FlightCar

I listed my car for rental with flightcar... a huge mistake. They say they will take photos of your car after each return and contact you if there are any issues (accidents, dents, dings, etc.).

So, I go to pick up my car after renting it with Flightcar for a couple of months and its sitting on the lot ready to go with every corner of it bashed in; seriously, bumpers destroyed and lights busted out. I asked the agent about the damage and he replied 'oh, you didn't drop it off wrecked?" Three months later and I'm still waiting on reimbursement for the damages I paid myself to fix.

Despite their assurances to monitor the vehicle after each rental, not once had they taken any photos or contacted me about any damages. The repair shop indicated the vehicle was in AT LEAST 2 accidents during the rental based on the damages. Then, I had to find a repair shop on my own, get estimates, get them approved, drop off my car, pay for the damages and wait and wait for reimbursement. They didn't even offer a rental car during the repairs.

SAVE YOURSELF A HUGE HEDACHE AND DO NOT LIST YOU CAR FOR RENTAL WITH FLIGHTCAR. This business is a joke and half. Horrible experience.

bookingbuddy.com sent us to a site for car rental called "SU." It was the cheapest rental we can find, and since we did not know what SU is, thought that would be another new offsite car rental company like Sixt or Firefly. We know that there's offsite car rental and they send a shuttle to pick you up at SFO.

When we got to SFO, no one even know the company SU. That was my first indication that maybe something is wrong. The phone number (the *******6013 number) provided by bookingbuddy did not work. It goes to a voicemail. After trying many different things, and wasting more than an hour to get a shuttle, we finally decided to just take a taxi over to the site and eat the cost.

Taxi driver was completely baffled about where they were located. After
Several turns, we found a small garage that said "Flight Car" matching the address of 323 S Canal St, South San Francisco.

The contract is one page. We were given 100 mile per day for mileage.
The vehicle is a private vehicle owned by someone who is traveling at the
Time. I am not even sure if the company is actually operating legally, but
Since we have a contract, we took the vehicle. It has a scratch on the
Door. The alarm system, and remote on the car doesn't work. Only one key
Hole on the driver side door. We prayed very hard that the key would work
All through the trip or we would be SOL. They gave us a Mazda 3x.

The attendant also told us that if we exceeded the mileage
Allotted. We will be paying 45 cents per mile. If we wants additional
Mileages, we can contact them and book additional days at the same
Rate. When we contacted them to add mileages, we were told they do
Not honor the contract and additional day are 94.86 per day instead.

We will never rent from them AGAIN. If you contract with them, I
Think you should forewarn your customers. That was something else. First time for everything. I am not even sure bookingbuddy.com knows about this. We wrote them already. Hopefully they will figure out.

SAVE YOURSELF A HUGE HEADACHE AND RUN, DON'T WALK, TO ANOTHER CAR RENTAL COMPANY. After reading similar reviews in other markets and watching other issues other renters were having while I was there at the location, I would be highly skeptical of the positive reviews as they are potentially publicity produced by the company itself. This company is not transparent on their process, does not give you proof of condition of car PRE rental, nor original odometer, nor original gas level prior to driving off the lot unless you dig in and demand it. They act like you are crazy to request such things. THEN they tell you "WE have a copy of those things". Great -- make ME feel comfortable and give ME a copy of those things before telling me to drive away in the car. THEN when you return the car, they ask you to sign something that says they can contact you up to SIX MONTHS LATER with damage claims! If they weren't so serious, I would think I was on hidden camera being punked and this was a joke. Their business IS a joke. They try to work off tablets which don't seem to work and they expect you to sign away all your rights as a consumer. OH, and to top it all off, I returned the car an hour EARLY and they hit me with a $40 late fee. Company was founded by teenagers and it shows. Interesting idea for a business but RENTER BEWARE.

Booked a car with them at the San Francisco airport without checking any reviews. I needed a cheap car. When arrived, they told me they are out of cars. I said ok so what to do. They booked me a car on PayLess and took me in their shuttle to PayLess. The shuttle driver didn't even look up the address of PayLess car rentals and wanted to drop me off in the middle of nowhere because he knew in his mind the old address of PayLess rather the new address that he had to look up. Fortunately, I saw that he is dropping me off at a laundromat (or something like that - you get the drill). I said I will not get off here - this is not a car rental. He said it is - I know it. I had to find on Google Maps the address on the booking printout and argue with him to drive me there. This is half of the story.

The second half is that they agreed to pay me the difference between their price and what PayLess charged. It was $87 dollars. Not big money (was renting the car for 3 days), but not small amount either. After finishing my rental with PayLess, contacted FlightCar and asked for refund. This was 12 Apr, 2015. Today is 03 Jun 2015 and I am fighting them to get my money back. Fortunately, there was nice support person named Assia who, while taking all my angry brunt about their business, managed to ask their finance manager to approve my payment. Now, this is second time this "approval" is happening. First time, no refund was provided - they just say "yes" but didn't pay. The second time happened on 1st June, 2015. I am waiting to see what will come out of this. This is the second review I am writing about them. With every "approval", I will write another review. Because I want businesses to care about their customers. It is possible.

Sadly this awesome concept is a huge disappointment. There is nothing "iffy" about the execution - it is downright horrible! My experience with them started out well enough. I made arrangements for them to pick up my car (a low-mileage Lexus) after I had already left town - what they call the "honeymoon" period, I guess.

I listed the car for a month with plans to pick it up 31 days later. But when my flight home got pushed up a few days, I decided to take advantage of my 4 "rent-back" days/month by picking up my car early. Unfortunately my car was not available and as promised they made another car available to me for the four days left on my rental listing. All of this was reasonable enough. That is where reasonable ended however.

The substituted vehicle was examined closely upon check-out, or at least the exterior was and pictures of the damages were sent to me. This whole process took almost 30 minutes because the FlightCar rep was alone and interrupted about six times while I waited.

By the time I left I was late and rushed and didn't notice the condition of the fabric interior which was stained and dirty, front and back. For four days I decided I could live and then I returned the car the day my car was due back. I didn't realize that the date I was to pickup my car was actually a day later than my rental agreement. So my return was 10 hours late for which I was charged $200-about five times what any other rental company charges.

Also, my small hypo-allergenic service dog was in the car for the short ride from the gas station to the FlightCar location. This was less than 1 mile. She had been crated before that as she prefers to be in her crate when in a moving vehicle. For allowing the dog in the car I was charged $500- two times the penalty documented on their website!

Both of these fees were automatically charged to my credit card before I was even asked to sign a closure agreement and I was told that unless I signed, I would incur additional late fees because the rental would stay open! This experience took more than an hour and again I left in a hurry, forgetting to get my personal belongings which had been removed from the vehicle upon pickup.

I nearly ALWAYS check reviews before using a new service and I guess the FlightCar concept so impressed me that I did not do this diligence. Reading over the reviews here, I feel like an idiot. This brilliant concept is executed with the worst customer service ever. I suggest they read the book pictured below, but then again since they only care about their bottom line and not about their car owners, I doubt even that would be helpful.

This company SUCKS big time. Avoid them at ALL COSTS.

After calling the company almost daily (since 7/16/14) to get a refund on a car we did not end up renting, we finally received an email today (7/22/14) that they will give us a full refund. However, it is going to take 2 business days for the refund to be processed and to reach our bank account. This in NOT acceptable. This money should have been refunded on 7/16 when we first complained.

It is now not about the money, it's about the disrespect for a paying customer.

Here is our experience:
1.) One month ago, we reserved and pre-paid for 2 cars for our trip to Boston. Besides the car rentals, the company promised to pick us up at the airport and drive us to our rental cars. Sounded like a great deal! However...

2.) Our flights were delayed by several hours so we notified them twice and FlightCar and said "... no problem... we're a 24 hour service...".

3.) When we finally arrived in Boston, we called FlightCar & told them we were ready to be picked up, they said they had already given away our 2 cars and they had reserved 2 cars for us at Hertz.
They also told us we'd have to go to the Hertz car rental place and they would not be picking us up.
They said all costs at Hertz would be covered by what we had already paid in advance
HOWEVER - when we got to Hertz, Hertz said we'd have to pay an additional $65 per day for insurance, or else assume all risks.
We ended up taking only ONE car and asked for a refund. (And HAVE BEEN ASKING almost daily since Wed., 7/16).

4.) The customer service we received was extremely poor. One representative even hung up on us. The biggest issue is that the Customer Service representatives do not have the authority to handle the complaints. They said in order to get a refund, we would have to write directly to the CEO. Not everyone has internet access and the customer representatives SHOULD be able to handle the complaints.

5.) ALSO, the company finally contacted the CEO for us, but he said "NO REFUND". Only after us calling almost daily has the company finally said we'll receive a full refund.

Long story short, we thought we were getting a great deal, with the extra service of being picked up at the airport, but none of the promises were kept. Our cars were given away, we had to go to Hertz and the money we had already paid did not cover the full cost expected at Hertz.

Also, the Customer Service at FlightCar was terrible. This has caused a LOT of stress with having to constantly call FlightCar and has upset the entire family due to the runaround we have been given.

On 9/16/15 I booked with an online company who works with Fligthcar. That company confirmed with Flightcar, took my deposit, and sent me email confirmation of the rental car I was supposed to have. When I arrived on 10/10/15 and followed the directions I had been given in order to pick up my car, I was notified by Flightcar that they cancelled my reservation, and that they rescheduled it with another company. I was not once notified of this change in the month prior to my trip no call no email. I had to find out the day I arrived and when pricing of rental cars was way up. My reservation was for no more than $40 and I ended up having to pay $160 for a car elsewhere. Not to mention the 3.5hrs I had to hangout at the airport trying to get a rental car figured out last minute on my day and a half vacation.

Then when I call and ask to speak with a manager to complain no one was ever in. The excuses I received from their employees were ridiculous, and one even told me they rescheduled at a new location out of courtesy for me(ANNA). NOT! Courtesy for me would have been contating me and letting me know of the changes well in advance to give me the opportunity to check elsewhere. Then the next excuse I was given was that they didn't have any of my contact information. The funny thing is that when you are working with another company (Economybookings.com) they have all of that informtion for you.

Regardless of whatever excuse they gave me there was no excuse to cancel my reservation without my knowing. Please do not waste your time booking a thing through this company here. It will be a complete waste of your time, and when you arrive for your stress free vacation be prepared to not have your car there and stress out.