Budget Car Rental

Groton AirPort budget rental has been a problem my last two rentals. In September, I had reserved a car weeks in advance. Multiple emails confirming same from budget. When i went to pick up, there were no cars available. “ Oh, the manager was supposed to call you yesterday…” Last week, the class I’d car I reserved was not available. The only option was a minivan that got 16 mpg. That rental ended up cudtiing $100 more in gas total. Also got charged for gas fill up even tho I returned full. Zero customer service skills. I recommend you use another Groton location. Hertz us around the corner.

If I could give this place 0 stars, I absolutely would. Our rental car suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree — every single warning light came on — and Budget told us to take it to the closest location. So we did. We came here expecting help, or at the very least, a solution. Instead, we were met with, “We can’t exchange the car and there’s nothing we can do.” …Excuse me? The entire dashboard is having a meltdown and that’s the response? Zero effort, zero problem-solving, zero customer service. If you’re looking for a rental place that will actually help you when something goes wrong, do yourself a favor and go literally anywhere else.

Awful service. I tried to modify the payment at the airport location and needed to cancel my current reservation in order to do so. Once I did the gentleman said there were no more cars available. I was literally looking at that car in the parking lot. I was told to call corporate because it was not an issue the store location could handle. Corporate told me that it was the stores responsibility. The man at the counter reassured me that he knew what he was doing because he use to work at corporate and was now the owner of the store I was at. Eventually I was able to get the vehicle and left in a hurry. When I returned the vehicle I noticed that the previous "store owner" had changed the return location to Ohio instead of VA and had not given me a military discount. I called the airport location to have it fixed and was told "too bad, you already signed the paperwork and you have to show proof of military affiliation at the time of pick up". Funny, because I picked up the car while in uniform. Needless to say, the Budget employee in VA looked like a young college student and was able to fix all of my issues in about 3 minutes. Didn't even need to call corporate. The Groton Budget in the airport is the worst car rental location I have ever dealt with. Corporate needs to do some serious re-adjustment at that location.

The car and the pick-up were fine, but I tried to return the car shortly before 5 pm on Sunday -- the contract time -- and there was no one there to accept the return. On the advice of a (very nice) airport worker, who was about to lock the doors for the evening, I left the keys on the desk along with contact information. They I called Budget. The clearly clueless Budget "service" agent with whom I spoke kept insisting that I needed to return the car in the morning, ignoring that I had told her that: (1) the attendant clearly left early and (2) I'd left the keys on their desk in a now-locked airport. Really?

Observations of a customer while waiting 2 ¾ hours in line at the Budget rental counter: We flew into Charleston international airport for an extended family weekend. Our flight was on-time and landed at 4:10pm. I went immediately to the rental counter while the fam went to get the luggage. I got to the Budget/Avis counter at 4:15ish. The line was long but there were 3 customer service reps processing everyone. After about an hour waiting and only moving up a few feet, a 35ish year old male came from the back room to let us know the line was our fault. He informed us, the customers waiting, that the long wait was due to more than 1 person per party being in the line and we have not completed the pre-registration. A few people in the front of the line informed him that the pre-registration form link was not working with android phones. It would only allow the form to be properly submitted using an iphone. He elevated it voice more and in a more stern tone informed the 75+ customers waiting it was our fault. He then walked out the automatic doors heading toward the parking garage. I have several points to make on the Budget/Avis employee anger and blaming us: #1 The only people who could follow the pre-registration link were in the very front of the line. Probably 50-75’ away from where many of us were waiting in line. #2 I did the pre-reg the day prior when Budget emailed me the link. It consisted of entering my drivers license and credit card numbers and upon submitting it says “you must provide your drivers license and same credit card at counter at registration”. So it turns out this was a waste of time. #3 The Budget employee who was scolding us because only 1 person needed to wait in the line to register didn’t mention only 1 person needs to wait in line but you’ll need everyone at the counter to provide a drivers license if they are going to drive the rental. Because several of the renters had more than 1 driver they needed to locate the other drivers and wait for them to return to the counter. My observations, continued: Shortly after being scolded and not moving much I put my family in an Uber and sent them to the hotel so I could continue to wait in the line. I watched as the 3 Budget/Avis reps struggled through the rental process at a comically slow snails pace. The younger lady on the left could process a customer the quickest. She averaged about 10 minutes per customer but had a long of 25 min and a short of 6 minutes. The gentleman in the center line averaged 15 minutes per customer with a long of 45 minutes. His average was the longest because he would take a break after helping 1 or 2 customers. He would go to the back room and then to a terminal further way and stare at it. Then walk around looking at other computer terminals and then sit down again without saying a word. The gentleman on the far right had the most difficult situation or just plane back luck. In my nearly 3 hours in line he helped about 4 customers the entire time. I was the fourth! He struggled with unknown troubles processing rentals and with completing the rental process. Lastly, when Budget/Avis senior management retrains the staff at Charleston Airport please find a new way to incentivize your reps. All the customers can see the board that says “King and Queen of Upgrades”. You are rewarding your team on running up charges, begging us to purchase more services and posting the status list in full view of customers. You should be focused on rewarding for GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE. Budget/Avis management is not doing a good job. 1 star. Your former customer. Marc

I was told my credit card was not acceptable when I went to pick up the car for my reservation, and even though they provided no service at all I was charged twice totaling over $150. When I contacted customer support they stated they could not find the charges and that there should not have been any. After submitting a screenshot showing the charges I will have to wait a week just for them to look into the matter. No time frame has been offered for how long it might to get the money they fraudulently took back. If you need a car rental, look elsewhere if you dont want to get ripped off.

The woman behind the counter assisting me with my rental refused to keep her mask on properly which tells me she has no regard for the lives around her. My rental contract had to be redone 3 times. I had $600 hold for three contracts on my credit card. When she finally got it right she had to go clean the rental that I was given. She drove it off premise and had it poorly washed. She was gone all of 9 minutes which told me it was not sanitized per cdc standards so I had to sanitize it myself when I got home. She did not do a walk around to check for damage. She made me do it myself and was not going to put the vehicle inspected on the slip. Need I say more. Update: I was charged 3 times on my credit card.

So 5 star stress level. With a 2.5 overall rating. I didn't think I had to worry its a truck rental place how hard can it be. I was wrong. Sent my wife in 10min later she getting me to come in because Julio told my wife "You will get the Protection plan" and only after she went to get me did he print out the insurance paperwork. I figured miscommunication. Only to find out Julio was rude and had a chip on his shoulder. I had tried to say what need to be done to my wife. When he cut me off and I then directed my attention to him. I'm a security for 34yrs. I can see the signs and asked if he had an issue. He said "No" I then preceeded to say I have USAA when he turn his back walking toward the office telling me how he's been there for 4yrs and cut me off again. At that time I said I don't need your service or truck if that's how your going to act. Personally I get better service at McDs for a $1 burger. don't bother with customer service they give you the run around. They said sorry sent me to customer loyalty agent, They said Inventory Manager will call in 40min. Now its the next day no truck, no call! Corp or Owner need to place a camera to oversee there locations. And if you have one then watch my day August 22 4:20 to 5pm. See if he turns his back on a 1k sale... great for your business.

Really bad customer service and shoddy systems. I had a legitimate concern that I filled my car's tank with more gas than I picked it up with, about 100 miles worth based on the range estimate on the dash and my gas station receipt was a bit high. I even asked if they could double check since the location where I picked the car up advised me to keep my gas receipt as proof. Nope, the person working the counter completely blew it off and said "nah, the car's range estimate just changes depending on how you drive it!" Zero effort to confirm things. Then he gives me this dot matrix paper with holes on the sides print-out as a receipt, basically every single thing on it is wrong. "Fuel level in: 0 gallons. Fuel level out: 0 gallons. Miles driven: 126. odometer in: 26000". I drove from Maine to Connecticut, 212 mile trip, then cruised around town, and the odometer I took an actual picture of when I dropped off was 24700 miles. I asked "hey, there's a couple zeroes on here, and I know the odometer doesn't say that." Again, ignored. "Nah, that's just how our system works!" I decided the whole thing wasn't worth my time over a 2-day rental that my insurance was paying for anyway, but someone renting a car on their own dime should watch the hell out. Horrendously shady place. Take your business elsewhere.

Some cars here have locked up seized up brakes. For example I tried to move my car but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't Budget. Budget is who I have been renting from lately and my experiences here were very mixed. In the negative column is the fact that I was in a hurry and my car stopped working and I managed to limp all the way here and they were not in any kind of a hurry to get me out of there, they didn't treat me badly but didn't seem to prioritize or give too much of a crap about what happened, no apology or anything. Also in the bad column, and an even more damning indictment, is the fact that they made me go and fill up the gas in the broken car myself, despite the fact that it was ready to shut down and stop working... 4 miles round trip, and a huge risk. If I didn't, they say there would be a huge charge. I was very disappointed with that indeed. Very poor policy and very unfair and stupid of them too. Then over in the good column was the fact that I was thrilled to actually get out of there with a car eventually after about an hour of messing around, which in some ways messed up my day, but in other ways they saved the day, and it was only an hour and could have been a lot worse - so I have to be grateful that they kept my trip going after such an unfortunate series of events. I've continued to use Budget after this unfortunate incident and I haven't had further incidents with them since then, or been overcharged too badly. For this reason I give them the middle rating because they could easily have been one star with that kind of behaviour, especially sending me off to get gas in a broken car to avoid a stiff penalty, but the fact that I got out of here with a car was a huge relief.

great customer service the female at the front desk was very helpful with my family and I planning our trip. very kind service was great !!

We booked our vehicle on Nov 26 for December 24th through Travelocity. We had a confirmation and received a call today from Budget that our vehicle was not available for December 24. Will never use Travelocity or Budget again.

They reversed the charge after we were able to show with employee confirmation that we were in line on time (within the 30 minute grace period) $100 charge for being 17 minutes late (tr.. worst company ever.. never doing business with them again.