Budget Rent A Car System

OMG I never wanted to commit a horrible crime until now. I had a late flight at 10:30PM PDX. I was tired and hungry. All I wanted to do was rush through car rental to get to my cousins house and rest. I spent an hour here because there was a line with one person working. It wouldn’t have been bad if he worked with urgency! this dude had a list of sales pitch he was doing with every customer. Wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept trying to make everybody buy insurance or upgrade. Everybody was pissed. Some people even yell at the guy while standing in line. When you have a line full of customers, work faster or get another person to come help you. It was ridiculous. I also didn’t like that they gave me a car that smelled like smoke

Hi again, back in Oregon for Thanksgiving at my Bro’s in Salem with a visit with my daughter in Springfield and son, his wife and my granddaughter and grandson.
I treat myself and my Bride to Lincoln MKZ and whoa! What a ride! You can’t drive fast in Oregon, the max is 55 except for some of the Interstate with a max of 65.
The car handled great, even compensated for a patch of «black ice» we encountered east of Lincoln City.
So now the Mrs. wants to sell the Monte Carlo for a MKZ.
But I digress, while stopping for the last night I foolishly put my Ray Ban’s in the sunglass hold in the roof panel. Yep, you’re right I forgot them and didn’t realize the fact until home in the blazing sun of SoCal!
I immediately called the Portland office who nothing had been turned, damn!
Two days later a gentleman named Gordon Roda, Lost and Found Coordinator, Avis Budget Group Portland Airport called and said they found them right where I left them and mail them out that day! Yea!
Thanks Gordon, you’ve got a customer for life!
p. s. Now if you could move your offices to on site airport…

Not a great experience from start to finish.
Start
The trip started with the desk clerk trying to upgrade me; first to a Beamer-(noTY), then to SUV-(No), then to all wheel-(good god man, no!), and finally he gave me what I wanted… what I ordered… sigh
3 – 4 more questions later I was finally able to leave and on the way out the door handle broke off and flew out of my hand like chubby kid running for cake at a birthday party. Unfortunately it just missed the guy at the counter or that would have been awesome! (This part of the review is mildly exaggerated)
Finish
I drop off the car. 15 – 20 minute wait time while it was raining and very cold.
Driver arrives but mills around to talk to his friends before leaving, another 5 minute wait
The worst part about the trip was the driver had his iPhone plugged into the radio and was playing his personal library of music which included «my Dope days» and some freaky inappropriate jam from «Usher». Let’s just say the old timers on the bus quickly turned down the volumes on their hearing aids while he got hyphy in the front seat.
Ran two red lights on the way to the airport, presumably to make up for lost time due to his chat with his friend a few minutes prior.
Bottom line
Made it to my flight on time, cold, mildly frustrated, and knowing a new rap song. Different rental car company here I come!

Like what the other reviewers said. steer away from this place! Yes, you can get an excellent deal but be prepared to get charged for damages you are not responsible for. I always rent from Budget when I travel, but I would not recommend this location if you’re traveling to Portland.
About two months after my trip to Portland, I receive a nasty gram in the mail charging me almost $ 500.00 for damages (scratches) on the car. Obviously I’m furious because we returned our car with NO damages excluding the one scratch that was previously there and we had the guy confirm it upon return. What sucks was that the employees were actually sincerely nice when I picked up my car and even informed me about the small scratch before I drove off with it. She wrote it down on our receipt before we had left.
Anyhoo, getting a hold of someone at Budget is RIDICULOUS. You will never reach a live person and will always hit voice mail. I’ve left multiple voice mails and eventually my ticket went to collections. The collections lady however, was super nice, lol. So long story short, there was no record of any damages on the car and since I didn’t have a record of it, nothing could be done. WHAT THE #%#(%, THE BUDGET EMPLOYEE WAS THE ONE THAT WROTE IT DOWN ON THE RECEIPT! How do they not have a record of it?!
So now that I’m $ 400 poorer and wiser, here’s a tip to all you car renters: ALWAYS TAKE PHOTOS OF YOUR CAR AND RECEIPT FOR EVIDENCE.

TIGHT BUDGET OR NOT… JUST DONT.
upon arrival at PDX i was a bit confused as to where Budget was since signage is very vague. I asked a pdx employee and find out u have to take a shuttle to the Budget site
i arrive at Budget and there is a line out the door. Waited in that line for 43 mins, no exaggeration. i receive a car that is larger than i had reserved, but im quoted the same rate.
i get in the suv, its clearly not cleaned since the last driver… some sort of liquid spilled down the side of the door, if u have a dog u know what i mean by nose prints on the back windows… sand in the trunk which i thought was odd but then i noticed it had an Arizona plate.
as the day goes on the car occasionally stutters/​shakes when idling. next day it becomes very frequent and i became worried so i call the rental office and ask for an exchange. they say no problem bring it back and we will re-​process you (aka wait in line again) i ask if there is a closer office, she replies no.
at that point so much of my time has been wasted i find one of the multiple rental centers around portland, fill the gas tank and exchange for another car… which also isnt cleaned.
return car #2 with full tank… the next morning i receive a $ 65 charge, i call billing and they have no explanation or actions of reversing. FANTASTIC.

So we rented a car from here when we came to Portland to get married. The car we rented smelled like gasoline all week. We had to drive around with the windows down so that we didn’t get headaches. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it something they clean the car with?
Also, I try to rent from the airport if possible which they said they were at. They have a booth but instead shuttled us to another location which was slammed with people and took forever. I felt so bad for the people working there… Who were very nice, but the company as a whole is not customer friendly. They need to start looking at these reviews. This is my second time giving them 1 star… I laughed when I saw I gave them 1 star 11 months ago… This time I will remember that I don’t like budget for sure.

Terrible !
They charged us $ 150 for pet hair — we have NO pets. I’ve called TWICE to get this charge removed and no one has helped me.
I just called again today.
I hope they make this right and remove the $ 150 pet fee.
It’s infuriating to be brushed off though when we are trying to get a solution.

I travel a quit a bit for work and pleasure. This is hands down the worse rental car office I’ve ever had to deal with.
They aren’t located at the airport so you have to take a shuttle to the location. The shuttle buses take for ever. You can watch the competitors come but 2 or 3 times before they show up.
The counter is always under staffed. Right now there’s one guy and the line is out the door. Fast break, yeah right don’t even bother.
A few years ago I was here for work and and I picked my car up at the airport, the staff didn’t alert me to return to at the off site location.
Avoid these guys like the plague.

Absolutely awful. Rented a car using Costco and had an awful experience. The staff was rude and not the least bit helpful. At one point when I called to verify my husband could pick up the car, the associate was yelling at me. I will never rent from here again.

BE AWARE the Budget rental center is not at the PDX airport. When I arrived to pick up a car I was greeted by this sign advising me to go find a shuttle bus for a 5 min. ride to pick up a car. No thanks– I walked right back inside the airport and got the exact same rate at Hertz and picked up right there on the rental lot AT the airport!

When you arrive at the airport, you soon find out that the center is not even near there. Its miles away. The prices of other rental car places at the airport (Enterprise for one) are comparable, especially if you don’t have 20 – 30 minutes to get to your rental car.
Upon arriving, the associate seem distracted and made snide comments when we did not want to upgrade. They then direct you to wander around the lot. Then finally you have your car.
The time it takes to get to the rental car facility is not worth the low level of service and the slightly lower price. Enterprise at the airport was much better, even if its 10 dollars more at times.
Lastly, the shuttle driver was very nice both ways which is why it isn’t one star.

Shuttle was great and driver friendly. Arrival a let down with an incredibly long line and only three employees with line 25 parties deep!

So I tried to plan my vacation and be prepared… I hate wasting time on stupid things instead of enjoying trip. I researched a good deal and found budget to be the best option at the time. I went ahead and pre-​paid and added a coupon for free upgrade. As I arrived in Portland I had to take shuttle bus to off site location, not a problem as I have had to do this at other airport locations. As we arrived at Budget you could see «the line» and feel people tense up. The line was out the door and into the lot. An easy 15 people waiting at 1pm on a Wed. I waited about 25 mins before making it to the counter. On my arrival I was notified that not only was my coupon not going to be honored, but that they were giving me a car that had just arrived back and needed gas and wash. I was told if I wanted to pay $ 10 more a day I could have a camero. What the heck was my coupon for and how can you possibly be asking for more money?!? I obviously turned the camero down and was told to go outside and wait about 15 mins for car to be ready. From the time I left the airport to entering my dripping wet car… 1 hour wasted. $ 276 dollars for three days in a Chevrolet Sonic… nice one Budget… you rock!

I have never wrote any negative reviews before, but this time i just can’t help it. our 4 days rental car were supposed to be roughly almost $ 100, but i added the full coverage insurance and a $ 60 updrade total for the 4 days. So i thought my total bill would be max about $$ 250-​$ 300. Well when i got my bill, it was close to $ 600!!! They put all bogus charges and i have never felt like this ripped off! And reading all the reviews, i feel like it will be useless to call them regarding this matter (unless if i have an eternity to wait for a help on the phone)!! We will never rent from Budget anymore!

I rented a Budget car through Costco Travel for a trip to Portland in July 2014. The car had a the second day of the trip flat tire. I called Budget and they were very helpful telling us to use the foam sealant and drop the car at the Budget office. They quickly got us a replacement vehicle for the rest of our trip.
In May 2015 I received a letter from Budget that I owed them $ 144.83 for repairs. There was no mention of this when the cars were swapped or the second car was returned. The first I heard about this charge was this letter, nearly a year later! Needless to say, I am outraged and disputing the charge. I will update this review as things develop.
Buyer beware!

Nice cars, nice service… But quite a distance from the airport and difficult to find without an electronic navigation device.

Cheap, utilitarian rental car place. Rent here only if you are cheap (like me) and trying to save a buck. We saved $ 20 on a 2 day rental vs the other guys, which to me was worth the inconvenience (Budget is not right at the airport like the other large rental companies, but is a 5 to 10 minute shuttle ride away).
They definitely tried hard to upsell us — first on a better car, then on the insurance, navigation, prepaid gas… it was a bit obnoxious especially since we were just trying to get going but we said no to everything and the whole process took less than ten minutes.
Our car — a white Hyundai — served our purposes.
The return process was very simple and we were on a shuttle on the way to the airport within minutes.
BOTTOM LINE: Cheaper than the other guys, but you’ll have to shuttle to and from the airport and sit through the upsell.

This review about PDX Budget will majorly contradict my review about Long Beach Airport Budget, but oh well. Since Budget in Long Beach sucked ass, they offered us $ 75 off to our next use of any Budget rental. We were iffy about using Budget again, but since we were in Oregon, we decided just to use that discount.
Portland Budget seems always busy, but when we arrived in the Portland, Budget had a shuttle in which they can pick you up in the airport and it’ll take you to their actual brick-​and-​mortar. It’s not that far from the airport either. As we arrived, it seemed so busy – there were three employees working and one of the managers was passing out bottle of water for free.
Then, when we had to return the car, we had to return it early in the morning since our flight back was around 7am. As we arrived there, they checked the car and see if it’s full tank – scanned it and the $ 100 deposited for any reason, was automatically refunded to our bank account. We didn’t even have to go back inside the Budget place – after the car was clear, a man was helping us carry our luggage to the shuttle and off we went to the airport. Yeah, the process went by so quick! I was amazed by this Budget’s service!
Lesson learned: As much as most of the car rentals suck ass, not all enterprises are that bad. Plus, this Budget is opened from 1am-​4am everyday (:

Shuttle came quickly but the rental location seemed quite a ways ftom the airport.
While we were there, we were unlucky enough to experience their system malfunctioning and they had to shut it down and restart it… or something like that. Turned into the longest wait for a rental I’ve ever had, and the line of people grew and grew and curved out the door.
Redemption points: they pased out bottles of water to all of us who were waiting. And our rental was a cute orange subaru!

My star rating in based predominantly on the price of our rental. When I booked our car reservation (through Expedia) it was came out to just a bit over $ 100 for the entire time (not including insurance). Once we go there the husband decided we needed and upgrade because of the area we were going to which came out to an additional $ 20 p/​day for 5 days. Then we got the insurance at approx. $ 140 extra.
So in addition to the $ 100+ we had already paid we were charged an additional $ 308.02 (see photo). That’s is absolutely ridiculous! It’s absolutely disgusting when a company nickels and dimes their customers.
Seriously one of these days I’m going to do like in Jackass and completely demolish one of the cars turn it in and just walk way!
What really conflicts me is that the customer services was actually really good. If only their prizes reflected their services this would be a company I would stick with for the long run… sadly with those prices I will look for a cheaper alternative.
So with customer service in mind:
I give the shuttle driver (an older male with a sweet older uncle or grandpa feel about him) 5 stars he was super sweet, informative and helpful. Luckly he warned us not to freak out if a guys came up to us at the gas station. Apparently in Oregon you’re not allowed to pump our own gas… hummm totally didn’t know that. I totally would have gone into my southLA ghetto self preservation mode and been ready for a fight if a shady character walked up to me at the gas station. Thankfully for our shuttle driver any interstate incidents were averted. THANK YOU!
The lady who checked us in, even though she gouged the heck out of us, was really nice… as much as I’d hate to admit it.
I don’t know I’m not sure that I’ll go with Budget again. I love good customer service my I love my money even more.