Stick Bills™

I rented a car, through Priceline, at the Budget Rent-A-Car at the Philadelphia Airport over Thanksgiving. I was renting the car for 3 days and 9 hours and paid for the full 4 days rental as expected. I had the good fortune of my flight coming in almost an hour early and it landed just before 11pm when it was schedule for 11:45pm.

I had specified the pick-up time for the rental to be 12:30am but we got to the rental counter at 11:30pm. The twits at Budget told me that I had to sit there and wait for another hour until my rental start time of 12:30am came up on the clock or I had to pay an additional full day rental of $60+taxes.

There were about 50 cars available in the lot and nobody else waiting to rent a car. Of course Budget has no 24hr customer service and both the manager on duty and the lackey behind the counter refused to do anything about it.

Then when 12:30 rolled around and I finally got the rental, they had the audacity to try to pre-populate the damage waiver and fuel option on the paperwork in an effort to get me to pay more. In summary, I rented a car for 15 hours less than the 4 days I paid for but was made to wait in the rental lobby for an hour, late at night, to wait for the pick-up time to pop up on their clocks.

I forgot to tell you that they tried to upgrade me to a Cadillac and I thought it was a gesture for my troubles then the counter twerp told me it would be another $20 per day. I really got steamed and my wife convinced me to walk outside before I totally freaked out. This was one of the most incredibly bad customer service experiences I’ve ever had.

The whole scenario was patently ridiculous and I will never again rent from such a backwards company with moronic policies and such abysmal customer service. Corporate responded with a patronizing and ignorant 2 line explanation of policy.

They totally blew me off. I am sending a certified letter to their CEO with the hope that it sparks a response. Budget, you absolutely stink.

In: Car Rental Posted By: Peasinacan [ ]