Advantage Rent A Car

Rented a car on a vacation to Austin and had an accident in which some yahoo forced me off the road into a barrier. I accepted responsibility and turned it into my insurance company who paid off the claim and raised my rates. Fine, except I then received a letter from some outfit called «Purco fleet co.» saying that I owed $ 2200 in additional charges including «administrative costs», «loss of usage» and additional charges that they assessed even though my insurance paid the claim. These leaches are apparently a company that makes money by adding arbitrary fees in addition to legitimate claims. Advantage does not answer their phone and Purco simply states that they are entitled to these fees because of the 10-​page contract that you have to sign when you rent from Advantage.
Simply put, Advantage is THE bottom-​feeder of the car-​rental business and you get what you pay for. My advice is to rent from Hertz who does not pull this kind of nonsense. Don’t ruin your vacation by renting from Advantage just because they offer allegedly cheaper rates.

Worst rental car place ever… Told them I don’t need insurance I accidentally initialed and they said they would remove. They didn’t and charged me more then the car was. Horrible customer service!!! Advantage rent a car is the WORST! jeremy gesaule is a horrible manager and total prick! Accused me of lying… Great customer service Jeremy!

For my first time booking & renting a car, I have to say this experience was a-​ok. We landed in ATX and hallelujah — the rental cars are at the airport! LAX you need to step your game up!
The check-​in counter is just a quick walk from the terminal to the parking garage. As to be expected, because Advantage’s prices are cheaper than their competitors, their line is longer. There were probably 10 people in line and 0 – 1 at every other rental car company. We waited in line for some time, but we weren’t in a rush (we probably waited 20 minutes or so). They did have all 3 people working at the counter, so it definitely wasn’t a lack of resources!
One thing to mention. Yes the prices are cheap, but they will try and add on fees here & there. Additional insurance, added driver, and all these extra «perks» that I can’t remember. I think this is potentially what makes the check-​in process longer. I thought reserving a car beforehand would make it go faster, but oh well (FYI, I reserved our car through
).
Aside from the wait, the employee helping us was sweet & recommended a few places to us. Once you’re all set — just take the escalator to the floor where Advantage is, give the employee your paperwork and they will give you a car. They will spend a few minutes checking out minor damages on the car prior to you leaving to document what was there before. This process probably took about 5 minutes.
Returning the car was also a breeze. We filled up the tank just outside the airport, dropped off the car and were back in the terminal within minutes.
Would I use them again? Potentially. I think with the low cost, you end up having to wait longer and deal with additional sale add ons. I might think of spending a bit more cash next time, but I would’t say I had an awful experience. Overall we paid about $ 98 dollars for a 3 day car rental +$ 36 for insurance — do yourself a favor and rent a car while you’re in ATX, there is so much to see and do!

So let me start by saying the people that have been complaining about stuff on here are unrealistic. We booked through priceline for less than 10 a day. There was a line to pick up the car… Not surprised at all. The girl at the counter was friendly, and of coarse tried to upsell… Still not surprised. What surprised me was the car. It was better than I expected. Checking it out was ez and return was easier. I would recommend them to anyone. Just know you may have to wait to pick it up. That’s the price of getting a good deal.

Just want to spare people the awful experience of this company… I am not a fan of writing Unilocal reviews but felt I needed to do this as a service to my fellow man :) Only company with worse customer service than cable providers I’ve ever experienced (and we KNOW how much they suck). RECOMMENDATION: Spend a few more dollars on a different company and save years of your life by not stressing about how awful this company is to deal with. And other companies don’t require payment to book. There is a reason why it’s so cheap. And it’s not because Advantage is preferable to a recognizable car rental company. these emoticons sum up my feeling about advantage, but I should note I booked through car rentals dot com, so they can eat a pile of poo as well

I was hesitant to reserve my car rental at Advantage after reading the reviews but the price was so much better than the trusted names and the other agencies that were close in price had worse reviews!
I am happy to say that I was very happy with my experience. We arrived on a late Wednesday afternoon so it wasn’t peak time. We were helped right away by Erik Brown. It was speedy and while Erik did his duty in offering the insurance (and pointing out my insurance wouldn’t cover loss of use) he didn’t push after I politely declined. He also did his duty in offering an upgrade for a price but, again, did not push after I declined. Ken Rhodes took us to our car and looked it over with us and handed us the keys within a few minutes. The car had a lot of scratches but was clean and ran well. No complaints.
I wish I had gotten the name of the gentleman who helped check us in when we returned the car. He, too, was speedy and friendly. The only thing I didn’t like is that they emailed us the receipt after we left which meant that if there was a dispute on the charge, I wouldn’t have been able to address it until much later. Luckily, the receipt came and it showed the exact amount I anticipated. Again, no complaints.
AUS has a consolidated rental car facility which I understand is rather new. I appreciate not having to get on a shuttle to get to a rental car facility and liked that it was just a short walk. However, it would be hard on anyone physically challenged and I didn’t see anyone around to offer cart rides or assistance. Also, the rental agencies are going to need to work together to figure out how to better operate upon returns. We returned our car on a Saturday evening and waited nearly 20 minutes on the ramp to get into the garage. Once we got in, it was a quick trip up to the top and Advantage had us going in no time. However, I understand that the back up was much longer earlier in the day and that people were missing flights. This was due to the agencies on the first floor having too many cars waiting for return; the lines were backed into the aisles so nobody could maneuver around the garage to get to the other floors.

They should rename the business to Disadvantage because they disadvantage customers at every point. Understaffed so that means your wait time will exceed 30 minutes. This doesn’t mean great deals so lots of customers – it means they are spending money on collaborating with funneling services like Hotwire. BUYER BEWARE: you will be charged double the daily rate should you extend your rental. This means when they offer you a free upgrade-​DECLINE! And don’t ever try to reach them by phone – it took the local vendor 7 hours to return a call pertaining to an issue with my rented vehicle. One last shifty business practice: return times are based on what you say on the reservation NOT when you actually pick up the car. So if you said 8:00am on reservation but didn’t pick up car until 10:00am. You must return at 8:00 the following day or start in on that double second day rate. Stay away from Advantage. Back to my favorite: Enterprise.

I actually like this place for its great price and location. The counter inside the airport terminal took me a while to find but they treat me very well. I was prepare to deal with a «economy» car that handle poorly, instead I got a Mazda 3 with 11K miles. The car had some scratches and chips on the body and they were all noted on the pre-​rental inspection form. It was clean and smelled like a young car. There were only one employee in the parking lot and she worked super hard. Best of all I was not ripped off this time on insurance. Take that downtown Enterprise !

Lots of hate for Advantage here! My experience was «a-​ok» which is in line with other times I’ve rented from them. I’ll say that Advantage consistently has the best prices when renting in TX so I do tend to use them more than say, Hertz or Payless.
The check in experience was not great — there were two people in front of me and it still took 30 minutes to get waited on, even with two clerks working. I don’t know if the people in front of me were BUYING the cars or what but it took forever! Yes, they will try to upsell you on the insurance and gas, generally with assumptive questions «and you want full coverage on this?» Just be firm, but polite — I found that stopped the hectoring pretty quickly.
I actually (for once) got the type of car I reserved. It was clean inside and out and had less than 10K miles on it. Like all rentals, it smelled kind of funny (what do people get up to in rentals?) but as a bonus it had satellite radio. My return was pretty painless.
Overall, just fine for a car rental.

The «customer service» agents at the counter and at the car pick up have never practiced customer service a day in their lives. After arriving in Austin, Texas, we dragged all our luggage outside in 94 degree heat we were informed that we had to first go inside to do the contract before we could pick up the car. We had filled out everything online and for any other car rental company we could have walked from baggage claim to our car. We were never informed of this. Do no use this company.

Got there for our 6am reservation before 6am, when the advantage rental office was supposed to open. Over an hour later, at 7:10, a lone employee walked up. She confirmed the office opened at 6am, but had no explanation for why she was so late.
Do not use this office /​company if it’s important to you to get your car quickly — the operation seems very unprofessional.
(In the end we ended up canceling our reservation online and booked with one of the many rental companies that had agents there on time)

30 minutes to pick up a rental car that was reserved because the line was huge and ONE person was working the line. Ridiculous.

I have rented from Advantage on two other occasions at Dallas Fort Worth and Dllas Love field and both experience was pleasant
At this location I initially reserve with Budget but had an issue.
Andrew was very courteous at the Advantage car rental counter. I was in need of a car at the last minute because my other rental car company would not let me rent with a debit card without a return flight. Andrew was able to get me a car and it was no hassle at all. I had to make a reservation online real quick through Priceline and within a few minutes it came through and I was on my way.

I don’t get all the bad reviews, I realize that people usually leave bad reviews when they are pissed off, and usually don’t leave good reviews when happy.
I don’t have a bad thing to say about Advantage-​REnt-​a Car — we arrived Easter Day around noon — no lines — the nice young lady behind the counter was as sweet as a ripe pineapple — sure, she was doing her job and tried to upgrade our car selection, but was not pushy — offered us the very expensive insurance plan, but I told her I was covered under AE and that was the end of that.
We rented a full sized car, a Sonata with 500 miles on it — clean as a well oiled tuba — walked upstairs, got our car and we were on our way — really quick, maybe 15 minutes.
After 4 days we pulled up at the rental returns, some dude with a ipad came to the car, checked us out and we walked into the terminal –
I was a little hesitant to rent from Advantage, because of all the bad reviews here on Unilocal,but rented from them because of the great price.
So, I don’t know — I’d use them again.
The only advice I have for Advantage is – Look at your reviews here and try to respond to your customers complaints and try to make it right.
Thanks — Jani

I’ve been on line now for 20 minutes already even though the line was 4 people deep and there are two girls at the counter, I can’t begin to imagine why this is taking so long considering everyone has a reservation. I look forward to eventually having my encounter and possibly picking up my car in the next 20 minutes

The absolute worst rental car experience I’ve ever had. I was greeted by a young woman at the counter, and at first she was all smiles and very friendly. She started by saying that the size car I reserved was not available, and that we were going to be upgraded to a Mustang. She proceeded to ask me what color Mustang I’d like, and proceeded to try get me to agree to things I didn’t want or need, including an upcharge for the «Mustang», additional insurance, prepaid fuel, etc. I literally had to argue with her to decline insurance and prepaid fuel. When I told her the final price did not match the quote I received when I made the online reservation, and that them not having the size car I reserved was not my fault, she pretended to call someone on the other line, had the phone to her ear, quietly whispered a few words every few minutes, and then handed me a slip with the original quoted price and told me to head to the lot. She didn’t tell me what kind of car I’d get, She didn’t say goodbye, or have a nice day, just a pissed off look on her face because I hadn’t fallen for her unethical upsell strategy.
Do not rent from them. She put me in a crappy Kia. She was rude and unprofessional.

Travelled to Austin from Chicago on Christmas. Reserved a car. Was told that they did not have any cars available and to come back the next day. Would never trust this company again. was told my the clerk that he too would not use his company.

$ 350 deposit when using a debit card??? Unreal. The woman at the front desk was extremely rude. I walked away went down the way and rented a car. They gave me a free upgrade because of the experience I had with advantage.
Avoid if you can! No customer service or appreciation for clients. I see why their rates are so low…

We got to the Austin airport with no car rental reservation so once we landed we checked for prices online. Advantage seemed to have the most affordable prices. So we were off to their counter.
Once at the country we asked for an economical car and they said they were all booked for reservations but that they could give us a sedan for a lot more money. We stepped out of the counter made a reservation through our phone. The website would not allow us to book a car within a 2 hour frame and I made the reservation expecting that the «friendly» personnel will allow us to pick up the car an hour early or so… Oh surprise, they didn’t. All this dance took about 1 hour.
We ended up walking over to the Alamo Rent a Car counter and got a good deal just 5 more bucks than Advantage per day and a bigger car than Advantage’s economical size. All in less than 10 minutes.
The Advantage company would not move a finger to help a potential customer. Will never rent a car from them!

Awful experience when we used Advantage for our trip to Austin. At first we thought we were getting a good deal, and we thought it was our lucky day because the car we asked for (Chevy Malibu) was supposedly out of stock so they «upgraded» us at no cost to an SUV. They offered us to prepay to fill up gas at a lower cost with their «fill up now» option and said we can just bring it back empty. However we brought it back with a quarter tank and were charged $ 8.99 a gallon to fill up the tank! We took it up with the front desk and they said they only filled up half a tank and gave us a bunch of BS. Unbelievable. Obviously they make a lot money by giving people an SUV, paying for gas up front, then charging $ 9.00 a gallon when they bring it back! Needless to say, I highly recommend using another company for your rental car needs.