Adding to the amazing rank of this "franchise. "Two stars because the car did not blow up as I drove it. Budget is shit. Ostens... Read More
Adding to the amazing rank of this "franchise. "Two stars because the car did not blow up as I drove it. Budget is shit. Ostensibly appearing on branding as a "national" corporation, it is in fact a bunch of local franchises whose private terms are secreted from public view until you get your bill, at which point in time each franchisee dusts their hands and says it's not their fault what they charge and it is your fault for renting from Budget. Budget just provides some kind of logistical coordination among franchises. Came to the Sunport, rented a car to drive to Santa Fe and to return to the airport a couple days later. Was informed the bill we had was "estimated" and to be run after returning the car - the "estimate" being in case we total the car, run up a fuel charge of some sort, OR, significantly, turn the car back in early, in which case - we were informed - the vehicle's rental price would be adjusted on a pro-rated basis. We were also told in the handy-dandy contractual pamphlet that you could turn the car in to another Budget store for a flat fee of some sort, which is not disclosed in any of the paperwork. So we called Budget before returning car early to a Santa Fe location. First guy who answered said we absolutely could not get a pro-rated discount. So we passed on this guy to talk to his boss. Boss comes on and was really solid. He basically walked us through Budget's secret policies about how to get pro-rating refunds based on the type of rental you did (prepay or pay at counter). Then he said that we could return the car at half of the bill plus a flat $50. 00 fee. The bill at the time was $88. 00, so you'd think "Okay, so $94. 00. " Nope. Bossman: "I get an estimate on my end of $106. 00. " After going back and forth on how that could be possible, he conceded that it would not pan out that way in reality - that the $106. 00 figure he was seeing was due to some kind of obscurantism between the franchise that rented the car to us and his national bill tracking software. This happens sometimes, so I did not think much about it. He assured me by phone that whatever bill we got at the dropoff location, it could NOT exceed half the bill plus $50. 00 for the change of drop-off location. Fine. Except that's not the memo the guy at the drop-off location had. He ran the card for $126. 00 and basically said it was all in the hands of the Airport Budget and to call them to figure it out. Fuck that. After discussing it intensely with the fellow, he ended up trying to get rid of some charges and ended up just halving the bill for us and losing even the change-location fee. Great, so it worked out for us, but that's because of loud and logical argument and the guy realizing he did not want to deal with this for any longer than it took to close the shop (negotiator tip: go just before closing lol). Here's the issue: Budget just gives you an "estimated" bill at one location, which you think will be the real bill you pay somewhere else, but then somewhere else says "no, this place has other fees, which we don't disclose to the public before giving them the option to drop this place off or entering a change-of-contract note indicating that we MUST drop off at this place OR we will face OTHER charges under the contract for NOT doing so. " What a fucking game. This is less of a ding on THIS particular Budget than it is on Budget as a whole. To particularize to this Budget: I appreciated the upsell on the car model to rent due to a pending snowstorm but this motherfucker behind the counter reallllllly exaggerated the snowstorm to come during the weekend. There was zero snow in Alb and barely any in Santa Fe. Budget salesmen will huckster you hardcore to get da sale. All in all, a shitty introduction to renting cars from a nationwide corporation. The future of the world is bleak if we cede our politics to scumbags like these. Read Less