Advantage Rental Car

Worst nightmare ever! Got a rental car with bald tires and belt showing… Can’t get safely to another rental location to replace can’t get an approval to get new tires been waiting 2 days for an answer. Put me and my 7 year old at risk and no one will give me an answer! Seriously! Can’t I get an answer!

I’ve rented from Advantage twice, once on Maui and now in Seattle. The rates were extremely low both times which was great as long as you decline EVERY extra option and upgrade they offer you. And they offer you a lot and make you think you need it. You don’t. The agents there must be on commission because they suddenly get not-​so-​friendly when you decline everything. But, I still got my $ 8/​day rate for a full size. There wasn’t a wait when I arrived at both locations which was nice, this time (Seattle) around 1pm on a Tuesday. Just remember to decline everything and watch them like a hawk when you’re signing anything. Also, I just called them about extending my reservation and they said the rate would go up from $ 8/​day to $ 32/​day because they’re sold out for the holidays coming up. But, making a new reservation for the same days online would be $ 10/​day. And would require me to go there, return the car I have now and pick up a new one. You just really have to be smart and careful with them. Don’t take their word for anything. They do offer great rates though. And they’re just as pushy for the add-​ons.
Also, when I returned my car there was an extra charge for $ 7+ on my receipt that was unexpected. I brought it up to the manager and he had some weird explanation about Advantage having a different pricing system than Expedia where I had made the reservation. He said Expedia uses a 24 hr system (you get charged per day) whereas Advantage uses an hourly system, rounding up. Something like that. It didn’t make sense to me. So even if you have a quote and return the car on time, you could still get charged more just because. I badgered that manager until he refunded the $ 7. It was all about the principle.
Update: this was unbelievable. If you have a rental car from them and go through a toll like the 520, you not only get the bill for the toll, they charge you $ 4.95 PER DAY of the rental with a monthly maximum of $ 24.75 PLUS the actual toll charges! So if you have the car for let’s say 5 days, and you go through the toll once, you’ll get a $ 24.75 charge on your credit card plus the toll itself. And you’ll have no idea unless you catch it on your credit card statement a month or two later. Advantage uses a company called PlatePass and they say they charge the $ 4.95 daily rate for the service of tracking down the rental car and matching it with the renter. Total BS and the hugest rip off. I called the number on my statement ready to make the hugest stink ever. The representative said I signed something on the contract agreeing to the charges. As I was about to unleash, she credited back the charge. Unbelievable. I feel so bad for everyone who doesn’t catch all the extra charges and fight them.

Worst rental car experience ever. No one attending the counter at 7am, sign said to go to level 3 with no instruction on how to find that. Then, turns out they need a $ 200 deposit to rent a car. I don’t travel will a bunch of credit cards, so I had to cancel my reservation. If I had been informed I would planned accordingly.
It’s not worth the couple of bucks they are cheaper. I ended up with Enterprise and they ended up actually a couple of bucks cheaper and I was treated like a king.

SCAM ALERT!
I went w/​this company because their price was way below the more recognized brands.
Got my car. Overall not too bad. Some minor scratches etc on the exterior like most rental cars. Left the lot. Noticed chips on the windshield and a cigarette burn on the ceiling. Had my wife take a picture of it (thank god I did). And thought nothing of it.
When I returned the car the Asian lady who inspected my car was much more meticulous than most other car companies. She saw the chip. I told her it was there before. I even pulled out the phone and showed her the picture w/​the time stamp showing it taken immediately after rental. She said I was supposed to call the # on the contract if I saw any damages instead of taking a picture of it. I said rented many cars in the past, and who reads the 3 pages of contract full of fine print while they are on vacation. She said she’ll let it go.
2 months later (today) I get a call from a company wanting to collect a claim from advantage rent a car for damages!
UNBELIEVABLE!
Pay a little more and go w/​the more reputable car rentals when you travel to Seattle. You are on vacation and deserve better than to be scammed like this.

Selected this place based on inexpensive rental for a few days advertised online. Actual cost was going to be $ 530 due to a huge deposit required. Needless to say, having rented cars for far less and with greater ease and more polite counter people –we went elsewhere. Their clientele apparently don’t return the rental cars so they pass on the cost to other customers in the form of higher fees than advertised and a huge deposit. Ridiculous. Went to Enterprise and will go to Enterprise again in future.

Do not use this rental company. My husband and I rented a car from them for a coastal road trip and it couldn’t go above 40 mph. When we called to address the issue, the customer service representative yelled at us. You’re better off using a more mainstream rental car company.

Watch out for excessive charges. Friendly staff, but they sneak in fees like «Customer Facility Charge» ($ 30.00) and «Concession Fee» ($ 49.69). The guy at the counter, during pickup, asked what time we would return it the next week. I said it would be around 5, with buffer time included. He asked when our flight was and recommended 2:30. I brought the car back 10 minutes late and was charged $ 19 late fee. I will NOT use them again.

I wish I can put down nothing for this rating. Thought I had found a great deal with Advantage — and had used them on another trip to another state so assumed they were a decent company… but no. Ordered a car for a week, got hassled every few minutes with promotions and deals and guarantees we’ll need for our rental in order to not be charged crazy fees if anything happened and ended up leavig the airport later than what we expected to start our trip. After a week of use, we returned the car and ended up with 5x what we had originally reserved online. Never again would I consider this company.

I’ll admit I am kind of conflicted about this review.
I booked with Advantage for the first time because they had a WAY better rate on a one way rental I needed. That’s good.
The full size car we got was new, clean, and worked perfectly. That’s good.
When I got to the counter they told me they were out of cars, sent me to two other companies without success and eventually revealed that they had the exact car I reserved. Wait… you had it the whole time?! What a pain in the ass. After a flight and standing in three lines with a five month old baby, I did not need that kind of stupid run around thank you very much.

Following on the heels of my review of Fox, we found a good deal for Advantage online. The boyfriend called them and talked to a very pleasant woman on the phone who helped him set up a reservation over the phone. She also made him one of their ‘Apex members’ which got him an additional 5% discount off the car rental.
We headed over to the airport to pick up the car and were greeted by another very pleasant and upbeat woman. I wish I’d thought to get her name because she was fantastic, but it had been a super-​long day and it slipped past me. Anyway, she was very friendly and helpful, she explained all our choices out to us and the costs involved in each. She offered upgrades but didn’t force them. In the end though she still gave him a complimentary upgrade anyway which was very nice of her!
Fees are also much more reasonable here to use a debit card, and they release the same day that the car is returned rather then being held for weeks.
The car that he picked up is a really nice little Chevy, super clean and well cared for. Overall these guys have been great to work with, very friendly and upfront with their customers!

I had the best experience with Advantage. The Customer Service Rep, Carrie, was awesome and she was probably one of the best reps I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with. The car was perfect, got an upgrade, clean, great deal. I will always rent from Advantage in the future.
Note to Advantage: Promote this rep… she’s as good as it gets for service.

Rented a small car (economy car) at weekly rate in September 2012.
On the positive side:
The car was in good condition, and the pick-​up and drop-​off went quickly enough. We were lucky enough to get a sedan with a trunk.
It’s also easy to refuel before drop-​off since there are several gas stations in the immediate vicinity of the facility, on International Blvd.
Shuttle service between the airport and the rental facility is good; but it’s shared amongst all rental companies, so this isn’t a specific advantage for Advantage.
You can take the car to Canada with no issues, just make sure to have your own insurance. We had our insurance company issue us a Canadian ID card.
Things to watch out for:
The desk closes at 11pm. Our flight was delayed and we barely made it, after getting on the shuttle at ~10:40pm.
The sales rep tried to convince us to get the prepaid fuel option, and told us there was a «new policy» where the prepaid fuel charge would be refunded if we filled up before returning the car. This is dubious at best, to put it politely; don’t fall for it. There are countless stories online of people being scammed like this. Turn it down and fuel up on your own. The rep even printed up a receipt with the option and tried to get me to sign it, but I just politely insisted on no prepaid option. The rep reprinted the new contract in 2 seconds after that. Be strong, you can do it too.
Extra bad:
My credit card was flagged for fraudulent activity and deactivated, because the parent company (Hertz) apparently tried to charge my card for the full hold amount (which is ~2X the estimated total), and the charges originated from Oklahoma. Luckily I was at the end of my trip; but losing a credit card to this is still upsetting.

This is one of the worst company to rent a car with if you have children and require car seats. I made reservation 3 weeks before my travel date. I called them the day in the morning before my arrival. I want to make sure they have my car and infant car seats setup for my twins. My arrival is after 10:00 PM and I wanted to minimize the delays since I have babies. When I called in the morning, I was greeted with some agent that didn’t want to talk to me. She say she was with a customer, well so am I? I finally told her I wanted to make sure the car seats are ready for me when I get there at night. She said sure and it will be. When I got there at night, I waited on the front counter for about 30 minutes since they only have one agent servicing the whole line. I finally got another agent that came out from the back to get my reservation information. I also asked to have my infant car seats ready and ready to go. He said, they will have somebody to help put the car seats in for me. When I got to the lower level to pickup my car, the lot agent said to ask me what seat. I said I don’t know what you have, I asked for the forward facing seats in my reservation. I also heard the counter agent tell somebody in the lot with forward facing like I asked. The lot agent keep asking me how old are my kids. I told him it is based on the weight and not on age. He wasn’t sure which one I need. We spent another 30 minutes looking for the right car seats. I finally took the backward facing ones, since they seems to be more secured to use ourt of all the old looking car seats in the backroom. The same car lot agent said, they don’t install the car seats. I said, the CSR on the top floor said you will. He keep saying no and walked away from me. I don’t have time to argue with him so I proceed to do the installation my self. That is another 30 minutes, because they didn’t provide installation information. The seats are out of date models, the website is a big fat lie about how secured they were. The seats were hard to put together in the dark (Just like I fear, and that’s why I called.), The car seats features were hard to use on securing my kids. While I was still at the CS top level counter, I asked for a GPS. He said it might be out, but he was able to locate one. This is one of the cheap model you get from Kragen Auto. That was a mistake, I should have tested it. When we started using it in the car, it would not powered on. It was broken. So, we paid extra $ 40 for these old infant car seats plus $ 20 (got them to credit us back), for the broken GPS. Because of all thiese issues, it costed us an extra 20 minutes to return our car. Also costs us extra 30 – 60 minutes going from place to place on our try. We had to use our cell phone on a roaming data to have GPS function. I don’t even want to give them any stars. They might be cheap to rent, you will pay for it somewhere else with bad customer service and bad features. DON“T RENT FROM THEM!!!