At a Disadvantage: Renting a Car from Advantage
We recently had a nasty experience renting from Advantage in San Antonio, TX. I am simply going to attach my letter to the CEO, COO, San Antonio BBB and the Consumerist below.
May 22 2007
George J. Gremse, Chief Executive Officer
6660
George Gremse,
I am writing to share my recent experience with your car rental company and I have outlined the problems we had with this experience below. I have also included a list of reasonable steps for your company to take as recourse for our inconvenience and time.
The offending rental location:
Advantage Rent a Car: Phone - 210-226-8223
Our Advantage Rental Information:
Name: Josh Smith
Confirmation#: redacted
Our Experience at Advantage Rent A Car:
Problems with this experience:
1. The Agent didn’t have economy which was reserved. Charged an extra fee of $10 for a Sebring, since we did not arrive exactly at the 9 AM pickup time.
2. We received poor customer service, the employee didn’t seem to know what he was doing when checking the car out to us, asking for information numerous times and not being able to specifically tell us the price for the upgrade we were charged.
3. We brought car back to original pickup spot at 3:30 the same day and looked for an after hours drop box. The only thing we found was a sign on the door which said we had to take it to the Riverwalk Parking garage at 210 Presa, which the sign said was “only 3 blocks away”. I have several problems with this part of our rental.
a. The sign on door at Advantage had a map that looked like it had been printed off at headquarters, sent to the mail room, faxed to each point of rental, and then copied on a dirty copier.
b. The map did not show our current location in an easy to determine manner.
c. We weren’t told that this was not the drop off location when we picked up the car, in fact when I made the online reservation I chose the same location for a drop off.
d. Someone should have told us where it needed to be returned and if it was not the
2. We finally make it to 210 Presa, or so we think, the parking attendant informs us that this isn’t 210 Presa, and they don’t do rental drop offs, but we should ask the checkout person for directions.
a. The checkout person confirms we are at 210 Presa and we just need to loop around the building and go in again, have the entrance person (who doesn’t know the address of the building she works in) give us a ticket for free, and proceed to the 7th floor.
b. The check in person does not understand what is going on, radios for confirmation while cars backup, finally give us a ticket and tells us to go to the 7th floor though seeming utterly confused.
c. If Advantage has a partnership with a parking garage it would do well to have the garage be aware of it, especially those people who will have to deal with renters. Even if the parking lot attendant does not work for Advantage, she represents your company in this phase of a rental, and does so very poorly.
What do I want from Advantage?
- I want the extra costs I had to pay for the upgrade refunded. I should not be required to pay more because Advantage failed to plan accordingly.
- I want my original rental fee refunded for the additional hassle and wasted time due to the alternate after hours drop-off location and lack of communication.
- I want the dollar I gave to the homeless guy who told me how to get to 210 Presa back.
- I want an apology for the lack of customer service and poor communication.
Thank you for your time. Please respond to me via any of the following contact info by June 5th.
Respectfully,
contact info redacted
CC: Paul Hemmert as Chief Operating Officer
CC: San Antonio Better business Bureau
CC: http://www.Consumerist.com
Josh Smith is a blogger, database manager and adjunct professor of business and technology. 
It appears I have just received an email from Advantage for a full refund. As soon as I confirm it on the credit card, I will post an update.
I just lost my whole story but, I will never rent from this place again.I have rented from them a few times but ,never again. I have to tell you when the car needs water ,when the car needs oil and the car was durty , then when I ask your staff to take care of it, some of them have a bad attitued, one time they made me come behind the counter and look for my own lost things , I got soooooooooooooooooooo mad and started throwing things a round on the floor . The manager came up and ask what I was doing look for my lost stuff ,he stopped me and said he would call, he never call at all. I had to make the was a car put oil and watter in a car . Everytime I have rented a car from them I had trouble. Now bad attitueds, I will go back to enterprise or fox. They have always been good. Avantage was cheaper, but when the lady says they have a clean retuern policy and they gave me a durty car they didn’t want to clean or was ,NO MORE.I would rather pay more and have a clean car and a staff with a good attitued.
San Diego 3443 India Street . and the one on Manchester street in LA. Not all staff but the return people Awwwwwwwwwww fullllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Awwwwwwwwwfullllll
I HOPE you remeber my name GREGORY KAGEYAMA .Awwwwwwwwfuuuuulllllllll
I still have the sticker that the guy never even put in the window after he changed the oil that was almost gone. car was durty and lady got angery when I ask her to was the car .Awwwwwwwwwfuuuuuuuulllllllllllll Never again.