My horror story with Payless, and the reason I will never rent from them again: several months in advance I got a very good rate from Payless for a rental at Anchorage Airport in July. All the other companies were above the $70 level for an intermediate car; Payless was around $30. When I arrived at the airport, the Payless counter had a ‘no cars available’ sign up, but they did honor my reservation since I had taken the trouble to print out the confirmation. They tried to sell me the collision damage waiver and when I refused because it is covered by my Diners Club card, they were very insistent in asking how they would get paid in the event of damage to their car. When I returned the car to their lot in ANC it had no damage I could see and they had no representative in the lot to inspect the car, but they later sent me a letter claiming that the windshield, like Dovster’s in Malpensa, was nicked, and sent along a bill for several hundred dollars. I believe their claim was false since I would have noticed a nick on the windshield as I was driving the car. They provided no documentation of the alleged damage. I sent them a letter, which they did not answer, containing the following:

For your information, I did NOT notice any nick, or any other form of damage, to the windshield either at the beginning or the end of the rental. As the car was not inspected by Payless when I returned it to their lot, it is possible that the damage, if there indeed is any, may have occurred at some later time, after I returned the vehicle. Furthermore, as I noted on the ‘vehicle condition report’ at the beginning of the rental, the car had ‘dirt marks’ all over it, including on the windshield, so it is possible that such marks prevented me from noting any damage that may have existed at the time. I do remember trying to clean the windshield with the automatic wiper mechanism a few times.

Diners paid anyway. So … no more rentals from Payless, and all car rentals on Diners from now on.