Advantage Rent A Car

This company doesn’t deserve a one star they are completely dishonest. I made a reservation for four days at $ 45.86 per day and when I got my confirmation email my card was charged 3 days at $ 45.86 and 1 day at $ 137.57 which they say was for 5 hours not 24 hours on the 4^th day. I wouldn’t recommend this company and when I tried to talk to the customer service they wouldn’t listen and hung up on me. Do yourself a great favor and stick with the top tier rental companies and unfortunately it is so true that you get what you pay for and Advantage Rent A Car is a terrible representation and gives this industry a BAD name.

These guys would be good if they came to work. Maybe. Hell, I don’t know because I’m waiting for any type of employee as I’m typing this. Work starts at 6am! It is officially 6:51am at the San Jose airport location. I really hope a corporate manager reads this!

It was our first time renting with Advantage and we were disappointed with the hidden fees and the fact that they had charged the full amount of our rental plus deposit of $ 200 on our credit card days before we were due to return the vehicle we had rented. We were traveling with our 3 year old daughter so we had a car seat and extra luggage we had to unload which took 10 minutes. Advantage was trying to charge us for a whole hour for this 10 minutes! Unacceptable! Furthermore, we were sold on an upgrade but the rep at the counter didn’t provide any pictures of the different levels of the vehicles. We ended up taking what we thought was the larger vehicle but after we saw what we initially reserved, we discovered it was not much bigger than the vehicle we were sold on. Needless to say, we were not happy customers.

We rented a car for two weeks (with insurance) right around the Thanksgiving Holiday. With insurance it came out to around 400 $, but it also had an additional 200 $ deposit for the insurance that we are waiting to get back.
Overall, it was a pretty decent deal for the price. Our first car though had MAJOR alignment issues (the entire car would start to shake violently and make noises when going through turns). The change out process for the car though was pretty painless, except the counter wait time was quite ridiculous. I’m glad though they didn’t give us grief over turning the defective vehicle back in.
On the downside, we experienced very long waits. I don’t blame the employees for this though, they are obviously understaffed during the holiday season (and during peak times as some other reviewers have mentioned). The only «quick» thing about their service was the drop off. Customer service on the phone was bipolar, one time I called about delaying our pickup time by an hour and the service person acted like it wouldn’t be possible and I was causing a huge inconvenience. The next time I called they were super-​friendly and helpful.
Their cars are alright, so are their prices but they need to fix the customer service side of things.

I love advantage rent a car!
After bad and frustrating experiences with other car rental companies I am loyal to advantage.
Easy pick up and easy drop off. No hidden or BS fees. I have never had an issue with any of their vehicles.
Staff has always been great too.

I prepaid and got a great rate. $ 61 for a full week with a standard car. This was only $ 105 after all taxes and airport fees. They did charge me $ 200 for a deposit which they promptly refunded when I returned the car with a full tank.
There was only one person at the counter but I had no waiting. Paperwork went smoothly and we were done in 10 to 15 minutes; No longer than any other rental I have done. Car was easy to find, clean, had 3k miles on it and it was easy to exit the garage.
The return was very easy too. They offered an email receipt or a hard copy. I asked for an email and it was there within minutes. I would rent from them in a flash. Nice car and great service.

Don’t use Advantage Rent-​A-​Car if you’re in a rush to go somewhere. If you think it’s worth the wait… it’s not.
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Reasons why I will not use Advantage Rent-​A-​Car again (if I can help it…)
#1. No online kiosk
#2. Long wait at the counter
#3. Slowwwww service
#4. Pushy attendant trying to upsell cars, GPS, insurance, and gizmos and gadgets galore…(say no.)
#5. Limited car availabilities
#6. No one to greet you at level 3 (keys are in the car and you’re supposed to do everything by yourself)
#7. Car was DIRTY inside (stains and crumbs everywhere)
#8. Wipers were needing to be replaced (streaky when we used it — dangerous during crazy rainstorm on I-​5)
#9. It takes FOREVER to remove the hold they placed on the car rental.
#10. Hidden charges if you use their gas price fill-​up deal (AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE).
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I’ve experienced better and wish I went to a different car rental company on my last roadtrip to SoCal. I’ll only go to Advantage again if the deal is crazy good (half the price of other car rental places) because if not, it’s not worth the hassle.

Monkey prepaid for the half tank since renting for 3 days and when returning, they tried to charge another $ 22! For what?! Showed my contracted total and paid as such.
Chevy Malibu was a piece of junk. No wonder they push you to pay for all those extra insurances! This car felt like it was gonna fall apart on the freeway. Ugh!

Got amazing service! I was 2 and a half hours late for my reservation and even though they were supposed to cancel that reservation, they waived everything off! They even let me pick out the car I wanted through the list of available cars. Ill definitely come back here!

I had a reservation made on-​line way back for the busy July 4^th weekend. Pick up was at 9pm and surprisingly there were only 2 people ahead of me talking to the representatives and I was the only one in the cue. That was really surprising as other rental companies had very long cues and I understood why after this rental experience.
I was standing in the cue for ~20mins waiting … and waiting… and waiting.
Finally went to the counter only to be bombarded with upgrade options, gas options… bla bla. I was straight forward and said I am aware of the options and I don’t need any of them. They wouldn’t let go. Damn another 15mins.
They had at least 2 other mid sized SUV’s up in the parking when I went to pick up my Jeep liberty which was horrible driving. They plainly lie and would not help you pick a better vehicle simply bcuz you either did not upgrade or choose other options.

After reading all the reviews, I took extra minute to decide going for advantage car rental but i though of trying it this time.
I booked from advantage website for 4 days as $ 68(inc taxes) and i called advantage in advance to make sure there are no hidden charges and they confirmed no hidden charges.
I went to the counter to pickup the car right on time and the lady at the counter try to convince me to buy insurance and fuel but i disagreed for both of them.
They have the full size car available right away but i asked for Altima and the lady mentioned its being cleaned and will take 30 mins. I waited for 30 mins and got altima. There is no change in total bill at the counter.
The only doubt i have is that when i pickup the car, Fuel tank does not seem to full (Not on top of «F» mark) but when i filled 2 times during my travel it went above «F».
So i may have got the car which has 2 gallons less fuel.

Truth in Advertising!!!
Or lack thereof…
I’m not even talking about the quality of service. I had reserved my car online with the advertised prices or $ 11 a day and when checking out the price was $ 69. Funny how every time I ignore the warning «If it is too good to be true, it is probably not»
Getting to the airport and all of a sudden fees, taxes and a $ 200 deposit are applied and the price jumps from 61 $ to more than $ 200. — REALLY?
Cheap cheap advertising, I fell for it and will not waste my time on this one ever again. Be honest folks otherwise you don’t worth my time or my company’s time!

Worst customer service ever! It takes a lot for me to write a bad review but I will NEVER EVER rent a car from this place again. We arrived at 3:25PM and we asked we could please pick up our car rental a little bit early, being that our reservations were for 4:00PM. Apparently they can not even open the reservation until it is exactly the time of the reservation! On top of this, she didn’t even sound like she was apologetic for the wait, she didn’t even try. She just said there’s nothing I can do. We proceeded to sit down and wait. My boyfriend returned to the counter and asked again at 3:45PM if we could just make ANOTHER reservation and she just shook her head and said NOPE.
To add to all of this, while we were sitting down, we could blatantly overhear the reps say «Those Vietnamese people, they are the CHEAPEST! Nothing compares to those Viets.» Being Vietnamese, I was incredibly offended!!!
The icing on the cake, was when we returned at 4, they said oh you booked your reservation for the wrong weekend… we have no cars for you. THEY COULDN’T FIGURE THAT OUT 35 MINUTES AGO WHEN WE FIRST ASKED THEM???
A waste of time and efforts. I highly recommend everyone AVOID THIS PLACE!!! Go to Fox Car Rentals right next to them where they were happy to help and accommodate us on the spot, without any racist comments.

More Like DISADVANTAGE Rent a Car!
This was the worst rental car experience in my life! Rates look great online but you have to prepay in order to get them. So, I went ahead and prepaid for my 1 week rental a month before my trip. Got to San Jose Airport and to the rental counter. There was a lady in front of me who was wrapping up her rental and was finishing payment. When it was my turn, the guy at the counter told me he just rented the last car. I said, no problem, good thing I had a prepaid reservation. He said, no, that did not matter, he just rented his last car! So, long story short, even though you prepay, «DISADVANTAGE» does not hold a car for you! He said I could wait around for a return, but had no idea how long that would be! My wife and I had plans to meet family for lunch so we could not wait around. We ended up having to pay $ 150 more with a different rental car company. This is NO WAY to run a business and DISADVANTAGE will never get my business. Be very careful renting with this company, know what you are getting into! What really was upsetting was the lady before me did not even have a reservation!!! No way to treat prepaying customers that plan ahead. It will be interesting to see how long it will take them to process my credit card refund…

I usually don’t have to rent the car as I am a resident but my car was given for the repair & maintenance & I had to rent the car, They are not like other car rental companies, They would not explain you their different options properly & you will end up paying more.
I will better not go this place & get from some hhere else.

Was not impressed!
Had to rent a car for the day while traveling for business, and this location had the cheapest rate. However, the service desk staff seem to really not want to be there. Also, almost ALL other rental car companies put a «hold» on your credit card and release the hold when you return the car. This company charges you an extra $ 200 at pick-​up, then refund you $ 200 when you return. That’s 2 separate transactions I have to file on my expense reports, which is a huge pain!
Car selection was also limited. Will never rent from this place again!

This place had the best deal for a one week ‘full size’ car rental. I was a little skeptial after having such a horrible time with FOX rentals.
Checking in and getting the car was great, very easy, and the staff was helpful. They asked lot’s of questions about my trip to find the best car for me. They also had a ‘discounted gas’ promotion going on which I almost didn’t believe.
Turing in the car was the best though, it was very easy, and the attendant named HOK gave me a huge discount on the gas. He said ‘happy new year’ and my total came out to less that I thought it would be, bascially getting $ 25 in free gas. I was like, WOW thank you! I still don’t understand their promotion where you can turn the car in with an empty tank, and they fill up the gas for you at a discounted price ($ 3 a gallon). How do they make money on that? Plus, he mentioned if I sign up online I can get $ 50 off my next booking with Advantage. Very cool.

Super helpful and friendly!
We had reservations with another company, but my hubby wanted a Mustang convertible and they had one and beat the price we had reserved.
Rental was easy, return was easy and all the employees were cheerful!

I must’ve been really lucky as I received superb service! I went around 9PM so there was no wait.
The lady at the front counter greeted me and was very kind. She genuinely made me felt at home, and we had a good chat about where I was going.
She thanked me many times for choosing Advantage, ordering online, etc. And she explained to me which cars I could choose without hesitation.
She asked me if I needed any extra options but I declined and she did not push them like a salesman at a car dealership would. In the end she gave me a car with navigation with no additional charge.
I’ve never seen customer service at a car rental like this before. Very cheery!
The best prices, and at least for me, great customer service.
I’ll update this if something goes sour after my return.

I have rented twice from Advantage and both the service and the price is amazing. Everyone at the front desk is extremely courteous and reasonable. When we returned the car two hours late because of traffic, not only did the girl at the front desk stay late to wait for us, but they were completely understanding and removed any extra charges. I highly, highly recommend this place, and I will rent from them again.