Why Thrifty?
 

Sometimes they are just too much cheaper to ignore. Some weekends they are almost free.

My most recent price-driven experience was not bad at all. The Thrifty location in Wichita has moved in-terminal from off-airport, with the cars out front. Not right out the door like a few others, but maybe 100 feet or so.

Running late on return because of road construction. No agent on lot. Single clerk inside, working a line, looked up as we fumbled with the Express Return, and said: "If you swear there are no problems and you bought gas, just give me the paperwork and the keys. I'll mail you a recepit before I leave." Which he did. Almost identical to a fully satisfactory experience I had last summer in Anchorage. In both cases, just because of small kindness from the agent.

Both nice guy and efficient. They need to send him to train the people in Kansas City. And they need to have an agent on the lot for returns.

Lax
 

Add LAX to the avoid list.

Got pretty decent service att SFO once however.

Best

SAT sucks as well
 

Booked on-line
Luxury Class Chrysler 300 or similar.
At the counter was offered a Pacifica which is Premium class, I refused the downgrade because I was told that they are the same booking class (a lie) and that is all they have available. I told her to cancel that reservation and the ones I have for the following two weeks. 12 rental days total (and I was going to book two more weeks today). The desk agent became rude and told me "OK then you can go"

As a side note the last two rentals from this location have had so much air freshener sprayed in them that they smelled like a urinal with the sanitizer system installed. I needed to roll the windows down to make it bearable.

No excuse for the idiot desk agent who blew you off that way. If I were the owner/manager of that location, I would counsel the employee about the way to treat customers.

But what, if anything, might be learned from an experience like yours? It does happen that others don't return cars and they can't provide what you expect to get. I rent smaller cars, so those situations have usually worked to my advantage, putting me into a bigger car for the same price. Is there any way they could have accommodated you when they didn't have the car you reserved? Should they have compensated you like an airline would do in the event of a VDB or IDB, perhaps with free days? I don't know, but throw it out to see what others think. Do car rental desks have the ability to do something other than put you into a bigger/better car, which they didn't have at the time? (Is Thrifty allied with Dollar, so they might have tried to arrange something for you through Dollar or another agency?)

Did you complain to corporate customer service rather than just walk away mad, having only vented at the desk agent. (No disapproval from me about venting at a rude desk agent, but think you should follow through with a complaint to headquarters.)

I did send an e-mail through the online customer service form they have on their website. They told me to send the receipt of my rental from another agency in and they would reimburse me for the difference. It was an auto reply sent within 3 min of my submittal.
By the way I did not vent at the desk agent I told her that the Pacifica was a different class and I would not pay the same for a lesser car. When she told me that they were the same class I told her that that was not true and I wanted to cancel my reservations for this week and the next two after that, then I proceeded to the bus, booked online with Avis during the ride to the airport, and caught the Avis bus to my car.

First let me preface this. I'm a 3 yr bluechip member and use Thrifty 90% of the time in the US on a ~every other week basis. Usually I am pretty happy and get treated faily well at most of the locations I use...especially Nashville. I have made 3 trips to Europe since 2001 and rented cars each time.

Need to add the Frankfurt, Germany airport location (which really is not at the airport but is ~10 miles away) to the list.

1. Waited 1 hour and 15 minutes at the airport on the shuttle bus after calling.

2. My contracted rate was not honored initially until I got the manager involved. They tried to charge me an additional 50 euros for a 2 week reservation. She was really put out by this and offered no apology. You really need to take a print out of your confirmation which includes all the miscelaneous fees. It came in handy here.

3. I reserved a "Midsize" car. Ford Mondeo was the example car. I was given a Ford Focus. When I questioned this I was told it was the only car they had for me and all other available cars were reserved. Not sure if we caught them on a bad day but after an all night flight and a schedule to make I didn't have the time or energy to refuse and go back to the airport and then take a chance on getting another car from another company. The Focus was actually a pretty nice car and got great gas milege (kilometerege? :D ) I will be requesting a refund of the difference in rental rates from customer service.

4. Arrived at this location to return the car and waited for another 1.5 hours for a shuttle to the airport. The manager got one of the carwash guys to take us after multiple inquiries about the shuttle. She was convinced we did not need as much time at the airport as the airline suggested.

We had an excellent vacation and the only negative was the Thrifty experience.
Mark

My Thrifty experience = small airport, ok; metro-type airport, avoid (unless you have the time).

What about LAS (airport) ? Do i have to expect problems…. :(

I have rented from Thrifty in SFO, OAK, and LEX (LEX office is now closed). Had a great experience at SFO/OAK. Almost no wait and lots of cars available.

At LEX, I returned a minivan with a dented tailgate (parking garage attendant hit something) and a busted off gas cap thanks to one of our passengers. The girl who checked us in said she "normally doesn't check in vehicles" and had no idea how to process the damage claim. So she let us go without any sort of damage paperwork... I'll assume we ended up paying for the damage somehow, but I never heard anything back from them.

How long ago did this happen? Did you purchase coverage from Thrifty or will you look to your own carrier and/or the credit card you used? Be careful lest failure to put your own carrier and/or the credit card carrier on notice of the "loss" might mean they will deny you if Thrifty at some later time sticks you with a big repair bill.

HNL, I just cant believe how disorganized that place is and they have no staff. You will wait for quite a while to return or get your car. It is a complete mess there......ore was. I have not been back. I gave them two chances and that was it.

It was rented through a university, and I'm sure we ended up getting a bill for it - obviously we were expecting one. My surprise was that when we informed her the vehicle was damaged, she simply shrugged and said, "I dunno what to do... have a good day!"

duplicate

What I meant: If you have to use their shuttle, avoid.

I rent regularly from LAS. The lot is not far from the terminal with regular shuttle service. It is usually the cheapest in the city and if you are Blue Chip you can just stroll into where the cars are and pick what you signed up for bypassing the counter completely. It's been hassle free the 9 or 10 times I have been there.

One quirky thing. The Blue Chip contracts print out at 12:01 am, so your contract will look like you have an extra day. On return, the correct amount is charged.

One more thing about LAS. The extra fees that get socked on can often double the cost of the rental. This isn't just a Thrifty thing, it's that way with all rental companies on airport.