Advantage Rental Car

BE AWARE THAT YOU WILL MISS YOUR FLIGHT!!!
When I reserved my rental car there was not any information that the rental car office is 15 minutes south of the airport. When I was returning the car with the traffic on Wednesday afternoon it took one hour for me to get there. Then their driver said he wants to go for dinner and I was waiting for 30 minutes for their shuttle. Short story I left city 3 hours a head of my flight time by I LOST MY FLIGHT AND SPENT ANOTHER NIGHT IN SFO all because of over 2 hours waste of time for going to this rental company. They are very off the air port.
The staff are very nice but they don’t care if you miss your flight. They helped me in getting a very good car but, when they saw me waiting for 30 minutes for their shuttle at least they could advise me to get a taxi.
It is better to pay more to avoid missing a flight.

Flew in to San Francisco and did not notice that this rental location was off site. I wasn’t given the necessary information in order to take a shuttle there without having to pay a cab to reach the location. I should have done more research and figured this out myself. This is not the reason for rating this location 1 star.
There are a few reasons for my poor rating. First off, we were told that they were having a great deal on the newer Infiniti rentals. It was not much more than the car we initially reserved. Little did we know we were going to be charged an «upgrade fee». If I knew that we were paying some sort of fee then we would have stuck with the car we reserved online. We weren’t informed about this fee until after we dropped the rental car and we asked for a receipt that showed specific charged. Beware of bundled charges!
Minutes after driving away, the oil and maintenance alerts begin to pop up. I have an Infiniti of my own back home so I’m very attentive to what my car needs and any pop up alerts. Shortly after that the low tire pressure alert also shows up on the dashboard. What kind of establishment presents their specials to customers but have no decency to maintain their cars on a regular basis? These were 2014 or newer Q50’s, I don’t understand how you could not maintain these expensive cars! Shows their lack of car maintenance experience, attention to detail, and customer experience. We should not have to worry about the quality of the car and whether it’s up to date after agreeing to spend more money to «upgrade».

I would give them a negative star if there was one. This place was the worst of the worst car rentals I have ever experienced. Everyone on staff was totally unprofessional with no concern of attending to a customer. I brought back my car 2 hours early with a full tank and the check out person insisted that it was not full and wanted to charge me $ 9 a gallon to fill up the car. He would not wait a minute to see if the car would warm up and show the tank was full and proceeded to charge me $ 18 for two gallons when in fact I had not used the car much and topped off the gas tank with only 1 gallon beforehand. My wife insisted for him to check again and sure enough the gas tank was full but he already charged me $ 18 and must cancel and rewrite the check up form which only the Manager can do. The check out person did not apologized or accepted his mistake and instead passed us to his manager who was busy with a customer even though there were other counter person who can handle his customer. Well the manager was taking care of a customer for nearly 20 minutes while we were waiting for the him to free himself up and the rental car airport shuttle guy took off for the airport and would not be back for 20 minutes or more even when I told him his manager would be finish in 5 minutes with my mistake check out. Nope he just took off. Not until I told the manager his shuttle just took off and my family was going to be late to the airport did he started the make the adjustment to my check out minus the $ 18. Only then did manager realized our situation that he offered us one of his staff to drop us off directly to our terminal.
I never had this kind of experience ever with any car rental companies. When I return my rental car to Alamo, Budget, Avis, Dollar or whoever it was just simple and quick. I used Expedia and when they listed Advantage on top of the list of car rental companies, I thought what could go wrong using a unknown company. Wrong! It was like only $ 4 cheaper with Advantage and the pain and suffering dealing with this company was not worth it. Never again with unknown car rental companies like Advantage.

As you can see, I’m not a reviewer. I primarily use Unilocal to read reviews, not to give them. Yet, while searching for a rental car a few weeks back, rental car companies in the Bay Area ranged from bad to terrible. I feel that I need to take the time to write a review for Advantage Rental Car. Having been to Cali & Vegas multiple times in the past few years, I can truly say that Advantage is the best budget car rental company I have used.
Most places leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, either by trying to upsell me a car I don’t want, or forcing insurance on me to the point that I almost feel like I’m taking food off someone’s table if I don’t go with it. Advantage did neither.
The staff I personally dealt with was pleasant; the reps at the desk were attentive and quick to answer any questions I had. The shuttle drivers were warm, and didn’t seem like you were bothering them if you needed help. I was in and out of the office in five minutes when I picked up the car. While I wasn’t there during a peak time, this still was something quite special to me, especially since I’ve been to places where they took up to an hour to service their guests. I really cannot get over the conversation I had:
«Do you want insurance for the vehicle?»
«No.»
That’s it. That’s really all there was to it, before we moved on. Normally I’d feel like my teeth are being pulled out at that point, but really that’s all he asked before we finalized the process.
I booked a midsize, instead they gave me a Jeep Liberty. My family has two Jeeps, so the car wasn’t the problem, however we were gas conscious, so I asked what happened to my midsize. They explained that this is all they had ready and they did not want me to wait. I was a bit perturbed, so I asked how long it would be until my request could be furnished. They said 15 minutes. 15 minutes? Really? I did appreciate the gesture, but I told them I’d wait the 15 minutes. In 10 minutes, my car was ready. Car ran great, no issues during my stay.
Of course, you may have an issue with the 7 minute shuttle ride from the airport to their location, but if you’re ok with that (which you should be), then Advantage should be no problem. I don’t know why that seems to be an issue for some, but I guess I don’t have a stick in my butt when it comes to what I expect from a budget car rental service, so I guess I didn’t mind. And as always, be sure to inspect the car before leaving the lot. They did it with me, but in the event they don’t, it’s still your responsibility.
Safe driving!

The customer service at the SFO location is mediocre. I’ve rented from this location on a few occasions and each time the manager was condescending towards me. Within an hour after returning the car, I realized that I left a personal belonging in the car. I called and the manager told me he was going to call me back after he checked the car. He never did. I called him back and was told that it wasn’t in the car and that the car was just rented out. I went back to the location the next morning to verify that it was not there… to my surprise, the same car had not been rented and was still on the lot. Customer service needs improving at this location.

2 miles away from the off site pick up site, but shuttles every 20 – 25 minutes. You can’t call and get a live human to pick you up early. Crappy service for a commodity. An offsite competitor picked me up and gave a better rate.

Be in the know… I snagged this rental on a discount website for about 12 bucks a day. We paid under $ 150 for 6 full days. I originally rented a Jetta but they gave me a Kia Optima, and I was actually quite happy with it. They don’t charge extra to add another driver. They just take the info-​nice! They don’t try to shove insurance or fueling options prior to signing the contract. If you want anything extra, they have it, just let them know. The inspection prior to departure was extremely thorough and the guy pointed out something I missed. The car smelled like pot… freshly smoked and put out pot. It was not subtle in the least, but we were tired and just ready to get to our hotel. The girl inside said she would make a note of it. We were able to freshen it up the next day and keep it moving. We are easy going, but for some, this might be unacceptable.
1. Double shuttle from SFO. What does this mean? It means once you trek it through the airport and retrieve your luggage, you have to take a train (its the last stop) to the car rental area, which takes about 10 mins. This involved going to the bottom floor for luggage, then working our way back up to the 3^rd floor for the train, all while dragging your luggage. Once you arrive and make it all the way back down and outside to the left, you have to take a vehicle shuttle to the rental office, another 10 – 15 mins. If you have the time and patience to do this, you’re ahead of the game. We were tired after flying 6 hours and dragging around 4 pieces of luggage while navigating an unknown airport was not fun, but we made it!
2. The customer service is basic. Not rude at all, but not like a much larger, eager to please chain. If you want a dazzling experience, pay extra and go somewhere else. These folks will get you in a car and get you on your way. The bathroom was clean and I’d much rather have a clean bathroom than an overly perky cheesy customer service experience.
3. Our shuttle drivers to and from were nice. The return experience will be just like the arriving… meaning that you have to take the double shuttle back to SFO with all your stuff. In our case, our luggage weight had grown thanks to California wine ;) Keep this in mind when you return. The trek back will be as long as the arriving trek, so give yourself time. I asked the driver why they cant do terminal drop off, even with an extra tip, and it comes down to licensing.
I would def book again through this company. Service was acceptable and in another situation I might have been picky about the car’s odor. We had no issues with the vehicle and it was great on gas.

This car rental did it’s job. We booked online and were given a car we didn’t like and it also had a dent on it. However, we were given the option to choose another car that was similar to it so we were satisfied. We picked a Mazda and it both the interior and exterior was clean and new. I would recommend this place to anyway willing to go outside of the airport to get a car rental. They have a free shuttle if you’re worried about how to get there. It’s under the name «e-​z rent a car» but it’s called Advantage now.