Budget Reviews 

Overcharged for vehicle rental

I recently rented a car from Budget, everything was good until I got the final invoice, lots of extra charges applied. Including a late fee, which according to the invoice has us returning the vehicle on Monday as 1pm, which is interesting seems how I was at work, 400 miles away at the same time.

I lodged a complaint with them and they basically admitted that they only log the car back in on the next working day. They claim it's an error, but given they they asked me to provide evidence of getting on a return flight, then either they have no means of determining when a vehicle is returned, or they are fraudulently and routinely over charging customers. I suspect they're routinely doing this to all customers.

Needless to say, I will not be using this company or recommending them - ever

After completing online booking and knowing the exact price I was initially pleased however I flew 24 hrs + 8 hrs stopovers then picked up the car. At 5-30am I was given the keys but then asked about other insurancies like window repair,theft and another couple of things which in my initial booking declined. Desperate and tired I said yes to these things just to get home not knowing I’d added another $800 to my bill ! Be careful when u rent here, I’m a 65 yr old and suffering from ptsd and high anxiety there should be no communication at the desk other than handing over the keys. Is this a ploy after a long flight to squeeze more money out of you I don’t know but after emails I got very little response and even less sympathy. Be careful.

Brilliant. The customer service guy on the phone was very helpful. His name was Nicholas and customer service skills were excellent.

This company is big scammer.....plz don't trust on budget air line....
02081446786 plz avoid this Number....
Big cheater...

I can not stress enough that people looking for a cheap rental must stop using Budget. You absolutely will not end up paying the price you booked for, it will cost you far more. You will unlikely get the car you paid for. But I guarantee you days and weeks after you return your car to Budget, even if it’s damage free, you will start seeing small or large fees appearing on your credit card. These will be unexplained. Getting hold of anyone to help will be pointless as it’s ‘standard practice’. The word theft springs to mind. You have been warned countless times by the negative reviews here and on Google. Stop ignoring them and listen. If you need to raise a complaint go high, seek the email address of one of the VP’s running this enterprise. Good luck.

Rental company included extra insurance without my consent, when I specificly said that I don’t want any extra insurance. Representative didn’t give me time to see a contract, never showed or told about extra amount they’ve added. Just sent me a two with a half times bigger bill than it should be afterwards.
My bad that I didn’t insist on reading a contract (I signed it on a screen, representative showed me only a box for a signature), but I’ve not expected them to be so bold when I said out loud that I don’t want any extras…

Look at excerpts taken from budget.co.uk. Essentially Budget or their insurer penalise customers through an additional £14 daily for each additional driver, even as they acknowledge that sharing the driving on long journeys reduce risks of damage to rental vehicle & risks to other road users .

"Adding an additional driver is a great way to share the load when travelling long distances or driving abroad. Driving in a foreign country can be stressful, tiring and quite frankly, sometimes a little boring!

By sharing the driving responsibilities, you can lower the risk of having an accident."

"In the UK, an additional driver costs £13.99 including VAT per day per driver. "

Disgrace of a company. We prepaid 200 euros for a car in Cristiano Ronaldo airport in Madeira. We were meant to pick it up the night of Sunday 11th Feb. However, our flight from Lisbon was cancelled. We immediately tried to call Budget but could not get through. When we arrived on rearranged flight early the next morning, we went to collect our car. However, the lady at the desk told us the price had now changed and we owed them an additional 290 euros on top of the 200 we had already paid to secure the car. We could not understand how us taking the car a day later could incur such a fee and assume we were scammed by the lady (her name was Carmen). We refused to pay the additional fee, forfeited the car and lost the 200 euros from our pre-booking. All in all, horrendous experience - avoid Budget at all costs.

Rented a car from Grenoble - it was in an awful state and budget admitted it was below their standards. However, they did not offer any form of compensation so I am left very unhappy with the whole experience and will not book directly with budget UK again. I will use a broker as I have found they are much more responsive to quality issues.

Here is another example of overcharging with Budget Car Rental LAX and despite using them for years, I think this the last time.
Booked and paid in full #40548011 for a mid SUV 27th Dec-9th Jan and when arrived for pickup said they didn't have one available. All they could offer was a Chevrolet Silverado 4x4 open back truck which was so impractical for business and luggage which got soaked in between hotels.
I didn't want all the optional extras apart from the unlimited toll charges as I was advised there were tolls between LA and Vegas and to be fair it's been years since I went to CES in Vegas so accepted but that was a crock of sh**t as I didn't pass one in 2 weeks.
On return we filled up at Mobil 765 N Sepulveda no more than 3 miles from the airport so as far as I was concerned was expecting just a charge for tolls.....
On the 11th January I was charged a huge $485.50 for additional services including $142 for tolls, $97 for roadside assistance plus and a massive $190 for fuel. Scandalous!!!!
We have spent the past 2 weeks disputing this through QEEQ which to be fair are brilliant but they are not budging despite even sending a fuel receipt from my expenses only 10 minutes before the vehicle was dropped off. This is not acceptable for a multinational repulatable company and should be ashamed of their practices. If this is not sorted soon then we are going to use our company solicitors to persue it further

When we have a fine, they don't send it to us. They pay it and charge directly the amount from our bank account, without any justification, no invoice or email or anything. And they charge the double of the amount!! For "administrative fees". So they charged £65 instead of £35. I read the general conditions, this amount is never specified anywhere. Scam

Luton Airport

This would have been a 5 star experience because the staff were very helpful and friendly on collection and drop off. The car was good quality BUT….

You’d better hope you don’t leave any of your property in the car. If you do, you can’t get through to the desk by phone. If you log a report through customer services, no one gets back to you. If you go to the desk yourself, they first suggest that maybe a member of staff has stolen/taken your property home. I was then offered someone else’s lost property instead, and then they promised to check everywhere and call the next day. Almost a week later, no phone call, and I’ve chased them up by email. Not impressed Budget!

The lady appointed sara to deal my case was professional and trustworthy and she dealt me in a very positive way and guided me properly!thanks to her and the company!

I received a call one day before my booking, informing me that my address check had failed (whatever that means) and that I couldn’t rent the car, even though I had already paid. The staff offered no help, didn’t explain why the “address check” failed, and provided no further information or solution.

From now on, I’ll be checking reviews before making any bookings.

Stay away from Budget!

I rented a car online pick up in Luton Airport , my email confirmation says I have CDW and Windscreen cover .
Cost for two days with the lowest group Fiat 500. £60.38.

Just had a phone call from their checking team to say that at present if I have an incident there would be a cost of £1730. But I could have that waived if I pay an extra £38. . Budget state on google that they are the cheapest car rental that is an absolute joke . Disgusted with their service especially as I was supposed to pick up the vehicle tomorrow and they called me today just after 5pm

Beware hidden extras Told there is a surcharge for picking car up at the airport .(Orlando) £20
Took the option of paying tolls upfront £275 only used £30 if that.
You only find this out upon your final invoice, in other words when you get home.

Phoned to discuss why the huge increase on motor insurance policy
Phone call answered and rep said she would see if a lower premium price is possible

Was kept on hold and had to listen to extremely noisy people in background laughing and giggling , I waited, but in the end just hung up, having to listen to this appalling racket

I consider this very unprofessional and totally
unacceptable
Dreadful!!

I booked a car on Rentalcars.com and purchased an annual excess cover policy separately. It was picked up from Budget/Avis off site at Murcia Airport.

After a 4am start I got to hire office where |I was given a small box to sign and they said they would send in email. On return home after my holiday I opened the email to see they had added excess insurance and windscreen cover. At no point was this mentioned. £249.41 later and several emails I have just been fobbed off.
This practice has got to stop!

Small Claims Court next stop

Avis/Budget car rentals. The first time I used them it was fine! (therefor you should ignore all good reviews!) but the second time they charged me for "optional" insurance coming to £152 even though I'd already paid for full insurance on booking.com and they could see this, they never asked me if I wanted optional insurance and I never agreed to one single optional thing yet they charged me. In a dark booth they got me to sign several bits of paper.... one of these signatures is next to the words "additional information" but then next to that in very small grey faded-out lettering in brackets says "I agree to the optional charges" well that's a con. They asked for my credit card details for a deposit! not for anything else so that is a pure lie. lying, conning, thieves. Disgraceful

Took Nissan Jeep from Scarsdale New York in Sept 2023, the member of staff was juggling between putting fuel in car and sorting out our hire. Very rude and unprofessional , took extra deposit without telling us