Complaint Review: rentalcars.com - Manchester Internet

I was a groomsman for a long time friend's wedding in Mexico. My wife and I needed a rental car for the trip and I used Rentalcars.com through Kayak.com to book the rental. I had two bad experiences with Rentalcars.com for this trip.

I booked initially with the company. Rentalcars.com did not immediately confirm the booking. I received a call from them insistent that I urgently call them back about the reservation. I called back and waited on hold for an hour and half (time recorded by my cell phone).

When a representative finally answered, it turned out to be a bait & switch. While I split screen my phone and viewed the exact same reservations and prices on Kayak.com that I initially booked, she informed me that my reservation was not available and tried to up-sell me for two hundred + dollars or more. I cancelled the reservation.

3 days later, I went to book a rental again. Kayak.com listed the same Rentalcars.com prices and availability that the agent had sworn I could not book. I booked a car through Hertz. I, however, out of pure curiosity, booked a second reservation through Rentalcars.com.

This time, the reservation confirmed two days later and Rentalcars.com took my payment. Again, we prepaid for the reservation. I debated between Rentalcars.com & Hertz, but the $50 less through Rentalcars sold me (my mistake). Having paid for the reservation, I assumed it was safe.

We arrived at the Cancun airport, confirmation in hand. We went to the Budget rental counter. The clerk viewed our confirmation, reviewed his reservation list, crossed our name out, and promptly informed us that they had no vehicle for us.

The counter clerk did not speak great English, but my wife is fluent in Spanish. The clerk said there was nothing he could do and that he could not call Rentalcars.com for us. He provided us an international number for the company, and we spent 30 minutes on the phone simply trying to get through (twice). When we did get through, the Rentalcars.com representative (also not great with English) insisted on speaking to the Budget clerk before she would give us a refund. The Budget clerk informed the representative that Rentalcars.com had confirmed 600 bookings on a fleet of 300. During our almost hour at the desk, my wife and I observed two other customers with the same issue.

We had paid $87 total for our reservation. The Budget clerk offered us a rental with another agency for $73 a day. The bride ended up driving an hour north to pick us up so we could make it in time for the rehearsal dinner. We had to text back and forth to fix our situation. We had added up about $25 in international phone charges at this point.

In my experience, Rentalcars.com falsely advertises, baits & switches, and overbooks so that rental companies cannot honor reservations. If my wife did not speak Spanish and we did not have friends in Mexico, we could have ended up stranded and without a refund, like the other two (very irate) customers we saw.

I contacted Rentalcars.com through their customer service email. I asked for a refund of our international phone charges.  It turns out that their customer service to handle horrible customer service, is also, horrible.

I started receiving multiple calls from an international number that Google search could not identify. When they finally left messages, two different representatives asked me to submit my phone bill to them to refund the charges. Neither representative, however, left any information about where or how to submit the phone bill. The messages effectively asked me to submit a bill to no where. I did not want to call the general service line because of my prior 1.5 hr wait time.

Rentalcars.com did finally, arbitrarily, refund money to my credit card for my phone bill. They did make us whole for our phone expense on the trip. They even offered a discount for a future rental. I will never use it, because I don't trust that the car will be available.

I strongly advise against using Rentalcars.com and I feel strongly enough about that advice to write this report.