Dollar - Dollar at LAS: Questions/reviews/recommendations

Hi,

Months ago I rented a car for a week when we'll travel to Vegas in Sept. The reservation was done thru Traveljigsaw and today I got the confirmation that the car (dodge charger or equivalent) is booked to 'Dollar car rental'.

I have looked up this company and I find a lot of negative reviews from people having to wait 1 to 2 hours to get their car! Also cars that break down and that you need to get the car fixed and then reclaim it afterwards?

I am very worried now about this. We arrive at Vegas Mc Carran on a Thursday night around 8:30PM.

Does anyone have experience with this car rental company? (I have been to the US once before and then we had Alamo car rental which was pretty good)

The problem is that when I booked via traveljigsaw they didn't tell which car rental company it would be.

It's only one opinion.. but I too book through consolidators (for an "all inclusive" rate) and Alamo and Dollar both feature heavily...

I haven't personally had any trouble with Dollar... it might be fair to say the cars are a bit more used than some other companies seem to offer.. but that may be a YMMV situation....

Don't have personal experience with Dollar but at least they're based in the car rental center with all the other large brands so shouldn't take you substantially longer than with the other companies to get your car. You take the regular car rental shuttle from the airport - only a few minutes ride and they're fairly frequent, depending on your arrival time.

Just steer clear of Fox which is based miles away from anything else. And the cars are old and crappy.

Enjoy Vegas! ^

I rented with Dollar at LAS last year and had no problems. All the major rental car companies are in a consolidated facility and the buses to there run fairly frequently. if you haven't already, join Dollar Express and call Dollar to get your number applied to your rental. This will allow you to bypass the line at the counter (which can be long). It's free and then you can credit points to your favorite earning program. Car selection was decent too.

cool thanks for the advice, I am less worried now .

I just enrolled in that Dollar express... they should contact me wihtin 3 days. A bit strange that they need my employer's name, address and my credit card info though.

I rent from Dollar occasionally at LAS and have not had any problems.

Enrolling in Dollar Express will save you some time

I can't speak to LAS specifically, but in general, I find Dollar and Thrifty to be pretty consistently the best of the "off" brands - better than Alamo and Budget and Payless and Fox, in terms of reliability of getting a good car at a good price with no gotchas.

I can't speak to LAS specifically, but in general, I find Dollar and Thrifty to be pretty consistently the best of the "off" brands - better than Alamo and Budget and Payless and Fox, in terms of reliability of getting a good car at a good price with no gotchas.

I made good experience with Budget when renting overseas (Australia) - always clean, new-ish cars, friendly and well-informed employees, never any issue when returning the car - and could even collect 500 miles on cheap 50$ rates with EK ^ - If Dollar is better than them, I would definitely not worry about it.

Thanks for all the info. Much appreciated ;-)

One gotta love bureaucracy... so I just received my Dollar Express confirmation email. I call them to have my reservation assigned to my express member #, so that I can skip the long waiting line...

The lady on the phone says she can't do it because I didn't book the car directly on the Dollar website :confused:
I booked this rental car via 'traveljigsaw' which is a site that uses different rental companies. So for that reason no points for me, no skipping the line, and also no frequent flyer miles that I can assign to the account. (which would have been 2 people travelling from Europe)

Guess I know the system now ;-)

Just to throw my two bits in...
Would have recommended Dollar Express too but too bad that you can't assign your reservation to it. We've rented from Dollar a few times and when the main counter was long (10+ people) the express pick up was for us at most 2.

Of the few times we've booked with Dollar in LAS over the last few years, we've only had one issue where they were going to charge us an extra day because they wrote down our pick up time wrong [check your paperwork before you leave!]. However, was able to resolve pretty quickly when I indicated the pickup time was impossible because of our flight arrival time (which, in addition was delayed).

As with any rental, check your car thoroughly before you leave the rental centre. It's dark in there and it's difficult sometimes to spot damage.

I wouldn't hesitate to book from Dollar again the next time we're in Vegas.

Have rented from Dollar several times over the years. Cheap and good, no problems. A car itself is often a nuisance in Vegas, though, so be sure you need it. Most trips, we would never use a car, it comes up once every couple years or so.

We'll go to the grand canyon and 2 days to page so we definately need a car ;-)

I rented at Dollar Las Vegas once in January, and the car and service were fine (about the same as everyone else).

However when doing the paperwork the guy asked, "Would you like to buy the insurance, or handle accidents and law enforcement problems on your own?" When he got to the law enforcement part he gestured like his hands were being cuffed. Hehe.

As if the car didn't already come with the minimum legal insurance, so I better sign up for extra to avoid arrest. Neat sales trick, I bet a lotta folks fell for it.

BTW, I seem to recall they had a special line for Dollar Express members. So even if your rental is not "assigned" to your DE account, you can still cut the line by flashing your DE card (if you have one).

Dollar isn't as bad as most people make it out to be. MAKE SURE to sign up for the Dollar Express, as it reduces your waiting time SIGNIFICANTLY, and the customer service agents actually treat you better. :]

I had an overall good experience with Dollar. I became an express member, but upon checking up front if I could skip the line a person on the phone told me no because I didn't book my car directly with them, but instead thru another website (traveljigsaw). I thought this stupid, but anyway when arriving at the car terminal had to do the big line... upon talking to a desk clerk he looked surprised and told me I should have skipped the line since I'm dollar express :-( .

Anyway, I booked a full size car, since we were 4 people with luggage. A person told us we could choose from a number of cars, mostly impala's it seems. I realy wanted a dodge charger as reserved, so I asked them and a couple of minutes later they brought me a black charger. The car was fine. Also returning the car went smoothly. Just don't forget to mention any scratches or other issues when you receive the car. Our charger had a lot of scratches in it, all around the car. So I told the person that checks this before you can drive outside the gate. They marked this on the paper and then I signed it.

In the end, I would book with them again in the future if they give me the best rate again.

The lady on the phone says she can't do it because I didn't book the car directly on the Dollar website :confused:
I booked this rental car via 'traveljigsaw' which is a site that uses different rental companies. So for that reason no points for me, no skipping the line, and also no frequent flyer miles that I can assign to the account. (which would have been 2 people travelling from Europe)

Guess I know the system now ;-)

That's odd. I would have called back and tried a new agent. I've never heard of them not being able to add a Dollar Express number. The Dollar.com website sometimes complains about changes to a reservation if it was booked via a third-party site (discrepancies in the records a travel agency has of a reservation versus what the rental agency has can lead to disputes about commissions down the line, so it's a best-practice to direct people back to their original booking source to modify their details), but calling to add an Express number isn't really a change.

The one exception is that if you've booked your trip with one of those prepaid overseas traveler all-inclusive rates (you did mention coming from Europe, and a lot of Europeans use those all-inclusive rates, as U.S. rental agencies don't include all of the necessary insurance products in the base retail rate), the regular Dollar reservations center may have been unable to edit your reservation at all.

Regardless, unless there is some big-value reason to book with a third-party site (cash rebate, price monitoring/automatic discount-code-applying service, etc.), it's almost always universally better to book directly with the rental agency. Most of the reservation/rate glitches or complaints I've seen have occurred due to the travel agency either screwing up or not properly communicating correct details to the customer. If you book directly with the rental agency, you're most likely to get (and see) the most accurate terms and conditions, makes/models of available cars, and correct breakdown of rate details. Oh, and you can very easily add your Express number. ;) (Most third-party sites do allow you to add rental agency discount codes and loyalty program numbers, although it's often hidden in a separate "extra options"-type screen.)

As for being unable to earn frequent flyer miles: there's no requirement to be a Dollar Express member to earn frequent flyer miles (unless you want to collect Dollar Express Rewards credits, of course). Regardless, you could very easily have added your frequent flyer number at the counter. Too late to add it at the counter now, of course, but you may also try this link: http://www.dollar.com/Dollar/Help/FrequentFlyerFeedback.aspx (link is from their site but errored out; it's possible they're doing weekend maintenance right now, but you can try http://www.dollar.com/Help/main.aspx if the first link fails).

At the car rental facility, it is NOT uncommon to wait a long time in line. As others have mentioned the Dollar Express but it may not save you much time, YMMV. Dollar cars are good. Fox has been mentioned to stay away from. It's very true but they have others who will quickly jumpt to their defense. Me thinks they're too blind to see the condition of their vehicles or the charges on their rental agreements, so they shouldnt be allowed to drive anyways.

BTW, FOX cars arent old, they are just NOT maintained. They are no more than a year old but they way they have been kicked the crap out of them, they look older and they could die on you at any time. It's really a shame. Fox collects charges from their renters for damage to their vehicles but it seems they never use that money to repair them, they just send them out as-is. I think it's time 20/20 or some other show does a story on them.

I never use the McCarran car rental center - why pay unnecessary additional airport facility fees?
Dollar have a branch (code LASC20) at 4775 Swenson Street, Las Vegas 89119, telephone 1-702-891-8588.
It is reached by bus route 108 from Level 0 at arrivals - less than three minutes from the airport.

(Similarly at SFO I pick up from Burlingame, level with the southern boundary of the airport, at a much cheaper rate - they bring the vehicle from the Rental Center. It can be returned to SFO without incurring airport fees.)

When was the last time you used this Dollar location? The last time I checked I there was no other Dollar location near the McCarran airport.

When was the last time you used this Dollar location? The last time I checked I there was no other Dollar location near the McCarran airport.
It's there. Check this out:

http://g.co/maps/wz3wr

On a sample rate check for a bunch of different dates from tomorrow all the way through next October, every single date offers the same rates: $95.49 for ECAR, $97.49 for CCAR and ICAR, $113.49 for FCAR, etc.

Looks like they just file some BS rates for that location and aren't actively marketing it. Our guess is they are actually the service/detailing facility for the Dollar locations in the Strip hotels (it's doubtful each of the hotels has its own car wash facilities or very many spaces to stage cars, so they probably wash cars at and then run cars up from this facility to one of a few parking stalls in front of the hotel). Based on this, we surmise they're not actively marketing it for rentals, but they'll take someone who happens to stumble in. (The building looks nice/new enough that our guess is it may have been the old Dollar airport location before the CONRAC was built, so there are probably plenty of spare rental terminals inside.)

That said, it might be a good option for when Dollar at the airport is sold out. With creative use of discount codes, we were able to get the rate down significantly from that stock $95.49 a day, so that's always an option if necessary. Given the same base rate, it works out to $3.75/day plus ~10% less than the on-airport location due to the lack of the airport fees.