Thrifty Car Rental

Avoid this company like the plague.

If I was able to give a zero review I would.

Thrifty should be ashamed of themselves.

As long as I have a hole in my bottom I will never hire a car from yourselves again and I will make sure everyone knows.

This review is in regards to Thrifty Car Hire Derby. I booked a rental on the 11th of October 2022 for today the 24th of October 2022. I prepared to collect the vehicle this morning only to be called by the manager of Thrifty Derby telling me that there were absolutely no cars at the depot and my rental that I booked in advance was not available. As you would expect I was absolutely shocked as I booked this vehicle for a family wedding only to be let down right at the last moment. As I was desperate I stated that I was willing to travel to any depot within the Midlands only to be informed by the extremely unhelpful manager (He would not even give me his full name) that no cars were available in any of their depots as they were extremely short on cars. At this point I believed that I haven't been told the truth, so I made my way to the depot and lo and behold there were cars at the depot. I asked for one of the vehicles at the back only to be told they were for other customers and he was not obliged to help me. I stated that I booked in advance to avoid this sort of situation and he stated he could maybe provide one between 12.30 and 1pm but could not guarantee. I booked this specifically for a wedding in Birmingham so it was ridiculous to miss the function that i booked the car for to wait for a car that may or may not arrive. He threatened me that he did not have to help me and can cancel my booking without having to offer any form of help. I was absolutely appalled and cancelled my booking.

As a service provider if you know the demand in advance you make the necessary arrangements to meet those demands which was not done. I personally beleive that because I booked in advance at a low rate the Derby depot were offering them to customers willing to pay the higher rate. I beleive that because I was from an ethnic minority I was not offered the same level of service as the majority customers.

I hope this review reaches as many potential customers as possible to avoid the stress and heartache that I had to go through especially on such an important event.

This company is NOT part of the real American Thrifty COmpany, but a Hungarian knock-off who uses their name without permission and trademark.

The car was rented through Cartrawler, which is a rental car platform used by airline companies, in this case, Austrian Airlines. The process was seamless, the agreement clear. First of all, we were greeted by a shuttle at the airport, which was nice and taken to their location near the airport. Make sure you mark in your GPS their location as it is not found on the GPS, or type the address of the agreement, or the AGIP gas station nearby, otherwise you won't find them to drop off your car. Make sure someone will be there when you drop off the car if your flight is early, before opening hours. They're not a non-stop location, even though they advertise as an airport location.

When I got to Hungary, they made me sign their own contract. They are not even Thrifty, they're an agent for Thrifty, a private Hungarian company. Their agreement is the most horrendous, not used by any car rental company anywhere in the world. Some key points: you have to bring the car back CLEAN!!! Are you kidding me? I have to spend time and money during my vacation or your business trip to clear THEIR car? What are they charging me money for? Second, they tell you that your credit card could be charged after the fact for parking tickets, speeding tickets, speeding cam tickets. Nowhere in the world, can you be charged after the fact for anything other than parking tickets. That I understand. All companies, otherwise, just provide the government with a mailing address for the rentee so that they can mail them the ticket. Not so in Hungary. Also, I've gotten, so far, two charges on my credit card, after the fact, even though I've signed off on the car and everything was fine. Who gives them the right? One thing I know, until Hungary becomes in tune with the rest of the world and civilized, I won't be renting any more cars there.

On February 14, 2020, I rented a car from Thrifty Rent a car. I returned the car early and salesman at return counter refused to issue the final bill. After I reviwed my crdit card statement I noticed Thrifty has charged my credit card an additional $120.0 car rental insurance which I did not requested nor was listed on my contract. I emailed Thrifty in regard to this issue, did not get any response! I disputed additional charge with my credit card company and charges was reversed. I never had a good experiences with any of rental companies, but I wish I could give Thrifty zero star in term of customer service and outrages charges.

I've been a customer of Thrifty for a few years now after several disastrous dalliances with the Enterprise Car Rental Group. AVOID! After being bumped off two BA flights from Heathrow to Glasgow tomorrow and being rescheduled to a 'possible' flight from London City Airport, I decided to cancel my trip and my bookings with BA, my hotel in Glasgow and Thrifty. Whilst my cancellation was considerably under the minimum 48-hour advance notice to trigger a refund, they came back within a couple of hours, reassuring me that I would be fully refunded due to the circumstances. 10/10 for customer service! Other car rental companies could learn from this .... but probably won't! I will rebook later this year with both BA and Thrifty when this menace has passed.

Don't except to get your deposit back if you hire a car from this Company. All will seem well until you return the car and that is when they will come up with a list of reasons why they have deducted your deposit.

Don't waste your time complaining to the company because they do not have complaint department and only customer service email. You will not get any reply from them.

See below email to their head office.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to make a formal complaint with regards to my treatment as a customer from the Manager and staff at your Northampton branch.

My booking reference is

I had made the booking as I needed a transit van to go to Birmingham to collect a vintage fireplace that I had brought the week before.

I arrived at 0930 as I had pre book for that time. I entered the customer entrance which has a electronic bell to notify staff when customers enter. I then stood for approximately 5 minutes whilst I could hear in the connecting staff office talking about their private lives.

Eventually a man I know now to be the manager entered the front desk and asked how could he help me. I replied that I had rented a van to which his reply was to correct my English stating "booked a van," not exactly the best way to treat a customer by correcting their English.

It was clearly obviously from the way he looked me up and down that I didn't meet his approval. This is something I found quite amazing as who goes to rent a van (normally used for Loading and unloading objects) in smart attire.

I presented my driving licence which I thought was enough, but he stated I needed my bank statement and utility bill. As my wife had made the booking I was unaware of the need for other documentation. This was clearly an annoyance to me, but I returned to my home address and collected the other documents as required.

When I returned again I had to stand around in the customer office for several minutes listening to the staff talking. Only after opening and closing the door several times activating the electronic bell did a member of staff came to the front desk. He took my documents without any introduction or civilities. In fact his first words were "debit card." What is that meant to mean? There was no "May I have your debit card please Sir?" Nothing in the way of how a customer should be treated.

He then went into the rear office where I heard him mumble something and the staff commenced laughing and giggling. Clearly I must be funny to the staff so when he returned I said "Am I funny?" to which he stated they were laughing about something else. This was not the case and again I said "Is there something funny about me?"

I then noticed the Manager had also entered the front office and was staring at me.

Your member of staff replied "No it is your awkwardness," To which I replied " No not awkwardness it my annoyance,"

The Manager then interrupted stating "Right I don't like the way you are speaking to my member of staff I'm not renting you a van."

Well I was astounded by this. To be treated so disgracefully as a customer I stated to them both "This is disgusting," and left the office.

At no point did I use any abusive language, words or behaviour to warrant such treatment. I believe it was more the fact that the Manager was embarrassed by the fact that I had pulled them up on the way they had been laughing in the back office.

The result of this has meant that I have been unable to collect the vintage fireplace. This means that I have been unable to fit the fireplace which has now meant I have had to stop restoration works incurring me more costs.

Furthermore I have rented vehicles all over the World and this is not the service I would of expected from Thrifty as a international company.

Yours Faithfully,

At first all appeared great, arrived in Malaga airport, car was ready, the desk asked if I would like an upgrade to a Volvo XC90 which we declined, when we finally arrived at the car after a 10min walk we realised it wasn’t a Mercedes B Class as we booked bbut a BMW X1, not wanting to walk back to the Thrifty desk again at 10.30pm we just took the car as we had a long drive to do that night.

On arriving home realised we’d been charged €51 upgrade (which we didn’t ask for) and also $68 for fuel,even though the car was brought back 99.9% full, reason it dropped was due to the 20mins driving around the car park trying to find a space!!!

Since then I’ve been trying to contact, call, email but keep getting passed around or emails returned with address unknown.

Absolutely awful company and I urge anyone to NEVER book with them.

We have just rented a car from Montpellier Airport, the car itself was as ordered, a few dents, but acceptable.

What was not acceptable was the attitude of the woman on the desk when we hired the car. It was a joint desk Hertz and Thrifty, so I am not sure which company the woman worked for. I had booked the car on my credit card with my partner driving we have done this for a number of years without an issue, I had double checked before we left this would be acceptable. What was so shocking was her aggressive unhelpful attitude, she had processed all the paper work then virtually took the car keys out of our hand, and was extremely unpleasant. When we tried to explain that we had checked that this was ok as long as the card holder was present she was just rude. It was only when I suggested that we use a different card that she relented. The whole episode was completely unnecessary, and tainted the start to our holiday and made us wonder why we had come to this City if this was the attitude of the locals. Fortunately the rest of the people we met were extremely pleasant and helpful, but I will never rent a car from Hertz or Thrifty again if this is the calibre of the staff they hire

I wish I had looked at this review site before booking a car with thrifty at Edinburgh airport .... paid for the super all cover insurance which costs a fortune but still leaves you with £250 excess ??

Luckily we didn't have any damage so it didn't matter but this goes to show what a company they are.

When we arrived to pick the car up , we were attending a funeral in an hour so did not have time to mess about but when we got to the car it was absolutely filthy both inside and out , and I mean filthy . The girl checking car out said that she would go back and change it but we did not have time so I asked her to note it on system .

We only had one day hire as it was just the funeral we had to go to and had to return car at 6am the next morning and there were no petrol garages on our route that were open so had to return the car without filling back up .

I know this is normally the expensive part , but could do nothing about it but even at their ridiculous prices of £2.17 a litre I was charged £70 for 162 miles of driving , equating to about 21 miles to the gallon when the stats say the particular car is at worse 50 miles to the gallon meaning that somehow they managed to get nearly 32 litres of fuel in a car that had driven just 162 miles from their so called 'full'.

After sending two e mails to two different departments of 'customer service', and getting no replies , I am now going to take this up with governing body of BVRLA .

I also now have to get my suit dry cleaned as the interior of the car on collection was that bad.

I will never ever use thrifty again and can not understand how a company can trade in this manner as if you check the reviews , I am not the only so called customer that has had a bad experience .

Anybody reading this review and contemplating using this company , my advice would be simply .... DO NOT