Advantage Rent a Car

Worst Rental car company around never again! The shuttle bus is nonexistent-​waited half hour in freezing cold finally took budget van and walked across parking lot to get to advantage. On way back same thing-​waited 30 minutes barely made flight. Also car had 35k miles and was dirty inside !!

One of the last rental car shuttles to arrive.
2x man front desk was friendly. Cars are beat up, every single hub on car was severely warped. When exiting lot, there was no one actively manning exit gate. A couple of cars backed up until they drove up to gate to process us out.
Drop off opens at 0530. No one manning front desk prior to that, but the shuttle to airport was standing by when I arrived at 0515. It was raining on return trip and noticed their shuttle only had one blade. At least it was the driver side.
All in all, was a decent experience without major complaints. I got a car, and got to the airport on time. Will see how their billing is as there wasn’t anyone to process me out.

Pros: I read the reviews and awaited a terrible experience. Mind it was Monday morning around 9am. The shuttle came within 10 minutes, but there was no delay in the other shuttles of other car rentals companies. Arrived, and got the car and a choice of a Prius or VW. Took the VW, and it was clean and worked fine. Used it around DC with no problems, and the car is comparable to other car rental companies I have used.
Cons: I did see they are open from 530am-​1230am, so flights after those hours be forewarned. I didn’t have an early morning flight, so did not have to go through what could happen.
I did see when I was leaving, on Thursday a HUGE influx of people waiting for car shuttles, so I may have had my experience at a opportune time.
I would use them again as it saved me at least 50% compared to my «usual» car rental company.

By far the worst customer service I saw set up I’ve seen. When I walked in there was one person waiting in line. I stood in line for an hour. If both reps were dealing with serious matter I would understand. Frustrated still but still would be more understanding.
The gentlemen rep was constantly joking around with the customer and I noticed no progress to complete the transaction to help the next guest in line.
The other rep was having difficulties and no one came to assist her. I was getting extremely frustrated when the supervisor was just tending to the cars and not anything else.
There was 2 reps and 4 computers. They could have opened one more because 20 minutes into waiting I had 10 more people behind me.
After it was my turn, the process was still the same. The gentlemen rep was still joking with the last guest causing my rep to fall behind on her work.
I will never go to this rental location again when I visit the DC area or traveling Dulles International.

Great price! Their fleet of mostly Hyundais is well kept, and their rental prices are some of the best around. But… don’t be in a hurry to do anything; they aren’t. VERY slow service.

The agency requires a return airfare ticket if your license address is within 60 miles of the rental location. I live 79.5 miles away from this location, but yet they insisted I have a return ticket. For me this was a problem. A week prior I had flown out of WAS to go wine tasting in Napa. Instead of getting a flight back into WAS, I had to land in IAD due to timing. It isn’t a problem as I could drive 30 min to get back to my car parked at WAS, but this rental place made it challenging. As I could not rent a car given that I was a «local without a return flight.» They also would not refund my purchase. Thank goodness for AMEX. I was able to get my refund through my CC and book with someone else. It is their loss, I am a frequent flyer and one who always boost about my experience good or bad. Sorry Advantage this is customer you lost for life.

+ plus for the price – saved about $ 15 for the 2 days rental over competitors
+ plus for the fairly courteous staff – shuttle drivers, person at the drive out gate, person checking me back in at the lot
— minus for the infrequency of shuttle pick-​up from the terminal (Sunday 8:30pm). It seems like the other companies looped around 2−3x before this shuttle came after a 15 – 20 mins wait
— double minus for the check-​out counter persons. He tried to scare me into an upgrade: «You have a economy car. It is very small with only 2 doors. I don’t recommend it for this kind of weather. It is not safe.»
2 weeks ago when I rented this car – it was indeed record breaking cold and snowy. But I really don’t appreciate all the fear he tried to put into the situation. I declined because I wasn’t sure I could trust the dude about anything. I was given a Jeep Patriot which I imagine was a free upgrade of sorts.
Not sure if I would return or recommend this place. And I would definitely watch out for their office time. They don’t currently have an arrangement where you can pick up when their office is closed. During the winter when there’s a higher chance of flight delay and missing the office, perhaps try another company that’s opened ²⁴⁄₇.

$ 120 extra charges that didn’t show up in Expedia for 2 days rental. If it showed up the price would be similar to other car rentals. The mini-​van that we received was also dirty. Not happy about Advantage car rental.

DO NOT GO TO THIS PLACE… i have almost the same experience as Steve J. i landed in Washington-​Dullas airport to visit my parents from a 11 hr flight from Europe. the rep at this location told me that i need to show them a proof of car insurance. i never heard this all my life. i have rented card from all other rental car companies at IAD never had problem. even every time the rep at other car rental trying to sell me the insurance but after i deny it they all had not problem. this is an EXCEPTION. i told them that my my american express gold card have basic CDW coverage (without liability), they would not take it. they say my AMEX is 2ndary and i need a primary insurance. i ask them how much their insurance policy costs they told me over $ 35/​day. i spend another 30 min to book via
and got a car at Budget for US$ 560 for10 days. and i told them that i have money but i am not taking their shit. the last minutes rip off. this is not america. screw them i advise every one avoid this car rental location and perhaps Advantage.
i give n negative * to this one :)

I don’t know about other people but I didn’t have any problems with them. Pretty straight forward and I got out, found the car they assigned me and out of the lot all within 15 minutes. No fuss. Just make sure you ask all the necessary questions you need to know before you take the keys.
My advice, research a bit on what hours they are open and close based on your flight schedule and if it doesn’t work out for you, move on over to other places.
They were friendly and very helpful.
The only thing that I will complain about, out of all the other rental companies, they only have one shuttle going around, compared to others who have 3 – 4 shuttles going around, you will have to wait a bit for it to come by and pick you up or drop you off.

There is no advantage to this rental car company. After waiting in line for an hour and watching every customer return to the counter with the wrong car (including us), we waited another 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot while the dithering check out person reviewed the documents with a magnifying glass. Run away!

Not recommended!!! If your flight is before 6 – 6.30am, be prepared to leave the car outside by the gate, they only open at 5.30. They will tell you to leave the car at their neighbors parking lot which is AlamoNational, but Alamo wouldn’t allow you to do that.
The management will lie to you just to make you rent the car!!!

Terrible Service! I normally dont post reviews but I have to warn others to be careful with this particular Advantage, I dont know if the people that work here are lazy or trying to con you out of more money.
We got our car which was an impala, I checked the car before leaving the lot to head to the exit booth. The car had LOTS of scratches all the way around, not to mention these huge side scratches. The guy at the front gate looked like he was barely awake. I told him that there are scratches all around the car and for him to write it. He looked at me and said «yeah yea» and handed back the paper to sign. He didnt write anything on the side of the car, he only wrote scratches for front and back bumper. I said to him again, «you didnt write anything on the paper about scratches on the side of the car». He said in a stern voice «yes yes its there, its OK». I didn’t trust him so I put in «SIDE SCRATCHES» next to my signature to protect myself. (im glad I did!)
At the end of the trip I went to return the car, the guy checking the car in said «Ohh what happened here» pointing to the side of the car. I told him that I mentioned that to the guy at the gate but he refused to put it on the slip, however I told him since he didnt write the side scratches on the car I put it next to my signature «side scratches» After seeing that and telling my story he didnt charge me for the pre-​existing side scratches. I was appreciative for that…
Thats not the end of it, when I got back home about a week later I got charged $ 63+ for «toll roads» even though I didnt use any toll roads, I was in suburbs of VA most of the time, even so I couldnt accumulate that much in toll road fees even if I tried. I am currently trying to dispute these toll road fees as I didnt use any toll roads, another BS scam, trying to charge me for more. If they dont refund the toll road charges im just going to notify my credit card company in the next day or so of unauthorized charges on my card.
Overall a very bad experience with this Advantage!

BEWARE! If you live locally and want to rent a car here, they require you to bring a copy of your Insurance POLICY (not the card) to be able to rent from them. I’ve never heard of such a policy. I rented a car for my wife to use to visit a family member. She went to pick up the car and they told her about this policy when she got there. She called me to let me know, and being frustrated, I told the representative, who identified himself as «Coco,» in a stern tone that not one of the other rental agencies at Dulles has such a requirement. Without saying a word, he handed the phone back to my wife and told her he didn’t have to listen to that. He didn’t have to answer ANY questions about a policy that no other rental company has!!! He then went on to suggest to my wife that because I was irritated and spoke in an aggressive tone (no cursing or profanity) that I might be a wife beater. There’s a bit more to the story that I will not go into, but in short, we ended up renting a car from another agency that cost more money. To their credit, the manager, Adnan, was sympathetic and apparently let Coco know that he was out of line… I would suggest that Adnan find a job somewhere else where his skills can be better utilized, and I suggest that Coco find another job NOT working with the public.