BEWARE! Do not trust Avis/Budget for your rental car needs. They can and will STEAL MONEY FROM YOUR FAMILY! My family reserved a minivan to drive from Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando (a short 3 to 4 hour trip). When we arrived at Budget to pick it up we were told our "reserved" minivan wasn't available and the only vehicle left was a Toyota 4 Runner. We agreed. The 4 Runner needed a wash, vacuum, smelled like smoke, and the oil-change light was on. No big deal, it's a rental and we only needed it for a half day. Trip went very smoothly. The wife and kids slept the entire ride with just a few stops for restroom breaks and fuel. We did not eat or drink in the vehicle. It was turned in to the Orlando Airport Budget on-time the next morning. Just this week I received a letter from Avis/Budget stating we will be charged a $450 cleaning fee for the vehicle. I challenged this and below was the Avis/Budget response: "Charges for vehicle cleaning are assessed when a vehicle is returned in such a condition that makes it not rentable and requires the vehicle to be sent for detailing putting it out of service. Charges are calculated based on the level of cleaning required to return the vehicle into service. This includes, but is not limited to, the removal of food stains on the seats, pet hair that cannot be removed through normal vacuuming, excessive odor, smoke odor, and cigarette burns. After careful review of our records, we find that the location has provided ample documentation of the condition of the vehicle upon return. Based on this information, we find the charges to be valid without exception." I responded that none of the above conditions occurred and that we are non-smokers. I also asked for the "ample documentation" they refer to. There was no response and they have charged our credit card the full $450. I have rented cars dozens of times in my life, some for weeks at a time, and have never been charged for anything like this. After a quick online search, it is clear that this HABIT OF THEFT IS VERY COMMON FOR THIS DISHONEST COMPANY. I wish I would've known this beforehand and strongly recommend avoiding them for your rental needs.

I rented a Genesis from your office on December 8th at 11:30 am. Got home and saw it had a bad tire. You were closed by then, you close at 12 on Sunday. Called customer service and was told exchange it at the airport. Ok, 20 miles on a bad tire to RSW and they take the vehicle...and then tell me they have no cars. It is now 1pm. They find a Jeep, vehicle #2, but it has food in it. Back across the parking lot, back on the phone, and they tell me they have a Ford Edge. That's vehicle #3. You would think I would be upgraded by now. Nope. The Ford has body damage. Back across the parking lot, back on the phone for a collective 6 HOURS at RSW and they give me a Dodge Challenger. The most uncomfortable, fuel guzzling vehicle on Earth. Very far from the luxury vehicle I PREPAID. That's vehicle #4. Customer service tells me they can't change anything or offer me anything until I return it. SURPRISE! I return it and it's MORE than what I prepaid. Amazon discount is gone and I'm sure the promotion for 10% back on an Amazon gift card is gone also. I'm still on hold with customer service since I dropped it off and started writing this. It is now 2 and one half hours on hold. That's almost NINE hours out of my time for a car I did not reserve, and a refund for said car. Nothing. Zero. Besides the expense of fuel ($250) which would not have been an issue if I had the vehicle I reserved, the vehicle was extremely uncomfortable. Drive a Challenger to Miami. A RED Challenger where every cop and racing guy is after you. I would not have had any of these issues if the vehicle I reserved and PREPAID was in proper working order and safe to drive. Still on hold with customer service as I write this. So that's my story of a wrecked vacation. The vacation I get ONCE a year. It is unclear where my deposit is due to it being applied to four different vehicles. It is unclear where the extra $48.76 is. Will I be charged for it? Has it been charged? When am I getting it back? Two things are very clear. Budget has done nothing at this point to even address this situation and my trip was scrapped. This company will now be friendly with the BBB, the FTC, the NTHSB, Facebook, X, Florida Department Of Weights And Measures, Code Enforcement, Chase Bank, FDOT, Florida Attorney General, every single Congressman I have and of course, I'm sending all this to their competitors. Oh yes, and the full page Op-Ed for my local paper as well as the five news channels I have here. When that's done, they should have at least three cars available. All personal vehicles for the employees that just got fired. Put them in a Dodge Challenger with no gas and give them $5. That should make it out of the parking lot.

We decided to rent an SUV from the savanah airport budget rental car. I will never rent a car through them after the experience I had at this location. When we arrived at the Budget counter, there was no one at it, and a sign telling us to go down to the Avis window. When we arrived, we waited for 1 1/2 hours in line. It seems like maybe they should have had some more employees so they can actually have people manning their window. We finally get to the front of the line, and they don't have our SUV. All they have is a stupid van, and they consider it an upgrade. I do not consider it an upgrade. It is actually a massive downgrade for us and our intended use, but no, they can not give us a discount for our downgrade as I would expect. What is even the point of a reservation? Next, they did not have our now downgraded vehicle. While waiting for our vehicle, I observed someone cutting in line and asking if they have vehicles available, and the counter attendent that I spoke to tells them they have plenty of them. I also asked for a car instead and was told they had none available. Waited another 45 minutes before we had our vehicle. Worst car rental experience ever. It's pretty sad when it takes longer to get your rental vehicle than your 2 hour flight.

Update, so the morning after arriving at our destination we go out to our car to drive to breakfast at 9 am and discover that our rental van has a slow leak in a tire and is low. I tried calling the savanah budget rental location with there published phone number 3 times let it ring for a long time each and no one answers. Did the same for the nearest location at the Hilton Head airport with the same disappointing result. Next I called the roadside assistance number and after fighting the phone tree to talk to someone finally get a live agent. He tells me to go to the nearest location for assistance since I did feel comfortable driving it on the lower speed roads to the small airport on Hilton head because the tire was not totally flat. He said they would be able to get me a new vehicle or at least help me out. Boy was that a lie. I arrived parked the vehicle and went inside to talk to the agent. The agent said she would not give me a new vehicle because it was a contract from savanah and all hers are reserved. Funny how I had a reservation before and I did not have a vehicle reserved actually reserved for me. She refused to help me in any way and told me I would have to drive it to savanah an hour away on the freeway which I expressed to her that I did not feel safe doing because of the tire and 70+ mph speeds on the freeway. She refused adamantly to even call the savanah location or confirm I had the correct phone number, because the contract was not from Hilton Head. She refused to lift a finger to do anything to help us at all and did not have a single customer she was dealing with no one else was there. I guess I must have disturbed her surfing social media on her phone or something. The ironic thing is after I was done another older gentleman came up to the window while my family and I were trying to devise a plan since we had been left to figure it out, and he got the exact same treatment. We ended up leaving the airport and calling the roadside assistance again after we parked in a close by shopping center. I let my wife deal with this at this point and after hours we finally had a our vehicle towed and I took an Uber to the savanah airport and got a new vehicle. By the time I got back to my family on vacation it was 3 in the afternoon and we had wasted an entire day at this point between our arrival fiasco and this. This company has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Also the new vehicle that I have is now the SUV we originally requested. It either has a broken windshield washer pump or no fluid in it I have not investigated yet.

I want to warn everyone never to rent a car from Budget Rental Cars. They engage in very sneaky and deceptive billing practices.

I rented a car for two days from Budget Rental Cars in Portland, Oregon in early November 2023. As expected I filled up the car with gas at a gas station less than one mile from the Portland airport and then returned the car. Imagine my surprise a few days later when I was going over my final bill and I found two nasty surprises: (1) Budget charged me a $15.99 fee for not providing them with a copy of my gas refill receipt. At no point did ANYONE at Budget every tell me that I needed to show them a copy of my gas station receipt from when I filled the car's tank right before returning the car. Plus they could crank the car and see that the gas tank was full (which they obviously did based up the gas amount they printed on my receipt), so there was no need for them to require a copy of my receipt; and (2) Their actual receipt showed that the car had 15.8 gallons in the tank when I drove it off the airport lot and also had 15.8 gallons in the tank when I returned it to the airport lot. And the receipt showed that I only drove the car a total of 66 miles. I had to put 5.63 gallons of gas in the car to fill it up at the gas station near the airport. I rented a Toyota Camry. Driving 66 miles divided by 5.63 gallons implies an MGP of 11.7 miles per gallon. A Toyota Camry gets at least 25 miles per gallon. What this means is that the car didn't really have 15.8 gallons of gas in the tank when I drove it off the airport lot.

Budget tried to defraud me by erroneously putting on their paperwork that the gas tank was full when it obviously was not based upon the amount of gas I had to put in the car to fill it back up. I had to call Budget's customer service line multiple times to try to get both of these issues straightened out. I demanded a full refund of the bogus $15.99 charge for not showing them my gas purchase receipt, and I demanded a refund of the price of 3 gallons of gas that I should not have had to pay if the tank had really been full when I picked up the car. It took multiple phone calls but I did get these two credits out of Budget.

The purpose of this warning, even though I got the two credits I wanted, is to let all consumers know that Budget is obviously trying to defraud its customers and hoping they won't notice the bogus and extra charges on their receipts. If I hadn't paid careful attention to the number of miles I drove and calculated how much gas I should have had to purchase to refill the tank, they would have gotten away with this fraud attempt. I shudder to think how many Budget car rental customers have not noticed that they had to purchase too much gas to refill their tank upon return, or how many Budget car rental customers didn't notice a $15.99 charge tacked on to the bill for not showing their gas purchase receipt (when no one at any point in the rental process ever mentioned this requirement or asked to see the receipt, which was in my pocket).

Avoid renting cars from Budget unless you want to be defrauded. I wish I could give them zero stars.

Saturday September 23 approximately 8:30 pm, I Rented a White Jeep compass 4wd odometer 46,231 miles at Bradley International Airport. CT. Brakes were bad, steering was intermittently unresponsive, and the console screen stopped working. TOTALLY UNSAFE TO DRIVE. When I returned the car for an exchange, I was charged me $70.00 because the tank was almost full but not full. COMPLETE RIP OFF. There was a Case opened for this exchange. That caseID is: *******. I am supposed to receive a refund for a full day of rental since I had no car to use until I could get an exchange. I have not received any refund.
The budget office in Danbury exchanged my Jeep compass 4wd for a Brown Subaru Ascent odometer 47,019. This car had HORRIBLE BRAKES. The brakes chattered terribly and depending on how fast you came to a stop, the front end shook. TOTALLY UNSAFE TO DRIVE.
Exchanged the Subaru Ascent for a BLK Ford EXL4 4wd 71,725 miles. This was the best of all the cars but it still had some major deficiencies. The steering had an intermittent wobble and the tires were bald. I prepaid the gas so I didn't have to fill it up when returned. When I returned the car, I was charged the gas price for a car the size of the Ford Excel instead of a Jeep compass since.
My experience with budget has been nothing less than horrible! Your rental price isn't cheap and for this inflated price I got THREE UNSAFE CARS and lost time from my trip since I had to change the car you gave me twice!
When I first started the rental process, I was told it would $613.00. I was charged $685.52 and told it was because I had bigger cars than what I first rented. That was not my fault. That was all Budget had available for exchange.

Drawing an analogy among other industries, your service was equivalent to a bread store selling moldy bread, an egg store selling rotten eggs, or a milk store selling curdled milk!
For all my trouble, inconvenience, time stolen from my trip and the unsafe position I was put in by driving your unsafe cars, I should be charged no more than $306.58 which is half the amount I was first quoted for this rental which was 613.17.
I hope we can come to an agreement and I can be compensated for this horrible, unsafe experience. If we can not, I will be more than happy to share this experience with others seeking to rent a car. If someone shared an experience like mine and I read it in the reviews, I would have never rented from you. Reviews matter!

I would DEFINITELY discourage ANYONE from renting from them. THEY ARE NOT GOVERNED BY COPORATE BUDGET, as they are part of an individually franchised group. Thus, customer support that one would expect from a reputable company like Budget isn't available. Recently, I rented a truck for the weekend. When I returned the vehicle, the young woman at the counter checked everything on the vehicle and informed me that the truck smelled like cigarette smoke. This was a shock, I'm not a smoker and am actually highly asthmatic and acutely aware of the smell of smoke. I explained this to her but she really didn't seem to care, she just said that she called her manager and he told her to charge me $450 for smoking in the truck. I asked her if her manager was present on site to verify the issue, and she confirmed that he wasn't. I asked her to unlock the vehicle so that I could photograph the interior to demonstrate the cleanliness of it. After doing so I again asked if anyone else was present to confirm the issue and she stated that she was the only one at the location. I called corporate Budget, they agreed to send a request to the location manager to remove the fee but indicated that they had no control over what the location would do given that the location is a franchise. This is a negative reflection on both Budget and the location in particular, as Budget allows businesses to operate under their name despite unethical practices. Falsely accusing people of smoking in vehicles is a great way to make money without any effort. Luckily I have dated photos of the vehicle along confirmation that this fee was charged based on the opinion of one young woman. I will likely contest the charge with my credit card company, in which case the fee will be refunded because the location has no proof of the issue. I do feel obligated to make the public aware of how this company does business, as this practice is crooked as Hell. In addition, the location also charged me an extra $75 that no one has been able to account for (this was in addition to the $450 for smoke smell).Interesting to note: nowhere on the rental agreement is there language about a $450 fee for smoke smell. Obviously the absence of this language works in my favor. PLEASE do not give these people your business. It's my understanding that all Utah Budget locations (with the exception of maybe the airport) are part of this franchise group, and thus I would strongly recommend renting with another company... like ANY other company.

I've experienced some bad service in my life - but budget is the WORST by miles. You can't even call it service, it's theft. I made my reservation in good time, had the confirmation email. Was supposed to be $400 for a weeks hire. 30 mins before I was supposed to pick the car up, I got a call saying there were no cars and to call the customer service myself. I called customer service and was told there were in fact cars there. Went into the show room - same lady that called me verified there were no cars. I called customer service again - was told a car would be sent out to me asap and that I would get a $150 refund from my $400 charge. There were no cars at all that day, I didn't get the car til the next day. When I eventually got the car a day later, the car was dirty and rather than being charged the refunded $250 amount ($400-$150), or even the original agreed $400 charge, I was instead billed $620. I took the car and completed my journey I needed it for - I just wanted to get done at this point. As soon as I completed the journey I needed the car for and settled in (around 2-3 days later) I called budget to get a full refund and return the car early. I was happy to pay a little extra and go and use enterprise instead as I now needed a car for a month but didn't want to extend with budget. A very helpful agent listened to my call and told me budget could let me keep the car for a month and would only charge me the originally agreed $400 to make up for all the issues I'd faced and to keep me as a valued customer - I was happy with that and accepted. I shouldn't have because it turns out no record of that interaction was logged and instead of me having the car at $400 for 1 month, I instead got charged even more for weekly rates; 4 extra charges of over $400 that I'd not agreed to, taking my total charge to $2,200! When I called back to resolve AGAIN, 1st level operators can't do anything until the car is returned and the supervisors barely even speak English never mind have a clue what to do. 3 in particular - Sophia, Vladimir and Guadalajara were especially awful, keeping me on the phone for an hour at a time only to tell me they wouldn't refund me; not because they didn't have the power to but because there was no record of the monthly agreement I had. There was records of the car not being delivered on time, the car being dirty when it came to me a day late and of me being overcharged at first - which warrant big refunds themselves, but these 3 scumbags still didn't want to refund me as they 'work for budget' and I'm 'just a customer' - in their own words. News flash; without the customers paying - there is no budget and no paid job for you. Even when I dropped the car back after 3 weeks hire; 1 week less than the missing amended months I was supposed to have it for and explained my situation again - the woman at the desk didn't seem to care. I've spoken to my bank to try and get transaction can be wiped off as it's simply fraud and theft not too mention diabolical service. It won't be long before budget become bankrupt - maybe then the idiots that work for them will see who they really work for. Reading the reviews it's a matter of time before they go out of business as no one wants to use them. Congrats on ripping people off in the short term for your wages - in the long term you won't have a job as that money won't last and people will sue you/escalate to get their money rightly refunded anyway and won't use you ever again as well as writing awful reviews and telling their friends to steer clear. Any business is only as good as it's customers and no one wants to use you because of your non existent, disgraceful 'service!' Clueless, thieving scumbags.

On December the 11th, 2015, a Blue KYA was rented at Budget Rent a Car at Garrett Hidalgo, 1801 South Federal Hwy, Stuart, FL *******, by a third party. Due to mishandling of consumer communication and credit card information, it was seized by Port St. Lucie Police on January the 8th, 2016. On the trunk of the car there were goods belonging to me valued on around $5,000.00. The car was transferred to Budget West Palm Beach. I filed a request to have my belongings returned, which was bureaucratically replied and no further written communication was exchanged with me. I was informed by Detective Richard Serra, from Stuart Police, that it was my right to retrieve my belongings from Budget. Since no written communication was possible, my family and I proceeded as the company instructed us: we called the West Palm Beach Budget number to speak to the manager. I am a Latino (Brazilian) woman living in the USA as a permanent resident under the exceptional ability and higher degree provision (EB-1A visa) but at the time, in January 2016, I had just been a victim of grand theft credit card fraud here, in the USA, due to which I lost all my assets in Brazil. With no American legal document, as a Latino woman, I was treated with total disrespect by Budget Rent a Car, whose manager refused to pick up my calls. At some point I called as someone else and he picked up the phone, a strong evidence that he was avoiding me. He told me he would return my belongings but wouldn't pay for the shipping. My sister provided him with her FEDEX account information and I told him it was paid for. I never heard from Budget again. I have strong reason to believe my belongings were taken while the car was in custody of Budget Rent a Car, since it was seized by the police and immediately handed to the Stuart Budget agency. Nobody else touched the car. This kind of impunity added to the ethnic and sexual discrimination send a clear message to the consumer concerning the corporate ethics of Budget Rent a Car. Budget can't deny this case because we both have documents concerning it. While they can continue their disrespectful treatment and ignore the unauthorized "misplacement" of my belongings, I can continue to denounce their unethical and predatory behavior.

Don't EVER Rent from Budget

I had the misfortune of leaving my wallet in the Budget rental car we were returning to the Newark Airport location prior to leaving for Europe. When I got to the terminal and was looking for it, I realized it was gone. Frantic, I telephoned them and a lovely woman volunteered to personally go back to the car to look for it. She said she'd call me back.

Meanwhile I called the credit card companies of the cards I had in there and canceled them. Fortunately I had my passport, and I was traveling with my husband who had other cards. Surprisingly the woman called me back, asked me to describe my wallet and we were able to ascertain without a doubt that she had my wallet. Since the plane was boarding and there was no way to go back and get it, we agreed she would mail the wallet to my home and would email me to confirm details. I gave my husband's card number to pay for any charges she might incur.

Well I never heard from them so a week later I tried to contact the office. Well if you aren't in Newark there's no way to directly contact the office, you are connected to some global office who knows where. Called customer service, and there apparently isn't such a thing because each number given in literature or referred to me by agent as customer service, is in fact an agent trying to rent you a car. I was told I had to file a lost and found claim which I did, and I also contacted lost and found several times and they responded they had done everything they could but the item hadn't been located. Try as I might to explain that the wallet wasn't in fact lost, because it had been found and was now missing, I kept getting the run around each person saying they had done everything they could.

When I returned to the states we flew through Newark, and made the trip over to the Budget office to try again to get information. I lovely manager there was very apologetic and tried to get information for me, but his response finally was that no one there knew anything about it. Well of course not, because some one was hiding the fact they had it and were using my identity themselves or sold it to people who would. Someone at that office ought to have the authority to conduct an investigation of this!

So, I will certainly never rent a car from them again for two main reasons:
There's no customer service when you need them and the numbers identified as customer service are a sham if the issue doesn't fir into any of their boxes.'
Local offices, at least Newark, are so poorly managed that they can't investigate a situation like this. Surely they have a work log and would/should be able to figure out who was working the day and time this transpired.

I do not know if this is in line with the policy of this company, but its activity is at least illegal. We rent one other car but we get this SKODA SUPERB, very good high quality car. We was fascinated by this car, we took care for this car in Estonia and Latvia. Anyway, on the beggining of the rent technician check the scratches but not UNDER chassim becouse is not part of DAMAGE PROTOCOL. So i take photos of the car scratches, damages. After we return this car to company "NO ONE was on the parking lot for CAR CHECK" ask for us 240 forexisting scratch becouse if we look for the damage protocol, this car was damaged before on the same place. After we denny this accusation their threat us with another 24 for scratch under chassis! Their send email NEXT DAY 24H after car return and if we look on the pictures, their MOVED THE CAR from PARKING LOT and under chassi is not part of the DAMAGE CONTROL so we denny this accusation too. Of course without succes. We can do one thing, review bombing on social networks. This take more damage than 270. PLEASE DONT USE THIS COMPANY! Use another, better ranked rental comapny on the airport!

First 2 pictures is my photos of existing damage and leaved car on parking lot, another photos are MOVED car by company and NEW damage on car UNDER chassi and DAMAGE protocol without UNDER CHASSI.