Budget Car Rental Reviews 

Faced racism on top of unprofessional behavior . After a 20 hr flight , i came to pick up a 7 seater car which I had already reserved in advance . After waiting in line for almost an hour ... that was almost midnight . The Bufget employee at desk bluntly replied they dont have any such car ..it was a system glitch . I asked for an equivalent SUV , as i had a lot of luggage as well . She bluntly replied no and showed me 5 seater SUVs. No comment on reducing the rental as well . I took sometime in estimating whether that option can fit my luggage and asked for a suggestion on those options. She started yelling at me - do you want it or not in an aggressive way . I have not seen this behavior from her for any of the other customers who were before me . This racist behavior was specially reserved for me it seems. Zero politeness , zero customer care ... overcharging when they shouldnot . Fleecing customers at every step .

Absolutely worst experience EVER! Late night rental, first car had obviously been involved in an accident. They replaced it with another, and multiple warning lights came on within minutes of leaving. Counter was now closed. Next day attempted to have car replaced, was told to call road service. Drove directly to Budget, and was told that I had to call road service when they could see the car parked outside the door. It was replaced with “the only one they had,” which was an off-road vehicle that a member of our group would not be able to enter. Returned next day, and car was replaced. End result: four cars, 3 1/2 hours on phone with customer service, two trips to a budget counter in a different city, and they gave me a $49 credit! Absolutely pathetic customer service.

Extremely disappointing experience. I would not recommend this Budget location.

The staff was rude, unprofessional, and completely lacked transparency. They never informed me that the vehicle came with limited mileage, which resulted in unexpected extra charges. They also charged my credit card a significant amount without clearly explaining or warning me beforehand.

I felt misled throughout the entire rental process. Instead of treating customers with honesty and respect, they seemed more interested in adding unexpected fees. This was one of the worst customer service experiences I’ve had.

If you rent here, make sure you read every detail of the contract and ask about every possible fee before leaving. I will not be renting from this location again.

Many things went wrong but mostly billing. I was incorrectly charged ($133.92) for several things. I've been told I would receive a full refund but only received partial refund. I was told I would receive an email confirmation about the refunds but that was never received. Also told many different things by different reps. No one takes responsibility. I have spent hours trying to find someone to tell the truth - all different including supervisors. I will NEVER rent through Budget/Avis again. Oh, and the vehicle was horrible (Mitzubishi Outlander). It was dirty and warnings about the front camera safety features and past due oil change were constent.

They told me I booked an electric vehicle I would never have never even driven one so why would I book one. I was there for medical evaluations the last thing I needed was the hassle of figuring out how to charge one and where a charging station was. There is NO way I booked one. So I was charged an extra $30 a day to "upgarde" to a normal compact vehicle. The customer service desk was horrible the customer service rep was rude and short. She gave me my slip and just said go out the door. Didn't say which door so I ended up wandering aimlessly trying to figure out where the vehicle was. Thankfully a porter asissted went back in for me so I didn't have to drag my bags and found that the car was on the other side. He was kind enough to go and get it while I waited. First time renting in about 15 years and absolutely no information on the process was given other than you need your drivers license to rent. The vehicle I was driving got a flat tire while I was on my way to the hospital. I called and was told to drive it back to the airport. What on a tire that is flat. I had roadside assistance so she said she would send a tow truck. I had to get an uber which thankfully they did pay for, but I had to wait until the other vehicle was returned by the tow truck. I had been fasting for my evaluations had NO time to eat because I was dealing with this. Finally resolved everything and got into a different vehicle at 9pm. I contacted customer service the next day when I had time to discuss the extra $30 a day and to talk about how rude the rep was at pick up. All I received was an I am sorry. I now received a bill for the tow in the mail yesterday! I have many more trips for medical testing and I can guarantee I will NEVER use them again.

I rented a car from budget New York for 4 days . When I came to the car , i saw parking ticket on the car. I told the gentleman that gave me the car , that there is a ticket on the car and what I need to do with that. He told me “don’t worry , they gave us the ticket before you took the car - it will be fine !” Secondly, my reservation was to 18:00 pm , and the ticket was given in 17:25!
Guess what - they charged me for 160$ for that ticket !! Now I’m chasing them with more than 5 calls , they transferred me to the whole company ! They scam people and don’t know what is honest service . DONT HIRE FROM THEM!!!!

Several months ago I reserved and pre paid for a medium size car with Budget at Bristol airport for a week. On arrival there was no car for us. Budget representative was unapologetic and certainly had no sympathy for the fact that I was going to miss an appointment in two and a half hours time. He threatened to evict me from the building if I continued complaining. I did not swear at him or be sarcastic, he just did not want to hear my opinion. Extremely poor customer service. He offered no alternative to us other than to wait 2-3 hours to see what cars came in or take a refund. Even the refund he would not process, told us we would have to organise the refund ourselves with Booking.com

Was given a badly damaged car on pickup at Palma airport, when returning the assessor managed to find a new scratch which was in the same vicinity as the existing damage, I assume the workers are paid commission for creating new damages and making the company profit, they charge for vehicle downtime yet don’t repair the vehicles, absolute rip off and a complete con, this should be better regulated! They know you have insurance so just expext you to claim so they get there money! Paid extra to use budget as I thought they might be reputable but I am truly disappointed and it has ruined the end of our holiday

Hired a car for 3 days in June from Boston Seaport. I was quoted a price and accepted. On arrival was given keys to a different car than quoted and told where to collect. They then charged me almost 50% more than agreed without explanation. I expected that this may have been a deposit which would be refunded when car returned. They will not respond to my email complaint. Useless rental company, will never ever use again and would highly recommend that others avoid.

I like the people working in the branches. They actually do their jobs. But the way you’ve set up your phone system is flat‑out atrocious.

I needed to reach the Midland Intl Air & Space Port branch. I called, I selected the correct option, and EVERY SINGLE TIME, I had to listen to that same useless message: “They are busy and you are being directed to…” , and your system shoved me into some generic customer‑service line thousands of miles away — staffed by people who have zero clue what that branch has, doesn’t have, or even does.

No. This is not “busy.” This is a broken system you refuse to fix.

Let’s be honest: this isn’t about efficiency. It’s about cutting costs and dumping the inconvenience on customers. You’re saving money while we waste time talking to people who can’t help us at all. It’s lazy, it’s disrespectful, and it makes the entire experience feel like you don’t care about customers in the slightest.

It’s awful — and you need to fix it.

Excellent service, friendly staff, beautiful cars, very good price. I completely recommend them.

Is there a minus 1 I can choose? They did not have the car I reserved, overcharged me, gave me a car that had not been completely cleaned and I had to wait in a 2 hour line of 40 people at the Detoit airport. I should have never strayed from Enterprise.

SCAM WARNING: 0/10 – Complete Fraud!
Absolute scammers. Do not trust this company.

They tried to quietly charge my card a $450 cleaning fee after I returned the car completely clean. When I caught the charge and called them out on it, the nightmare customer service began:

The first representative told me they had photos proving the car was dirty but claimed she could not share them with me. When I asked how I was supposed to know they didn't just throw trash in the car themselves to frame me, she suddenly changed her tune and promised to email the photos right away. The catch? She didn't even ask for my email address.

I called back and spoke to a second person who put me on hold for 20 minutes, only to come back and casually say it was "a mistake" and that a refund was being issued.

This isn't a mistake; it's a calculated scam to see who pays attention to their billing statements. They only back down when you catch them in their own lies.

Take photos of your rental when you return it, check your bank statements, and stay far away from these crooks!

We were charged a $250 cleaning fee for not bringing the car back in "spotless" condition (Seattle, WA 6/21-6/26 2026) - the condition that we received it. When contacting a service rep and asking for photos and a refund, we were refunded 1/2 of the fee and affirmed that we need to vacuum the vehicle before returning it to avoid the fee. We have rented from other vehicle providers in the past and will not return to Budget.

After almost 2 and 1/2 hour flight delay. We get to Dulles budget rental about 1am. The people in front of us pay a $200 deposit for their rental. We get to the counter and get charged $250. The only excuse was we prepaid our rental. That made no sense, they already got my money for the rental but yet we pay a bigger deposit! Then we were given a Mazda CX-5 with no navigation and for most of our hour drive to the hotel we didn't have a radio until my wife was playing with a button by the gear shifter. The part i really didn't like was there was no customer service involved at all we were told to go to row D spot 31 back out the front door. We didn't even know what color vehicle we were looking for. At 1am we couldn't video the exterior(something my wife does) to look for damage. The next morning we found many dings on the passenger side. I better not get charged for. Our experience would have been better if 1.) we didn't have to go find the vehicle 2.) If there was a better explaination on the deposit fees.

7:9/26
After a stressful trip from GA to Phila and a rainstorm in Phila, we were greeted by a very pleasant young lady (Amira), at the Budget rental desk. She was able to destress us and help us relax just by her attitude- exceptional! She was so compassionate and helpful. We’re older, so she was very keen on renting us a reliable vehicle. Kudos to her. Very different from a few others. Very detailed and yet pleasant demeanor

Very bad experience! Upon pickup, we were confronted with extra charges for a second driver, even though we had indicated that we did not want any extra drivers. We were forced to pay extra for this. In addition, they demanded a second credit card. Without the extra driver and the second credit card, they would NOT let us take the car!This was not communicated in advance by booking.com. We had booked an excursion that day; without the rental car, we would have missed it, lost a lot of money, and our day would have been ruined. Fortunately, there was one other person in our group who happened to have a credit card and a driver's license with them.The person behind the counter was extremely unfriendly and completely uncooperative. We had also purchased extra insurance through booking.com, but Budget claimed to have no record of it. The agent rudely made it clear that €4,000 would be debited from our credit card if anything happened to the car, and that we would just have to claim it back from booking.com later.NEVER again will I book a car through booking.com or with Budget—and probably never again in general. We specifically rented a car to avoid the hassle of public transport. In hindsight, this caused far more hassle, stress, and extra costs.

Terrible customer service in person and by phone. Charged extra fees although declined fuel upon return and other hidden fees. Didn't get the car or its equivalent that was reserved at pick up and was still charged an outrageous amount. I strongly advise not renting from this awful business.

I had a great experience with Byron & Julio at the Budget Losee location. Byron was very professional & friendly . Las Vegas location

Had a reservation but stood in line when picking up the car for well over half an hour. I have a disability and cannot stand for long or walk far. The walk from the baggage claim in Dorval airport in Montreal to the car rental is INSANELY far. I was assured that upon return the shuttle would take us to the departure gates. Nope! Dropped us off probably half a kilometer away. Had to walk all that way again. I will never rent from them again!!! Horrible customer service!!!