Thrifty Review

Overall 2.03 of 5 view all 31 reviews

thecomputergal
Missoula, MT

Thrifty rental car will not help you, if you rent on a weekend.

business traveler

Pros

Friendly employees in some locations

Cons

Smoky car - lied about refund

MAR

2009

Thrifty —

My travel agent arranged for a Thrifty rental car for my trip from Albuquerque, NM to Mescalero, NM. I picked up the car in the evening after a long day. By the time I was on the interstate into Albuquerque for the night, I realized that my car was full of cigarette smoke. Not being a smoker, and very allergic to cigarette smoke, I thought that if I opened the windows, the smell would go away. It didn't.

So, the next day, when I needed to be working on client work in preparation for a meeting in Albuquerque, I called Thrifty. The person on the phone would give me a number that said to call on Monday (it was Saturday, I would be in Mescalero on Monday.) It took me 45 minutes to realize that it didn't matter how many calls I made, I wasn't going to get any help until Monday. Lost work time: 45 minutes.

So, after the meeting that I wasn't prepared for, I drove back to the airport to talk to the local folks. They were very nice, gave me a different car and said that Thrifty doesn't have much of a cigarette policy. They also said they would refund my smoke breathing day. Lost work time: 1.5 hours.

So, what they did was refund the day and charge it back!!!! So, once again I called the national office. No dice, they wanted to "research the situation" - like I hadn't already lost over 2 hours of billable time!

In the long run, I lost my time and my money with Thrifty. I will never use them again.