Rentalcars.com Reviews 

The rent company we have chosen through rentalcars was really good. Rentalcars on the other hand absolutely no. They offered to us a total cover insurance ( theft, fire and every kind of damage) for almost 90€. We only received e-mail from rental company and nothing else from rentalcars. When we picked up the car, there’s only a basic insurance cover and we had to add extra insurance policy. Rentalcars deceived us.
After few days, I also found out that with the same price we paid for a small car on the rentalcars’site, the rental company would have rented us a higher category car for a really similar price on their own site.

Booked a Nissan Qashqai (or similar), Standard class, advertised with capacity for 2 large bags and 1 small bag. Received a Mazda CX-30 instead, a smaller car in a lower class. The trunk only fit 1 large suitcase, nowhere near the advertised capacity. Raised it with Europcar and by email, no replacement vehicle was offered, and customer service quoted a 10 working day response time to even look into it.

This is the worst customer service and experience that I have seen during my 51 year of living. When booking a car at CDG they failed to mention that you cannot do a 24 hour stopover in Paris before you pick up the car at the agreed time. It is grossly negligent to not include this information under “important information” when renting (which Enterprise themselves do if you book it through them). Avoid this scam company at ALL costs!

Total disaster: I was charged ~150 euros on booking and an additional ~450 euros at the rental place. If it weren't 3 am, I could forget the initial 150 euros and still rent a car for another 150 euros, which would be cheaper than 600 euros for a 7-day small car rental. And booking.com just does not care. I complained via the customer service chat, and they just kept insulting my intelligence. Very, very, very disappointed.

Booked a rental through RentalCars.com for a trip to Portugal in April. The supplier had no cars on arrival and I never received the vehicle. Simple enough situation, service not provided, refund owed.

What makes this worth warning people about is what happened next. I was told in April the refund would be processed. It wasn't. I followed up. Nothing. When I finally got back in touch with customer service again two months later, the agent confirmed on chat that no refund had ever actually been issued despite being told otherwise. The "escalation" I was promised had produced zero action. If I hadn't checked myself, this would have disappeared entirely. That is not a company that has your back when something goes wrong. Book direct or use a platform that actually processes refunds when the service is never delivered.

Due to a flight delay I couldn’t pick up the car. Europcar won’t charge Booking/Rentalcars but they charge me for the full amount. That’s fraud!

Due to a communication error between rentalcars.com and Hertz, I paid twice the rent for a car. After some back and forth in the consumer portal (you can't call them), they promised that I would get the second amount refunded. I also received a new invoice with the correction. However, I never received the money. Then, months later, I did receive an email intended for another customer, which leaked personal information. After that, there was a chat with incorrect information, and then customer service closed the case (although this issue was not fixed). Since then, there has been no response, and my request for a phone call has been ignored. So, my advice is to really not book through rentalcars.com ever.

I had a very poor and misleading experience with Rentalcars.

I paid for insurance through Rentalcars (around 430 SEK), but when I arrived at the rental company, I was told I still had to buy their insurance to get the car. I had no real choice if I wanted the vehicle, so I ended up paying an additional 135 EUR at the counter.

This was never made clear during booking and feels completely misleading. You are led to believe everything is covered, but in reality you are forced to pay again at pickup.

Rentalcars only offered to refund the 430 SEK I paid to them, which is only a small part of my total loss. I am still out of pocket for the 135 EUR paid directly to the rental company, and this has not been refunded.

I have declined their partial refund, as it does not cover the real cost I was forced to pay. The system is not transparent and puts customers in a position where they are effectively forced into expensive extra insurance at the counter.

Based on this experience, I cannot recommend Rentalcars

I booked a 7 seat car which turned out to be a 5 seat car, sforzo three young children, my wife and two elderly parents. They insisted it should be 7 seats but the only solution they offered was a refund which was hardly helpful in the circumstances.

I have used Rentalcars for many years for business and personal bookings but will no longer use them after a terrible experience.

I reserved and prepaid for a hirecar via Rentalcars to collect from Drivalia at Luton Airport. On the booking I completed my flight number and arrival time. The flight was due in at 2305. I booked the car for collection at 2330. The flight landed 20 minutes late. I had no luggage to collect so I was out of the airport quickly. Drivalia are located at an off-airport site and they instruct you to take the long-stay car park bus to reach them. When I got to the shuttle stop and scanned the QR code it told me the bus was 17 minutes away and would then take another 14 minutes to get to the drop off. I therefore decided to take a taxi to arrive quicker (the taxi cost £30). I arrived in the deserted industrial estate where the Drivalia office is located and the taxi could only get nearby so I had a short walk. I arrived at the Drivalia office at just after midnight and they had gone home. I was left in a deserted area with no car despite having prepaid for it. It was impossible to get an Uber or Bolt to come and collect me, the local taxi firms I called had no cars available and it was only due to the kindness of one of the long stay car park staff (who called a friend who had a taxi) that I was able to get to my destination. It should be noted that I tried to ring Drivalia before taking off to alert them to the small delay to my flight but they did not answer the phone. Whenever similar situations have arisen with other hirecar companies, if they had the flight number on the booking, they have always stayed open and waited - sometimes at a small cost but this is preferable to being stranded as I was.

I contacted Rentalcars Customer Service team by email, explaining the situation and requesting a refund. They replied quickly but their idea of Customer Service is a joke. It would have been more fruitful talking to a ChatBot. Every email was answered by someone different. They were full of gushing apologies and pretend empathy but often contradicted themselves (once telling me that Drivali were obliged to stay open for two hours after the booking time, once telling me that if I arrived after their closing time of course they would not wait). The only thing all the replies had in common was a refusal t but had not o give me my money back. After many emails they finally realised I had also paid for full insurance and they grudgingly agreed to at least refund this. They told me it would take five days to arrived on my credit card. after ten days nothing had arrived. After chasing them they finally made the refund.

Apart from the cost issue it is also a safety issue - I would hate a tourist with little English language or a young woman alone to experience being abandoned with no car after midnight in a deserted industrial area, and to then be refused a refund.

Rentalcars may seem like a bargain but the minute something goes wrong they are completely inept, unable to help and have absolutely terrible customer service.

I strongly do not recommend this company!!!!!!

I was charged €84.98 for a 3-day car rental using my Revolut card, which was accepted at the time of booking. When I arrived to pick up the car, I was told I needed a physical credit card for the deposit. This was never clearly and properly communicated before payment.

As a result, I was not able to collect the car and the booking was cancelled immediately.

They took my money for nothing – no car, no service, and no refund.

Completely unacceptable experience.

Rentalcars are really just scammers. They show you one price, but then when you arrive at the airport you suddenly have to pay all kinds of extra charges that were supposedly already included. When I raised this with Rentalcars, they basically told me to sort it out myself.

I would strongly advise against using them. You’re better off booking directly with a rental company. Rentalcars sits in the middle, and in the end you often pay more than if you had booked directly.

​To Avis Customer Service Management,
​I am writing to formally lodge a complaint regarding the abysmal service I experienced at your LaGuardia Airport (LGA) location.
​I stepped off my flight and arrived at the Avis facility at 1:00 a.m. Despite it being the middle of the night, there was already a massive line, and the Avis Preferred service was completely closed. Shockingly, only one young employee was working the counter, left entirely on her own by management to handle a crowd of over 30 exhausted people. Management was completely unhelpful and failed to provide her with any support.
​By 4:09 a.m.—over three hours later—I was still trapped in line. At that time, there were still 10 people ahead of me and 6 behind me. What makes this situation entirely unacceptable is that there were plenty of cars parked right outside; Avis simply refused to process customers in a quick, efficient manner.
​Furthermore, staff provided absolutely no communication or updates. Customers were left entirely to their own devices, anxiously wondering if a car would even be available once they finally reached the desk. The crowd became understandably irate. The line included families with children as young as two years old standing for hours. Because of this extreme delay, multiple passengers missed connecting flights, and others were forced to cancel hotel reservations and disrupt their travel plans.
​This level of service is completely unacceptable for a company of Avis's reputation. I expect a formal response detailing how this will be addressed, as well as appropriate compensation for the severe delay and inconvenience.

Mon, Jun 1 at 1:52 PM

I was forced to get an upgrade at holiday prices over Memorial Day weekend on Sat May 23. I was forced to get an upgrade due to an unacceptable supplier choice. They offered me an 8 passenger Mercedes Benz van stating that it was the only one available on
"suppliers Choice" inventory. I said that I am 77 years old and a single driver and I cannot drive an 8 passenger van on the highway
from Phoenix to Sedona, over 100 miles of highway driving. I drive a compact SUV and I would have accepted that or a sedan or even a pickup truck. This was completely unacceptable and it was unsafe to drive such a large vehicle. The rental agency was trying to scam me by using holiday weekend sales tactics and using a forced upgrade.

My research indicated that when the agency says "suppliers choice" they are contractually required to provide a vehicle that I can
reasonably drive. If the "only car" they have available in that category is a massive 8 passenger commercial van, they must switch me to a compact SUV or standard sedan and they are supposed to give me that free of charge because they ran out of appropriate
inventory. Instead, they took advantage of the busy holiday weekend traffic to pressure me into paying double.

In summary, this is what I have attached for documentation.

Thank you,

Mary Farrell

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✅ Priceline confirmation showing $295.48 prepaid

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✅ Fuel plan receipt for $65.34

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✅ NuCar's itemized receipt showing $606.94

Please see attached
Download all attachments as a zip file
42544_PHX01-225880 (1)
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89.1 kB
42544_PHX01-225880 (1)
.pdf
89.1 kB
052326 - Priceline car rental, Phoenix (2)
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488.7 kB
052326 - Priceline car rental, Phoenix (1) (1)
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331.9 kB
052326 - Car rental NU, Phoenix
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763.6 kB
42544_PHX01-225880 (1) (5)
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89.1 kB

Holy cow, they must weed out the bad reviews on their website because we had the absolute worst experience and you can see on trustpilot that there are many similar experiences, but their website has much more positive reviews. I was not given an option to leave a review on their site FYI even though I was charged.

We booked a rental car through them the same day as our trip and once we arrived, there were extreme delays with picking up our vehicle due to the rental car company’s (Routes Calgary) shuttle bus and extensive delays at the counter. People were pushing to get on the shuttle bus which was supposed to come every 15mins but didn’t come for over an hour. There was a huge line of people after us as well. My child had to sit on my lap as there was not enough room. We then made it to the rental agency and after waiting in another lengthy line, were told we needed to provide additional insurance which we had declined during the booking process. They did not accept the insurance on my Visa (even though it covers rental cars) because the agent was unfamiliar with the look of my Visa card. So, because of the extreme delays and we were travelling with young children who were very tired at this point and the company was trying to money gouge us, we declined to pick up the rental car and took an Uber to our hotel. The rental company could not do anything because we booked with a third party; they said they would add a note to our file that we did not pick up the car and that rentalcars.com should give us the refund. However, my Visa was charged ($238) anyways. This was almost 2 weeks ago and are still fighting with them for a refund. I called the company during our trip to try and resolve the issue and they said a supervisor will call me back by the end of the day, nobody ever did. The person on the phone suggested I “ familiarize myself with the cancellation policy” as we could not cancel within 48 hours. I explained that we were aware of the cancellation policy, however had no plans of cancelling until we experienced the extreme delays and refusal to accept my additional insurance, therefore goods were not recieved nor as expected. I then tried to escalate the case through their online booking system (per their request) and was given different information every time, and it never worked (they first said I had to wait until the end of our booking to submit the report and then when that was not an available option in the online booking system, they said I had to wait until the end of that day… and then when that still wasn’t an option, they said up to 48 hours, so it kept suspiciously changing). I was able to get ahold of someone through email only and they requested a bunch of documents and phone records and times stamped phone calls, etc. I sent all this information in; and then they ghosted me.

I will be pursuing a refund through my Visa now. AVOID!! They try and make it so hard to get a refund that you just give up.

We booked and pre paid in full to Enterprise for a hire vehicle to be picked up at Toulouse airport branch . Unfortunately the flight was delayed about a hour or so . Before boarding the flight I made three phone calls to Enterprise explaining that we may be late for the 11pm pick up . Eventually arriving at the Toulouse office at 12.10 only to find the office completely closed .Not having a vehicle for our final destination meant we had to find a taxi then hotel for the the evening . That again at 12.30 in the evening for a family of four was far from ideal . Arriving back at the branch in the morning we were informed that they cancelled the rental and they had no other alternatives or suggestions . We received no email or messages concerning the cancellation , and would argue they probably received a higher rental charge for what we had booked . I’ve made a complaint to Enterprise and awaiting a response . As you can guess booking a rental car on the same day in the location meant we had to pay an inflated price as opposed to a pre paid vehicle . Please be very aware that Enterprise can operate in this manner and may leave you stranded . Seems we have to wait for the refund as well . We will post the complaint outcome .

Be extremely careful with the terms and conditions

I booked a rental car with Drivalia at London Gatwick Airport and was shocked to be refused the vehicle at collection.

The reason given was that my credit card only displayed my last name rather than my full name, even though it was my valid card and matched the booking details. As a result, I was unable to collect the car and my travel plans were seriously disrupted.

What made the situation even more frustrating was that I did not receive a full refund despite being unable to collect the vehicle. I lost the cost of four days of my booking because of this issue, which felt extremely unfair given the circumstances.

My main concern is that this requirement was either not clearly highlighted or was too easy to miss during the booking process. Had I known that the exact formatting of the name on the credit card would prevent me from collecting the vehicle, I would have made alternative arrangements in advance.

I strongly recommend that anyone renting from Drivalia carefully reads every term and condition before booking and checks all payment card requirements. A confirmed reservation does not necessarily mean you will be able to collect the car if even a seemingly minor detail does not meet their requirements.

Overall, this was a very disappointing experience. Be extremely careful and double-check all requirements before booking, as a small detail could leave you without a car and out of pocket.

Rentalcars seem to have limited control over their suppliers. Booked a vehicle in the UK for what I thought was a reasonanle cost. On collection of my vehicle abroad at the airport, was charged rip-off fees that I was not aware of. The car rental then became very expensive. Fees are not transparent with Rentalcars and you are best avoiding them and booking direct with the supplier. Also avoid Budget as they charge a farcical 'ferry fee' for their vehicle which is just to rip the hirer off. My car from Budget was dirty inside and out with numerous areas of damage to the bodywork. From this visible state, it makes you question if it is mechanically safe to drive.

⭐☆☆☆☆ Paid AED 1,155.15 for a Vehicle That Was Never Provided

I am extremely disappointed with my experience.

I arrived at Salalah Airport on time for my scheduled vehicle collection and was present at the rental counter as required. Despite this, the vehicle was refused and never handed over to me.

I paid AED 1,155.15 for this booking. No rental agreement was signed, no vehicle was provided, and no rental service was received. Nevertheless, the company retained most of the money paid.

Despite numerous emails and requests, I was never provided with the records relating to the refusal. I repeatedly requested clarification and supporting documentation, but my concerns were not properly addressed.

The company offered only a partial refund of AED 446.96 while retaining the remaining balance for a vehicle that I never received.

I attended the collection location on time, was ready to collect the vehicle, and did everything required on my side. However, I was left without a vehicle and without a full refund.

I have retained all correspondence, payment records, and supporting evidence and have escalated the matter to the relevant consumer protection authorities and my financial institution for review.

Based on my experience, I cannot recommend this service.

Very disappointing customer service and complaint handling process.

We hired a car through Rentalcars 12-26 April, pick up from Marseille airport. We paid extra 40eu to drop off before their opening time for 26Apr, early morning flight. We found some scuffs on car when picked up so took photos and a video. It was a Peugeot supplied by Gold Car. Since returning home Gold Car Marseille have taken 4 payments without an explanation. When we enquired through Rentalcars they were not willing to assist us, we asked them many times to contact Gold Car on our behalf. We contacted Gold Car Marseille and their head office. We were told first charge is for late car drop off. We dropped car off at 7am, their office wasn’t open until 9am. Their employee logged the drop off onto their record at 9.09am. We have given them photographic evidence from Ryanair that we had checked our bags at airport 8am therefore we couldn’t have been with car at 9am. This evidence they have chosen to ignore. Instead they ask for a fuel receipt showing time, we used an auto pay at pump where they don’t give receipts, bank statements never show time of transactions which they have asked for. The next two charges are for number plate damage and mirror scuff. We have time stamped photos of these items from when we picked up car because these we noticed these damages when we picked up car, again they are ignoring our evidence. The last charge is an admin fee. I would definitely never use Gold Car again, they had decided from the beginning they were going to get as much money as possible from us because we don’t live in France. Rentalcars also made no effort to ask Gold Car why our evidence is being ignored. We have asked both companies for their evidence of car damage and proof we dropped off car late and got nothing. All we want is additional charges returned back to our card. We find it unbelievable that a large company like Rentalcars can rip off individuals in this way, this dispute is still ongoing many weeks.