Advantage at DCA: not so good
 

Hi all,
I just rented a car for one day from Advantage at DCA and I won't be using them again:
1) They are even more off site than the other rental car agencies, so you have to take _two_ shuttle buses to get to their office and lot
2) The signage to find the second shuttle bus was far from clear
3) The second shuttle bus took over 15 minutes to arrive
4) The office did not answer their phone number; calling it resulted in "this number is out of service". When I got to the office, I called it in front of the desk agent... he had the ringer turned off, we could see the light on the phone blinking, and my call was soon forwarded to the disconnected number
5) The wait at the counter was about 10 minutes per customer. Just one agent working the line.
6) Total time from exiting the terminal to driving out of the rental lot was well over an hour, which is longer than I am willing to accept
7) Finally, the car they gave me had no gas cap, as I discovered when I filled it up prior to returning

So, no one huge disaster, but a bunch of little things adding up to my booking with other choices in the future.

Cheers,
saunders111

Your headline would be no less accurate without the "at DCA."

Nothing odd about this in the least. I tried these guys twice. I wrote off the first one to a lousy employee. The second one elsewhere convinced me that it's simply a lousy company. DCA has tons of options. Use one of them.

Sounds like I wouldn't rent here even if it were free. Time is money.

I rent cars frequently because I live in the suburbs and don't own a car. (You can question my life choices in another thread.) Bottom line is I rent only from National. Not even Enterprise, which is the same company. National is a little pricier upfront but well worth the time and stress saved.