I would like to ask fellow FTers if it is just me or someone else has noticed an overall downtrend in rentning experience with Sixt?

To start with I'm Sixt Plat, but I'm not really renting so often. However when it comes to rent I'm always going to Sixt for last 5 years or so. Now here is my recent experience:

10-days rent in France: was supplied with a car which had some damage not reported. Had to go back and report. Few weeks after got snail mail with damage claim. Had to write an explanation letter. No reply, no news but no credit card charge either.

1-day rent in Gemany: again agent told me "this is almost new car with no damage", actually car had a few quite visible scratches. Again had to go back and report. A week later I've got invoice for rent + extra mileage. I knew for sure I haven't exceeded milege limit (500 km). I knew where I have to go and what is the distance. Otherwise I would not rent expensive SUV with mileage limit in a first place. Had to write a complain, got it resolved, got money back, and got a total mess with my accounting ref mismatching cc charges/expenses/invoices.

Now the best one. I'm renting Sixt car in Norway for several month in row (30/31 days each month) for my employees. EVERY time Sixt fails to send me a monthly invoice until secretary reminds them at least 2-3 times. NEVER they sent me a proper invoice by snail mail, despite repetitive requests. NEVER got them to enter the proper customer name and address in invoice, which makes a lot of problems with foreign VAT reclaim for accounting. Sometimes to get any answer I had to copy main Norwegian address and German address. Every month invoice is different with no explanation. The only thing they never forget is to charge credit card. Last new round was today, and I decided enough is enough, will switch to another company for this rent.

Those 3 cases are in row, there wasn't any other rental between them. The only thing Sixt has delivered to me constantly is car upgrade (except Norway, but this was understandable).

Also I've noticed that too many rentals are no longer eligible for miles, let alone that 4 times out of 5 I'm getting a better rate without logging in with Plat account.

I feel overall this a downtrend from what I remember of the past. However, maybe I'm just out of luck and 3 examples in row are not representing the whole picture?

Im a Sixt Plat as well and although i'm not a frequent renter I am renting with them three times this summer for probably three weeks in total in France, Spain and Switzerland so i'm hoping for Sixt's usual high standards of service and hard product!

I've never had any problems with them of any sort and I always recommend them to friends and colleagues but I will report back after my rentals.

Are we talking about same SIXT...

I'm the Customer Service Manager for Sixt U.K

Firstly, please accept my apologies for the difficulties you have experienced renting vehicles from us as described in your post.

I will comment on some of the issues you raised.

From the 23rd of April we have introduced a new pricing structure for our loyalty cards. Whereas before your discount applied to a standard rate which was by and large the same price all year round, there were too often times when the direct retail price was cheaper then if you had a prestige status with us. Whist the standard rate ensured cheap rental during peaks in tariff it was not always the best value during the low season. This is very difficult to explain to a customer, that whilst you afford a prestige status, this did not always guarantee the best price.

Now, we have changed our discounts for Gold and Platinum customer to apply to our best rate ( excluding special offers ). You are therefore now guaranteed to have discounts on the internet retail rate dependent on your status of up to 20%. This is very good news for our valued customers.

Concerning your invoicing address, it is very easy for us to associate an invoice address automatically on every rental by updating the profile on your Sixt Express Card. This is something that I would like to arrange for you. Perhaps if you would be kind enough to send your details to [email protected] I will be very happy to arrange this for you.

If you have any problems on any future hires please do not hesitate to contact me directly and I will do my best to help.

Best Regards
Gary

Hi Gary thank you for getting back us. Glad to have you on this board.

When I log in with my platinum card I find that the rates offered do not include loss damage waiver etc whereas when I login without my card the rates do and the vast majority of the time its cheaper to login without my card when all the components are added together. (I just did a dummy booking for one of my bookings to check for this summer and that's still the case)

As in my post above i'm a loyal and happy Sixt customer so this isn't a complaint, more a question!

Regards...Ben

Hi Ben,

Please could you e-mail your express card number to me and I will check this.


Gary

This is simple

Given you bad experiences and amount of business being put their way, go elsewhere. You are a patient person, I would have dumped them after Germany.

But this rent in Norway is not on my card, it should be just invoiced on company name which I supplied. And then asked several times. All failed. I already made a decision to terminate this rent as I have no more patience. We spent so far around EUR 10.000 on this particular rent. I guess it is enough money to make 1) correct invoicing name and address 2) send a proper invoices by snail mail 3) give feedback with explanation why some of the chages are changing every month without any reason. But it looks Sixt Norway don't care. Norway is communist state, you can't fire or penalize people for wrong doing there. I'm sorry Gary, but I'm not interested to receive another copy-paste quote "we are sorry about less-than-perfect service blah-blah". Neither I'm interested to read emails from my secretary that Sixt Norway is simply ignoring her emails.

p.s. I forwarded you a couple of emails, so you know it is not my imagination.

I�m a loyal and mostly very satisfied SIXT customer, renting mostly in Germany.
Since ecconomic crisis last year there is are some obvious changes though.

Fleet seems to be dramatically focused on basic versions within the different booking classes (smaller engines, less special equipment), less premium cars so I clearly experience that often SIXT station really have difficulties in providing attractive upgrades.


Last but not least SIXT staff claims every small scratch, dent ..., so you really have to be very attentive when taking over a car in order not to be billed for pre-damages.

Apart from that, I still am a SIXT-fan, especially being aware that other rental-companies are showing the same developement.

Exactly! I took BMW X6 from Sixt in MUC city centre, no damage was shown on paperwork they handled me, just in case I asked to re-confirm and got verbally "this is almost a new car, nil damage". True, car had only 3000 something km, but because I had previous negative experience with Sixt in France on this matter, I still decided to spend a minute on walk-around. And discovered that both front and rear bumper are scratched, quite visible. Had to go back (a good 5+ min walk in heavy rain) and report. Somehow I'm sure if I wouldn't done that, I would have a bill for damage.

Next time just call the SIXT hotline and insist to get connected to a station employee. They will walk over to you and this avoids your walk through the rain.
Yes, you can bet you would have been charged :-)

Well, there were two guys on that underground parking, washing sixt cars etc. I asked them to assist, but they told me I have to go to the office

p.s. I wondering if this is a sort of ancillary revenue for Sixt to supply cars with unreported damage then charge for it, never repair, and repeat again and again?

Maybe SIXT even orders the cars with minor damager from car manufacturers to make this new sort of profit from the first rent on.
Hey, this is quite a conspricy theory, but may be quite a headline.

Sixt is not worse than others. This has been happening more and more with other companies too. I haver CDW with the company rate at Hertz and they still charged me for prior damage once at LHR once at BUD (A licensee there). Sixt has actually not done that to me but i check every single mark and make certain it is on the dispatch form.

Sorry for coming back on this issue.
Just a few days ago, quotes with Sixt in Germany being a status customer (airline pgm, plat., diamond) eventually brought up competitive rates again, after most of these discounts had been missing for months.
Reason enough to shift some business back from Europcar to Sixt!
However, if one quotes the same today, these improvements seem to have gone again.
On top of it all, it does not seem to be possible to quote for any luxury cars (e.g. XDAR) at all. So I actually wonder, whether the roll-out of the new pricing structure/logic has been finalised yet.
Quoting for prices with Sixt over the last 12+ weeks compares to a lottery game, I wonder if this ever has been intended. Currently it's more confusing than the old pricing structures with fixed rates.