Lucky Rentals - www.luckyrentals.co.nz

from all sides, this company is the worst !

Fly away !

First : the customer relationships :

Someone called us the day of our drop off in order to be sure that we will give back the van before 4 pm and didn't mentionned at all the free lift to the airport. Once we arrived at 3.15 pm the free lift was over and we had to pay a 25dols lift with a taxi with all our lugages...

The van was a WRECK ! very old, very dirty and the gas wasn't full... we just realized that like 10 kms away from our departure point.

The wheel was going everytime on the left during our 3000 km trip (steering problem)

The brakes squealed at all time (very freaky !) even with the low motor

The curtains didn't all tie (nice to slip with daylight...)

We will never again want to deal with this company ! And we weren't alone indeed the others people who were giving back their van too had many problems...

Where do I start? Worst customer experience in ANY field, not just rentals, I have had.

- Meant to pick up our campervan at 8am, wasn’t ready until 4pm (previous customer was still using until 12pm, then central locking needed fixing- which then didn’t work for the whole trip).

- Terrible customer service, staff ignoring us when we came back to pick up the van, not shown around and if my partner hadn’t checked the cooker (wasn’t working and needed replacing) we would’ve left with no way to cook.

- Van was dirty and extremely old (570k’s!). Sticker on the inside of the windscreen tells you you’re liable if you overheat the engine and to stop every two hours. This happened to us driving much less and taking care of the vehicle.

- We advised Lucky from the very start we would be returning the van outside of office hours due to an early flight. When we arrived the gates were locked and the key drop was on the inside of a barbed wire fence. Ended up leaving the vehicle outside and were later told you are not allowed to drop vans off outside of hours!!

- $2500 bond is held for THIRTY days on your card. Whilst this is in the T&C’s it is a ridiculously long time. When you ask about this you are immediately referred to your bank.

- To top it all off we had to pay an extra $160 when we returned the van because it was diesel (never mentioned to us at any stage prior). What a great way to finish the trip!

Would go nowhere near this company again and would not advise anyone to rent a vehicle from them.

This is the most unprofessional car rental company I have ever worked with. It all started when I wanted to pick up the car. The car was supposed to be ready at 11am and I got the keys at 2pm. Later, I had an issue with a flat battery on the road and called the road assistance. They told me that I was only responsible for the payment if there was no technical issue. The mechanic that came to see my car said that it was an old battery and things like that could happen but there was no evidence that it was my fault. To my surprise, the road assistance charged me NZD 140 (for kickstarting the battery btw). I talked to the road assistance and lucky rental but there was no agreement possible. Without further evidence they claimed that there was nothing wrong with the car, despite the fact that the mechanic said something else. I continuously asked to contact the mechanic himself but they refused. Instead, they wanted me to go to another garage and get the battery tested. Furthermore, I had to deal with false accusations. My words were twisted and turned. Eventually, they just hung up and told me to "get my ass to the car".

Lucky rental car showed a tremendously inaccurate approach.

Your safety is more important than a cheap rental! We rented an 8-seater car from Lucky Rentals Christchurch in Dec 2019 and informed them 6+ months in advance of our travel/arrival time. The car was not ready when we arrived, we got the keys almost 2 hours after the appointed time. The staff were most unapologetic, ducking behind the one-way glass in the office and avoiding me each time they saw me approach the counter to enquire about the status. When we got the car, it was filthy inside and out. The sliding doors wouldn’t open, the mechanic was called in and it took another 10 minutes to get them to work. Once on the road, we noticed the left-hand sliding door wouldn’t shut completely so there was a constant draft coming in. Each time, we had to yank the doors a few times before they would open. They made a grating sound when opening/closing. The seats had little cushioning, the driver’s seat was ripped and so uncomfortable. This is a big deal when you’re driving 6 +hrs to anywhere. The car had done over 250,000km and was completely un-roadworthy, hazardous even!

Halfway through our trip, the power steering on the wheel died making it impossible to steer or drive the car on New Zealand’s winding roads. We would have had an accident or caused one had we continued. We called Lucky and their Customer Service was SHOCKING. I wish I could relate the bizarre conversation in its entirety but suffice it to say, they were glib, showed no understanding of the predicament we found ourselves in thanks to this beat up car, they made many excuses (public holiday etc etc) but no effort to source another replacement car, they just didn’t seem to care that they left seven people stranded. After much to and fro-ing, the best they would do is offer a refund for the unused portion after I threatened to stop the credit card payment. We wasted a full day having to deal with them and trying to find 2 cars to rent in Queenstown (in peak season)! We eventually hired two cars from Budget Rentals (what a difference!).

Our ‘Lucky’ (sic) experience was with an 8-seater Toyota Estima (DSQ 396) was awful. I can’t speak for their other cars, but I can speak to the lack of care and good service at this place. If you after an UN-Lucky experience, give them a try, they won’t disappoint!

We rented a camper out of Christchurch for a 2 week road trip around the South Island of NZ and had the best holiday of our lives.

When we arrived at the depot and checked in we were told they didn’t have many of the vehicle we had booked left, as such they were offering us a free upgrade to their top spec camper - a Lucky Rambler. We were stoked by this as it meant we were self contained (had shower and toilet) and we could freedom camp.

Unfortunately the vehicle wasn’t ready yet and ETA was 45mins. We hadn’t had breakfast so asked where we could grab some food, appreciating we had to wait they offered us a car so we could drive to a cafe and get some breakfast - great service.

The girl that checked us in - want to give a shout out to her as she was super friendly and helpful.

We didn’t have any problems with the van for the whole of our 2 week trip. Bed was comfortable and shower/toilet worked. We didn’t shower inside as it is quite small. Instead we fed the shower to the back door of the van and showered outside! I was amazed at how hot the water got, be careful not to burn yourself.

Yes the Lucky vans are a little older than some other companies but are well maintained and so you are getting a steal on the price. This is the second time we have rented from Lucky (once from Sydney) and I would recommend them to friends and family.

Came over to NZ in 2017 on a tight budget for a few weeks holiday. Wanting to hire a larger vehicle we went for a people carrier. Lucky was by far the best price, however, being ex-rental and reading some bad reviews we braced ourselves. The Lucky Coach was by far much better than we expected. High mileage of course but clean and tidy and never missed a beat the whole time we were in New Zealand.

The staff although young were polite and professional and kept waiting to a minimum. For the price I, for one, would not hesitate to use Lucky again.

My Uncle rented a car through Lucky and it was not a fun experience and I was a little embarrassed having my visitor from overseas coming into Christchurch and experiencing their awful customer service. We waited for over two hours, were completely ignored at the service desk, watched a staff member throw a tantrum, and watched another two couples who said they had been told to come back twice that day as their campers weren't ready. We even offered to help them as we just wanted to pick up a little car, that was refused. The car was terrible (and I have hired older cars with no issues in the past). As my Uncle followed me home I noticed his headlight was out which meant we had to return the next day to get it fixed! I have emailed the full situation to Lucky and didn't even receive a response form them - not even an acknowledgement of their poor service.

Worst rental van ever!

Vehicle was in very bad condition: only 3 gears, interior smelled bad and was extremely filthy (seats and curtains completely stained and graisy, bed sheets full of holes, kitchen and fridge so filthy we did not even dare to use it), back door did not open, glove box fell out when opened, ... Just a disgrace to rent such a vehicle for this price. Rental price for 2 weeks is almost half of selling price of vehicle in itself.

In short, lucky rentals NEVER AGAIN !!!

I don't normally write reviews but having been scared to death by other reviews I thought I should. We are currently backpacking for 1 year and decided to book lucky as it was by far the cheapest quote we found. We were in new Zealand for 7 weeks so a rental was our best option. A few weeks after booking the lucky rookie we had a look at some reviews and were absolutely horrified we were pretty close to cancelling our booking. I'm so glad we didn't. Yes it was old and a bit rough around the edges but it was great. No mechanical issues, great pick up and drop off service from and to the airport. Great, quick service in the office. Really can't complain.

Pictures by a third party in the net are lies they show a nice car, if they show the rubbish and smelly cars they use you would not rent it no matter how cheap it is.

Uruguayan girl who charge me monies in lucky rentals state I'm not welcome in New Zealand she wanted to charge me a kids seat that they not supply.

If they pick you up after hours it is an extra charge.

They gave me an invoice without any information it was until I enter an office to speak to a manager that he issued me a receipt.

Complete disgrace stay away from this company!