020 for June 2020. It was supposed to be for 3 weeks. Things change due to illness and I needed to change my reservation, and I have been struggling to change or cancel. There is no phone number to call and they keep emailing whenever they like. It has been my worst experience. They don't let you cancel the reservation and keep making excuses. They told me to book another reservation and then they will cancel the first one. Still they did not and now I am tied with two reservations. I have been charged twice. It is very frustrating.

I live in the UK but I am a US citizen and home back to the US every 3-4 months. I usually use rentacars.com and have always thought they were good until I realized they are impossible to deal with live and refuse to fix their mistakes. This trip I was in Washington DC from 20-26 Dec then Denver 26 Dec - 1 Jan. The Thrifty rental car & experience in DC were great, but I changed my plans to fly to DC on 24th instead of 26 Dec. So my Thrifty rental [protected] was changed to an Alamo rental [protected]. Alamo claimed that because it was a rental made from overseas, I needed an international drivers license. I don't have one, I use my US drivers license to rent abroad and I've rented 6 times in the US from reservations I made in the UK and never had a problem. They refused to give me a car. So I never picked it up, I had to rent another car from Thrifty and pay the walk up rate. I tried calling carrentals.com SEVERAL times to get that rental refunded and was put on hold extensively. On one attempt I finally got hold of an untrained and RUDE woman named Lucia from Barcelona who told me I would only get refunded from the date of the phone call, not comprehending that I never picked the car up. She talked over me and said she couldn't get any supervisor to help because they were too busy. I asked for a call back, but I know she didn't pass my information to anyone and I've never been called back. I want a full refund for that rental plus a formal complaint lodged against Alamo.

I reserved a "Pay at the Counter" car and noticed I was charged at the day of the reservation. Carrentals said they don't know what the charge is about, refused to refund me, and told me to talk to the car supplier.

When I arrived to pick up the car, the supplier said they don't see the previous charge either and demanded I pay again for the car. I did, under the assumption it'll get sorted out later. Then the supplier provided me with a very low-end manual transmission car, while I ordered a high-end automatic car. I contacted Carrentals to resolve the issue but they did nothing and I ended up having to use that car during my whole vacation, which was a nightmare.

Before even picking up the car, I sensed something was wrong and asked Carrentals to double-check everything's ok with the reservation and that I will be receiving the exact car I ordered, and they confirmed I will. Apparently they didn't.

After my vacation, I contacted Carrentals numerous times and haven't been able to get a refund for my double charge nor for the fact I received an inferior, barely-driveable manual car. They simply don't care.

Made reservation for two passenger van specifically Opel Vivaro since there were 14 of us and lots of luggages. Avis declined my hard copy of the reservation which clearly had the pic of Opel Vivaro and explained in two areas of the reservation "Opel Vivaro or similar" and offered us Opel Zefir which was much smaller 7 passenger suv. Since we could not fit in them with our luggages we insisted on Open Vivaro but they declined and said we need to contact carrental.com with our issue. Finally we were forced to pay additional 150 Euro per day to upgrade one of the cars to what it was supposed to be. Send email to carrental.com and they claim the reservation was for Smaller Opel Zefir and when I sent them the hard copy proof of my reservation for bigger Opel Vivaro there were no response. DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT YOU SEE IN YOUR RESERVATION WITH CARRENTAL.COM OR YOU WILL PAY DEARLY AND CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. They are scammers who will tell you anything you like to hear but after the sale there is not even a phone number you can call them

When I rented with Carrentals in ISRAEL (using Budget) they offered me an Allianz policy which I discovered excludes Israel and excludes non US residents. On both counts I'd be in trouble if I required to claim. Also on both counts Carrentals knowingly sell you the policy. Seems they automatically instal your residence as ‘Alaska' if you are a non US resident and ignore the fact you are renting in Israel. I noticed other consumers using this dud policy which is part of the deal! I cancelled mine and am waiting a refund.

Hertz dindn't advise to me that I shall have an international driver's license.
In all European countries y have driven and rented cars is the only one that not accept my home-country driver's license ( Colombia). It is written in normal Roman alphabet and the only driver's license required to be translated are the ones written in Arabic alphabets.
So, I finally couldn't rent a car in Greece and I don't know if Iost my money paying the Insurance policy Ibaquired through rental cars.com
I ask rental cars.com to reimburse me that payment.

Date of the incident 7/7/2019
Booking #:J0772908338
Description: Under the above booking, a car was reserved by Car Rental.com with Dollar rent a car to pick up a Ford focus car for one day at 339 South End Avenue Manhattan New York. When I presented the Booking number, Dollar car rental told me they could not rent the car for quoted Total price/day of $146.89. There was no customer service # for car Rentals .com to contact also. I ended up renting the car at the rate of $161.54 and paid a total of $323.07 for 2 days
After coming back home I was unable to contact Car Rentals.com. because the customer service number provided on the Website for Car Rentals .com goes to American Arbitration Association for legal action.
Please find in the attachment receipts from both Rental car.com as well as Dollar car rental.
For no fault of mine I ended up paying $30 extra for the car rental.
The issue appears to be between Car rental.com and Dollar car rental.
Kindly resolve it and credit me $30.
This complaint has also been filed with:
New York City Department of Consumer affairs, 42 Broadway New York, NY 10004

Had the worst experience with Carrentals.com. These people are fraud and cheat their customers. I had made a reservation which I wasn't able to cancel due to their site being down (took a screenshot) as well. Couldn't get in touch with the customer support because of their hours. Finally they cancelled my reservation and charged $55 for cancellation. I explained their agent the issue I was facing and they promised they would not charge the cancellation fee, but I was still charged. This is complete cheating and scam, other rental booking companies honor what their customers say as well as keep their word. They just wanted to make money out of this transaction and they really don't care about customer relations or support.

Vehicle wasn't ready at the reserved time. Bait & switch - I prepaid & was charged additionally. The place does not have 24 hour drop off for their "airport location" as claimed. I was charged an additional $20 for that. So all in all, charges $24 more than quoted & originally paid for. I waited 45 minutes for the vehicle & it still wasn't ready so I cancelled.

CarRental.com refused to refund the money. They told me that maybe if I had waited AN HOUR OR TWO for my reservation they could MAYBE refund it. Unacceptable.

CarRental.com advertises that you can rent a car with a debit card. They also popped up strongly when I searched via Google for companies who accept debit cards. But after I paid with my debit card, they said the company I booked with does not accept credit cards. And I do not own a credit card.

CarRentals.com took the payment from my debit card knowing this company does not accept debit cards.

Because I do not have a credit card, the car rental company refused to fulfill my booking. They shredded the booking although I already paid for it.

CarRentals.com is refusing to refund the payment because the booking was "cancelled" ! But I did not cancel it, the car rental company did.

So, who is keeping the money for the service NOT rendered? Both CarRentals.com and U-Save car rentals seem to be working together to steal money in this devious way.

BUYER BEWARE ! You cannot trust reservations made of this site. I made reservations 2 months in advance for a 12 passenger van for a family trip. A few days later, I called the pickup location to ask if they could give us a 9 passenger van instead of a 12 passenger van. Imagine my shock when they told me that what I had booked through carrentals.com was a 5 passenger car (Mazda 5). I shared the screen capture and reservation email details with carrentals.com customer service that showed booking for a 12 passenger van.
I was told that they would check with provider and because this was their error, they would find me a new reservation and provide it at the same cost as my original booking.
I remember thinking WOW ! what good customer service!
But boy was I wrong!
When I called back to follow up I was told to wait as they needed to investigate further. The stories kept changing. Ultimately after a month of chasing I was told that they were unable to make a reservation for me nor give me a credit for the difference in current booking costs (because prices had increased in the month).

The final ultimate kick in the mouth was when their customer service team sent me an excerpt of their boilerplate T&C and basically said they weren't responsible for any mistakes and that I was on my own.

I shudder to think about the disaster I'd have walked into on the first day of my vacation if I had not discovered their screw-up by accident.

Stay away from their platform if you want to be confident about your car rental reservation.

They should change their name to amateurhour rentals.com

the other day i had made a reservation the other day for today april 25 . I go to the place and for one they gave me the wrong address!so i finally found the place & they told me they didn't have any cars for me so i try to get my money back and car rentals.com don't have a number and on the email they sent it say it's non refundable but i never got the car, this is so crazy i will NEVER order from this website again !

Worst customer service experience, Booked rental car, Paid upfront, Car not provided.

Online Booking portal - Carrentals.com
Car rental company - Routes car rentals (Toronto Airport)

I booked my car rental 1 month in advance through carrentals.com and while booking I picked airport as the pickup location. Additionally, their search page showed shuttle service from the airport.

I landed at Toronto airport and there was supposed to be shuttle service at 11:00 PM. I called routes and they said we cannot pick you up. You have to come to the location and we guys are open till 11:30 only.

Now carrentals.com. claim please read terms and conditions as it says pick up is not available after 10:00 PM. Guys are you serious, why search page is showing shuttle service since I have already selected the pickup time as 11:00 PM ? If there is no shuttle mark it and highlight on your website rather than having it somewhere in terms and condition and claim that you accepted while booking. Additionally Booking confirmation email said pickup as Toronto Airport. Screenshot attached for reference.

My friend came to pick me up and somehow we reached the location by 11:40 PM. Outside of their entry gate, it was mentioned timings as 11:30 PM only. I turned back and headed towards friends place for the night. They said we were open till 12:00 PM (Lights turned off, Operation hours board showed 11:30 PM as a closing hour, Website showing as 10:00 PM). Now if you are genius you have to guess people are still there inside the office. :)

Even I called to cross-check outside of the door at 11:45 no one picked up the call.

Next morning my friend took me again to their location and now things got messed up.

First, their staff seemed very rude while dealing. The lady sitting at the front desk said we don't have your booking and its expired. I had booked for 4 days starting 18th April 2019 at 11:00 PM till 22nd April. I paid all the money upfront while booking through carrentals.com. They refused to give the car keys on day 2 morning of my booking.

Thus I had to book another car this time through enterprise for the remaining two days of my travel.

Now Routes car rental along with Carrentals.com claiming that if you don't take the car within 1-2 hours your booking gets expired. Thus if you have some flight delay or baggage delay forget about getting the keys through these people.

I have never ever seen such an awful customer experience. Especially through an Expedia group company (Carrentals.com) They even did not help me in this case. Additionally, I don't have words to express it for Routes car rental as well.

My only query is, I was not offered the car, return my money back.

Lately, since they know that it's not a good experience they intentionally send the email for 1 booking and not for the other.

Amandeep, tell us about your experience with Enterprise
Why not received an email for experience with Routes ?

Two days ago I had a reservation in CarsRentals.com to rent a car. After I placed order and paid for it. Next second, I knew it's wrong location. I asked for can I change pick-up and return locations. Yesterday, I got a email told my reservation was be canceled. Why？ I don't understand. I wrote back a email ask for give me a call. But I didn't get any message .
I don't know what's going on!
Also the email told it need to charge canceling fee. But I totally want to rent a car !
Now I can't get car and have a unexpected charge. I don't know what can I say! It's a terrible experience.

I am writing you because I need to know how to get my money back for a van we had rented at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Air Port for Friday January 4- January 7th, 2019. I did a pre-paid rental. After having a 5 hour flight delay ( Which I know is not your fault) I get to Advantage Car rental and find over 150 people in line to pick up their cars. The people working behind the counter tell us that there will be at least a 2 hour wait for cars because they don't have any cars to give us. Now, I am in Phoenix for a short weekend and I don't want to or feel that I should have to wait 2 hours for a rental car. So, I am reaching out to you because I feel that you owe me my money back. Please respond to my email and let me know how we are going to resolve this. And if you can't then I need to find out who I need to talk to about this situation.

My Confirmation number for this rental was LADP0C42EAAD

Thank You,
Heidi J Reece
[protected]@frontier.com

This company misrepresents the vehicle you will be receiving. They claim a Nissan Rogue is equivalent a Jeep Grand Charokee. We had to pay for an upgrade in order to get passengers, including a toddler in a car seat, and luggage into the vehicle. The customer service team at car rentals.com offered no resolution in working with Ace Car Rentals in Orlando, Florida. This is a dishonest business practice preying on travelers. Do not pay for the online insurance or you will not be able to leave and find a reputable company that will provide the vehicle represented at the time of booking.

On November 4th, I rented a car from this company and I went to pick it up. When I went to pick it up, I was told that they cannot rent me a car because I am local. I emailed carrentals.com explaining to them what happen and asking for a refund. They responded saying that they denied my refund even though I was denied service.
This company is horrible and full of lies.

This company arranged a rental through Hertz at a location which was closed at the time I was to pick up the car. After returning to the airport to try and transfer the booking to the Hertz desk at the there, I was told Hertz would not honor the booking because it was arranged through CarRentals.com. I had to pay for a new booking and CarRentals.com refused to refund my original charge. This company clearly is more concerned with a few dollars than keeping customers happy and loyal. I will never use CarRentals.com again and would advise anyone else considering this company to do the same.

Booking number H6613866790
Date of booking 05/09/2018
Date of rental 10/27/2018
CarRentals.com booked through Hertz

Desired resolution - Refund of booking fees

Booked a rental through CARRENTALS.COM for a vehicle in Miami, Fla. My complaint isn't with CARRENTALS.COM but rather the vendor, U-SAVE CAR & TRUCK RENTAL. Still haven't received my deposit refunded back to my credit card and it's been 35 days since the vehicle was returned. They said they refunded it to my CC account but that was untrue. Subsequent calls have gone directly to voicemail. Read reviews and it's a pattern on behalf of this company. Just wanted to let CARRENTALS.COM know that they're promoting a vendor that is scamming their clients. I've been booking through CARRENTALS.COM for over a decade and have never had any issues until this rental.