PICKUP
The day I went to collect my Sixt car, was a mini disaster.
The first thing it wasn't easy to understand one of the guys was explaining to me in reception. His English was not too clear, and when i began to produce my driving license etc., he told me that I could not pay using my Revolut debit card.
I couldn’t believe it! I was there at the office with my wife and our suitcases. I told him that the deposit was paid in Euros. No debit card I offered him was accepted. He then turned around the events around and said well if you take out an insurance package you’ll then be able to make payment with your NatWest debit card. What! What the hell is the difference?
I couldn’t believe what I had heard and of course I was left with no choice to take out the extra daily insurance cost, an unexpected cost, otherwise I’d be stranded with all my arrangements that I had made.
How is it possible that a debit card could not be used to pay for the car rental, but taking out an insurance plan the same debit card was accepted?
Having paid the extra costs, I then went up to the 5th floor to collect my car. I was given the key by a young lady there, with not many explanations. So I asked her if the car had GPS, as I had already paid extra for it. She wasn't sure! And then said "well you can use this portable device". A device that had to be mounted on the dashboard and connected. The device was inside a small bag and GPS screen size was miniature! She then scrambled through some keys and said "well take this car, I will check if it has GPS".
The 2nd car did have GPS, and I was left with the car and key. No staff member had the decency to come to the car and explain the car and GPS. I knew it was a right hand drive. Was it diesel or petrol? I wasn’t told. Was anything else explained to me about the car rental agreement? Nothing!
Having sat in the car for a while I began trying to set up an address with no luck. I went to the office 5th floor and asked them about it. No decent explanation was given!
So I set off and no sooner was I five minutes away the GPS stopped working, the map was frozen. I then touched the NAV sensor on the screen and things became to happen, only five minutes later the map froze again. Is this the kind of service SIXT give to their customers?
to explain anything about the car. No one explained in any shape or form about the GPS! Is this the
I have paid an extraordinary price for the use of this car. I serious think I will NOT recommend Sixt (Dublin Centre) to anyone.
RETURN
On my arrival at the depot in the airport, no sooner than I stopped a guy jumped upon me. He immediately asked for the car key and I hadn’t even taken the cases out of the car! Which I begun to do. As soon as I approached him he had gotton out of the car and had his tablet in his hand and begun to explain a couple of things. He showed me a small discount as I had arrived early. Then the bomb dropped! He said the petrol level was not at maximum and he said there would be some €45 charge to fill up the tank! Fill up the tank? The tank was at ¾ full! I told him you going to charge me €45 when all the car need was only €20. He wasn’t happy with this and said well there is a petrol station some 10 minutes away if you want to fill it up. Quite an unpleasant statement I thought. Rather then get into complications to look for the petrol station, I left the matter and then had to sign on his tablet.
No sooner had I walked away, I saw a staff member putting petrol into the car. Surely, rather than tell me to leave the airport area and look for a petrol station, the SIXT staff member could have offered to fill up the car with the 1/4 of a tank that was needed.
As you can see from my experiences, I am extremely unhappy with my experiences with SIXT, the total car rental costs have been exorbitant and to end it the matter of the €45 charge to ‘fill up’ and three quarter filled tank.
If any of my colleagues, friends etc, ask me about renting from SIXT, my answer will definitely be no.