What are some things you do to avoid being ripped off by car rental companies? From reading Flyertalk they seem to be the shadiest part of the travel industry.

Do you try to avoid certain companies (e.g. Payless) or stick to others (e.g. Hertz)? Document the condition of the car when you leave it? Any other tips?

Before booking, read the policies (rules). So far I just go by those on the company's web site and those on Travelocity .com, assuming the worse case applies. For example some companies require that you purchase their collision if you don't have collision on a car you own or you are a non-citizen. Beware of geographical restrictions. (Not absolutely foolproof, a location's policies might differ.)

Get and bring a written confirmation of your reservation.

Read the contract before you sign or initial. You may have told the agent you are declining a coverage but the "accept" space is circled and the agent points to that place to initial.

Before starting off, inspect the car for damage no matter how slight. If this helps make sure you don't miss a spot, drum your fingers all the way along the sides of the car as you look. Inspect the inside, too, for cigarette burns, etc.

Open the trunk and look for all the tire changing tools and spare tire.

Take your time doing the above.

More rental tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/carrent.htm

This is excellent advice. Turn the headlights on and make sure the blinkers are in order. Make sure the cigarette lighter is there; if it's missing, they might charge you for it even if you picked up the car with it already missing. In addition, turn on the engine to verify that you have a full tank or at least the needle is pointed directly at the F. If it is even slightly under, choose another car.

Make sure you don't sign up for the "convenience" of having them fill up the tank. Major ripoff.

What I've found is that the "majors" (Hertz, Avis, National) tend not to be as picky about dings. The "tourist" rental car agencies tend to go over the car with a fine tooth comb and point out every scratch. The one time I rented a car from a low cost car rental place (and this was probably the first time I had ever rented a car to boot), I picked up the car at a hotel and the agent was standing there holding the door, so I hopped right in. MISTAKE! There was a minor door ding on the other side that was pointed out to me upon return to the airport and they expected me to pay for that repair ($500 IIRC) on the spot! I flipped out and ended up not paying, but I wonder how many times that door ding was paid for...

I used to go for the cheapest rate I could, which often meant Alamo, Dollar, or Thrifty. I got hassled so much I gave up.

Now I rent almost exclusively from Avis, occasionally from Hertz. There are lots of discount numbers you can use for either one, and I find with Avis I can almost always get a rate comparable to the others with far less hassle and with Preferred Service (or Gold Service with Hertz) that really works well.

Hertz Priority One gives you a lot of benefits. Mostly you save time picking the car up. You can join for about $50 a year. My industry group (American Bar) gets me a free membership.

As the above and other posters have pointed out, if you stick with the above "big three" rental agencies, you'll almost certainly have a no hassle experience. And, you don't have to spend the extra time going over the car with a fine-toothed comb every time you rent just to avoid being ripped off.

And the amazing thing is, they're usually only a few dollars more than the "discount" chains. Paying 3 or 4 dollars more a day is more than worth the ease of rental and peace of mind, in my opinion and experience.

Speaking of the fine print in rental agreements, I found out the hard way (or was I just reminded) why I don't like to rent from the budget places, in this case Enterprise. There was minor damage done to the rental car during my rental, so I had to fill out their claim form when I returned it. Fine, I thought, as I had rented it with Diners Club, so that provided me primary coverage. The next day, I got a call from my regular auto insurance company, wanting details in order to process a claim. "What??!!" was more or less my reaction. Enterprise, without my knowledge or permission, had contacted my regular insurance company and opened a claim. Of course, they are able to do this because they make you show a copy of your insurance card and photocopy it before the rental (at least for local rentals), so they have all of the information.

I called their claims person, and he told me to read the rental agreement. It turns out that everyone renting a car from Enterprise (at least in Texas) is actually granting them a Limited Power of Attorney (!) to handle such matters on your behalf. To say the least, I was stunned. I could barely believe that a routine retail consumer transaction would contain a Power of Attorney clause in the fine print.

Since I have the frequent renter Master Agreement card with Avis and National, I took a look at those agreements, and they don't have Power of Attorney clauses in them, so it's not as if it's standard practice in the industry.

And of course, once your insurance company finds out about something like this, they want to use it as an excuse to raise your rates, even if the claim gets paid by someone else.

Going by the few times I have needed to rent a car, I've found Sixt to be better than Hertz and Avis. Better prices too. ^
My experience with them (at least in the UK) was that they go around the car with you and note any bodywork defects on a sheet of paper there and then. You are of course welcome to point things out!
Generally, though, there are relatively few places/situations where you really need a rental car. 90% of the time I use a combination of public transport and taxis...No speeding/parking worries, no getting lost, no trying to figure the local driving customs out.

For car rentals (I've only rented in the US): definitely rent with the majors. Avis, Hertz, National, Thrifty, Alamo all have pretty good records with me, with Avis, Hertz, and National being preferred (I've never rented from Dollar). As stated above, the minors try to nail you for paint damage and dings.

Regarding Enterprise: I would advise everyone to avoid them. I had a similar situation to the one described above. This was in Seattle about 8-9 years ago at a neighborhood location. I had rented a car and hadn't checked the exterior carefully. I discovered in the car a rental agreement for a previous rental which described some (minor) damage on the passenger door. When I returned the car, they tried to hold me responsible and said it would be about $500 to repeair. For some reason, I decided to test them. I told them I knew I wasn't responsible for the damage. Not mentioning that I had a copy of someone else's prior rental agreement, I asked them if they could check previous rental agreements to see if someone else had noted the damage. They went into the office and pretended to do this and came back and said no one else had noted any damage. At this point, I brought out the rental agreement I had found and pointed out the damage had been noted previously. They were pretty nasty about the whole thing but I didn't pay anything extra.

A week or so later, a friend of mine from France decided to rent from them (I had tried to discourage this, but he wanted the great rate they offered - $9.99/day for a 3 day weekend). When he got there, they really pushed the "coverage" (insurance) - pressuring him for 30 minutes. I had warned him they would (they had tried this for about 5 minutes with me before I got nasty) and told him they could not legally require him to purchase anything. Nonetheless, he gave in and purchased the passenger liability coverage for about $4/day. Then, they told him that because he was from France, they'd have to run an authorization for the full value of the car on his credit card. When they tried this, it didn't work because he didn't have a credit line that high. They ended up running an $8000 preauthorization on his credit card (I never understood how they could do this and no one has ever tried that with me). If it had been me, I would have long walked away, but I guess since we had plans, he didn't do that.

I filed a complaint with the state of Washington and with the Seattle Better Business Bureau. Enterprise replied to the complaint saying that in the end, they hadn't charged me for the damage and my friend had agreed to the coverage and preauthorization, so they hadn't done anything wrong. As always is the case with the BBB (an almost worthless organization, in my opinion), this satisfied them and Enterprise wasn't left with a black mark on their record. There wasn't anything more I could do, other than never rent from Enterprise again, and to bad mouth them to everyone I could, which I have done since! Enterprise didn't seem at all concerned with the heavy-handed sales tactics, pressuring, and dishonesty of their Seattle location.

As with most everything, the more business you do with one company, the better the service you'll get from the company. I like to call this the "The More You Love Them, The More They'll Love You Back" rule. You should join one of the frequent-renter programs at one of the Big 3, like Hertz #1 Gold, Avis Preferred, or National Emerald Aisle. Pick one and rent with them all the time. The more you rent with them, the better they'll treat you.

I had one company charge me for insurance coverage that I had said that I did not want. They were adamant. I said that I would contest the charge with my CC company. They relented.

Another time I came back without a wheel cover. I hadn't checked it before I left the lot. I told them flat out that I had not hit a curb and was sure I was not at fault. Gave them the same story about contesting the charge if they wanted to push it. They gave in that time, too.

Both times were discount places. It may have been that the agents themselves were sympathetic. I did not get angry, but was calm clear and persistent.

My credit card company did back me up the only time I ever called and said, that charge is an over charge for something I did not agree to while accepting liability for the legitimate portion. It was not a car rental - a long time ago, so I don't remember the cirumstances.

My point is simply that the rental company does not always have the last word when something gets hinky.

Best wishes,

Teacher49

I tend to work the Entertainment and other deals as aggressively as I can to try to get either National or Hertz. Avis has also been straightforward, though I'm put off by the way their website handles coupons. They often tie with Hertz at a price level (even after competing coupons), and Hertz wins those.

Am not a great fan of Alamo because of practices like not quoting the standard rate when you have a coupon entered on the website (They usually jack it up to negate the coupon value), and the $10.99 late-fee/retroactive charge surprise they pull on you at the time of rental. These are easily avoided if they'd choose to play it straight, and are too reminiscent of worst industry practices. Alamo used to be notorious for telling you one thing over the phone and another at the counter; I guess they can't be as bad about that with people waving printouts at them, but their culture hasn't rid itself of the bad elements. I hope it doesn't bleed over to National.

Enterprise lost me with the insurance bit. I don't know if they still do it like they did, but all the unnecessary hassle is a great way to drive off customers for good.

Others have been hit and miss; have been lucky not to run into the big negatives but they also haven't had great positives.

More on the insurance aspect- educate yourself ahead of time about what coverage you have. In addition to personal coverage (if you own a car), your employer may have coverage that protects you when renting a car on company business. (If you have an old car with no physical damage coverage, you're still probably covered under the Liability section for damages to cars you rent.) That's in addition to whatever credit card coverage applies, although the latter is usually excess over your personal coverage. (In other words, they hit your regular insurance company up for the money first then go to the credit card issuer if that's not enough). This means that 99% of the time, your regular insurer WILL hear about the claim.

I'm an actuary in the property-casualty side of the insurance business so I have fun playing with the drones behind the desk who try to tell me why I have to buy their stupid "collision damage waiver" (which they aren't allowed to call insurance). They interrogate me about my personal coverege and usually shut up when I tell them we've got a million-dollar umbrella liability cover on top of regular limits.

That is exactly what happened to me during my last rental at Alamo greater than a dozen years ago.

Needless to say, Alamo has missed out on countless dollars by me all of those years. I refuse to rent from Alamo, even if they have the lowest rates.

Ironically (because Alamo and National are now part of the same company), I am an Emerald Club Executive member with National Car Rental and have been completely satisfied with them.

As far as Dollar and Thrifty go (I believe they are part of the same company), watch out with them as they are quite strict about their policies. Rent from them with extreme care, and only if their rates are considerably low enough to justify any aggravation one may suffer with them.

A long time ago, I had rented vehicles regularly from Budget for years. One day, the Los Angeles Airport location tried unsuccessfully to charge me for damage to one of their cars that did not occur during my rental.

I may have rented from Budget for years years ago, but now I have not rented from Budget for years since...