Rentalcars.com Reviews 

I have used Rentalcars.com for many years, probably more than a decade. Until now, I would have recommended them without hesitation.

This changed after a recent rental through Flex To Go at Hamburg Airport.

Before travelling, I reviewed the booking information available through Rentalcars. For driving to Denmark, I found a cross-border fee of EUR 150 for rentals longer than 5 days.

At pickup, I explicitly asked about the cost of driving to Denmark and was again told EUR 150.

After later crossing the border, I received a EUR 500 charge instead.

The explanation was that EUR 150 is the fee for a declared trip, while EUR 500 is a contractual penalty for an undeclared trip.

What disappointed me most was not Flex To Go's position. It was Rentalcars'.

Throughout the complaint process, Rentalcars repeatedly referred to the supplier's terms and conditions, but never addressed what I consider the central issue:

How is a customer supposed to know about a EUR 500 consequence before booking when the information available before pickup refers to EUR 150?

Even more surprisingly, Rentalcars explicitly explained that the EUR 500 penalty is not shown during the booking process because it belongs to a different category from the EUR 150 service fee.

In other words, the most significant financial consequence related to driving to Denmark was not disclosed at the stage where customers compare prices and decide whether to book.

I expected Rentalcars to advocate for transparency and fair disclosure. Instead, I felt they simply sided with the supplier.

After more than ten years as a customer, this was extremely disappointing.

I will continue pursuing the matter through my card issuer and consumer protection channels.

For the first time in many years, I will seriously reconsider using Rentalcars.com in the future.

Maybe the problem is that they were acquired by booking.com - a corporate.

I am even more disappointed with Rentalcars than with Record Go itself.

What I cannot understand is why Rentalcars continues to promote and sell rentals from Record Go despite the overwhelming number of complaints about long waiting times, confusing insurance policies, and unexpected charges.

We specifically booked through Rentalcars because we expected a reliable and transparent service. We also paid approximately €100 extra for Full Insurance, believing we would be fully covered and could enjoy our holiday without worries.

However, when we arrived at Record Go Málaga Airport, after waiting more than 2.5 hours in a queue, we were effectively told that the insurance we had purchased was not sufficient. We then faced a security deposit of around €1,100 and additional charges of €165.

This raises a simple question: what exactly did we pay the extra insurance for?

As customers, we trust Rentalcars to work with reputable rental companies and to clearly explain what is and is not covered. Instead, we were left feeling misled, pressured, and extremely disappointed.

The fact that Rentalcars continues to advertise and recommend a company that creates this kind of customer experience seriously damages confidence in the Rentalcars platform itself.

After this experience, I will not use Rentalcars again and would strongly advise other customers to carefully read all insurance conditions and think twice before booking with Record Go through Rentalcars.

Stay away from this company, use trusted brands. The problem I’ve had with booking my rental car 9 months in advance the flight times changed unexpected yet they want to charge you an additional cost to their ‘live pricing’ quotes for something you can’t control?

Tip for the future of the business.. think about your customers as they can’t control unpredictable circumstances, don’t just think about profit, if you look after your customers they money comes in, if you don’t the money gets taken away and you guys look bad so it’s a lose situation in total.

Absolutely not recommended, they would charge you even you can't pick up your car for whatever reason is. Don't use this company service whenever you are.

⭐☆☆☆☆

Misleading booking process – hidden restrictions not disclosed

We booked a rental car through Rentalcars.com for pickup at Copenhagen Airport, only to discover after completing the booking that the rental is restricted to non-Danish residents due to Danish tax regulations. This critical eligibility condition was buried in the voucher and never communicated during the booking process.

As Danish residents, we are unable to pick up the car and are now left scrambling to find an alternative two days before our trip. We have requested a full refund but have yet to receive confirmation.

If you are a Danish resident booking through Rentalcars.com, make sure to read the fine print very carefully – or better yet, book directly with the rental company to avoid situations like this.

Be very careful with this operator and their so called partners (the car hire companies themselves). If it is a tourist airport, likelihood to will get bad advice, and will have paid for something twice. Me? Took fully comprehensive insurance with RentalCars. Told by the hire company it was not valid, them the excess of 1365€ remained. So insured nothing... Very poor overall.

The rent company we have chosen through rentalcars was really good. Rentalcars on the other hand absolutely no. They offered to us a total cover insurance ( theft, fire and every kind of damage) for almost 90€. We only received e-mail from rental company and nothing else from rentalcars. When we picked up the car, there’s only a basic insurance cover and we had to add extra insurance policy. Rentalcars deceived us.
After few days, I also found out that with the same price we paid for a small car on the rentalcars’site, the rental company would have rented us a higher category car for a really similar price on their own site.

Booked a Nissan Qashqai (or similar), Standard class, advertised with capacity for 2 large bags and 1 small bag. Received a Mazda CX-30 instead, a smaller car in a lower class. The trunk only fit 1 large suitcase, nowhere near the advertised capacity. Raised it with Europcar and by email, no replacement vehicle was offered, and customer service quoted a 10 working day response time to even look into it.

This is the worst customer service and experience that I have seen during my 51 year of living. When booking a car at CDG they failed to mention that you cannot do a 24 hour stopover in Paris before you pick up the car at the agreed time. It is grossly negligent to not include this information under “important information” when renting (which Enterprise themselves do if you book it through them). Avoid this scam company at ALL costs!

Total disaster: I was charged ~150 euros on booking and an additional ~450 euros at the rental place. If it weren't 3 am, I could forget the initial 150 euros and still rent a car for another 150 euros, which would be cheaper than 600 euros for a 7-day small car rental. And booking.com just does not care. I complained via the customer service chat, and they just kept insulting my intelligence. Very, very, very disappointed.

Booked a rental through RentalCars.com for a trip to Portugal in April. The supplier had no cars on arrival and I never received the vehicle. Simple enough situation, service not provided, refund owed.

What makes this worth warning people about is what happened next. I was told in April the refund would be processed. It wasn't. I followed up. Nothing. When I finally got back in touch with customer service again two months later, the agent confirmed on chat that no refund had ever actually been issued despite being told otherwise. The "escalation" I was promised had produced zero action. If I hadn't checked myself, this would have disappeared entirely. That is not a company that has your back when something goes wrong. Book direct or use a platform that actually processes refunds when the service is never delivered.

Due to a flight delay I couldn’t pick up the car. Europcar won’t charge Booking/Rentalcars but they charge me for the full amount. That’s fraud!

Due to a communication error between rentalcars.com and Hertz, I paid twice the rent for a car. After some back and forth in the consumer portal (you can't call them), they promised that I would get the second amount refunded. I also received a new invoice with the correction. However, I never received the money. Then, months later, I did receive an email intended for another customer, which leaked personal information. After that, there was a chat with incorrect information, and then customer service closed the case (although this issue was not fixed). Since then, there has been no response, and my request for a phone call has been ignored. So, my advice is to really not book through rentalcars.com ever.

I had a very poor and misleading experience with Rentalcars.

I paid for insurance through Rentalcars (around 430 SEK), but when I arrived at the rental company, I was told I still had to buy their insurance to get the car. I had no real choice if I wanted the vehicle, so I ended up paying an additional 135 EUR at the counter.

This was never made clear during booking and feels completely misleading. You are led to believe everything is covered, but in reality you are forced to pay again at pickup.

Rentalcars only offered to refund the 430 SEK I paid to them, which is only a small part of my total loss. I am still out of pocket for the 135 EUR paid directly to the rental company, and this has not been refunded.

I have declined their partial refund, as it does not cover the real cost I was forced to pay. The system is not transparent and puts customers in a position where they are effectively forced into expensive extra insurance at the counter.

Based on this experience, I cannot recommend Rentalcars

I booked a 7 seat car which turned out to be a 5 seat car, sforzo three young children, my wife and two elderly parents. They insisted it should be 7 seats but the only solution they offered was a refund which was hardly helpful in the circumstances.

I have used Rentalcars for many years for business and personal bookings but will no longer use them after a terrible experience.

I reserved and prepaid for a hirecar via Rentalcars to collect from Drivalia at Luton Airport. On the booking I completed my flight number and arrival time. The flight was due in at 2305. I booked the car for collection at 2330. The flight landed 20 minutes late. I had no luggage to collect so I was out of the airport quickly. Drivalia are located at an off-airport site and they instruct you to take the long-stay car park bus to reach them. When I got to the shuttle stop and scanned the QR code it told me the bus was 17 minutes away and would then take another 14 minutes to get to the drop off. I therefore decided to take a taxi to arrive quicker (the taxi cost £30). I arrived in the deserted industrial estate where the Drivalia office is located and the taxi could only get nearby so I had a short walk. I arrived at the Drivalia office at just after midnight and they had gone home. I was left in a deserted area with no car despite having prepaid for it. It was impossible to get an Uber or Bolt to come and collect me, the local taxi firms I called had no cars available and it was only due to the kindness of one of the long stay car park staff (who called a friend who had a taxi) that I was able to get to my destination. It should be noted that I tried to ring Drivalia before taking off to alert them to the small delay to my flight but they did not answer the phone. Whenever similar situations have arisen with other hirecar companies, if they had the flight number on the booking, they have always stayed open and waited - sometimes at a small cost but this is preferable to being stranded as I was.

I contacted Rentalcars Customer Service team by email, explaining the situation and requesting a refund. They replied quickly but their idea of Customer Service is a joke. It would have been more fruitful talking to a ChatBot. Every email was answered by someone different. They were full of gushing apologies and pretend empathy but often contradicted themselves (once telling me that Drivali were obliged to stay open for two hours after the booking time, once telling me that if I arrived after their closing time of course they would not wait). The only thing all the replies had in common was a refusal t but had not o give me my money back. After many emails they finally realised I had also paid for full insurance and they grudgingly agreed to at least refund this. They told me it would take five days to arrived on my credit card. after ten days nothing had arrived. After chasing them they finally made the refund.

Apart from the cost issue it is also a safety issue - I would hate a tourist with little English language or a young woman alone to experience being abandoned with no car after midnight in a deserted industrial area, and to then be refused a refund.

Rentalcars may seem like a bargain but the minute something goes wrong they are completely inept, unable to help and have absolutely terrible customer service.

I strongly do not recommend this company!!!!!!

I was charged €84.98 for a 3-day car rental using my Revolut card, which was accepted at the time of booking. When I arrived to pick up the car, I was told I needed a physical credit card for the deposit. This was never clearly and properly communicated before payment.

As a result, I was not able to collect the car and the booking was cancelled immediately.

They took my money for nothing – no car, no service, and no refund.

Completely unacceptable experience.

Rentalcars are really just scammers. They show you one price, but then when you arrive at the airport you suddenly have to pay all kinds of extra charges that were supposedly already included. When I raised this with Rentalcars, they basically told me to sort it out myself.

I would strongly advise against using them. You’re better off booking directly with a rental company. Rentalcars sits in the middle, and in the end you often pay more than if you had booked directly.

​To Avis Customer Service Management,
​I am writing to formally lodge a complaint regarding the abysmal service I experienced at your LaGuardia Airport (LGA) location.
​I stepped off my flight and arrived at the Avis facility at 1:00 a.m. Despite it being the middle of the night, there was already a massive line, and the Avis Preferred service was completely closed. Shockingly, only one young employee was working the counter, left entirely on her own by management to handle a crowd of over 30 exhausted people. Management was completely unhelpful and failed to provide her with any support.
​By 4:09 a.m.—over three hours later—I was still trapped in line. At that time, there were still 10 people ahead of me and 6 behind me. What makes this situation entirely unacceptable is that there were plenty of cars parked right outside; Avis simply refused to process customers in a quick, efficient manner.
​Furthermore, staff provided absolutely no communication or updates. Customers were left entirely to their own devices, anxiously wondering if a car would even be available once they finally reached the desk. The crowd became understandably irate. The line included families with children as young as two years old standing for hours. Because of this extreme delay, multiple passengers missed connecting flights, and others were forced to cancel hotel reservations and disrupt their travel plans.
​This level of service is completely unacceptable for a company of Avis's reputation. I expect a formal response detailing how this will be addressed, as well as appropriate compensation for the severe delay and inconvenience.

Mon, Jun 1 at 1:52 PM

I was forced to get an upgrade at holiday prices over Memorial Day weekend on Sat May 23. I was forced to get an upgrade due to an unacceptable supplier choice. They offered me an 8 passenger Mercedes Benz van stating that it was the only one available on
"suppliers Choice" inventory. I said that I am 77 years old and a single driver and I cannot drive an 8 passenger van on the highway
from Phoenix to Sedona, over 100 miles of highway driving. I drive a compact SUV and I would have accepted that or a sedan or even a pickup truck. This was completely unacceptable and it was unsafe to drive such a large vehicle. The rental agency was trying to scam me by using holiday weekend sales tactics and using a forced upgrade.

My research indicated that when the agency says "suppliers choice" they are contractually required to provide a vehicle that I can
reasonably drive. If the "only car" they have available in that category is a massive 8 passenger commercial van, they must switch me to a compact SUV or standard sedan and they are supposed to give me that free of charge because they ran out of appropriate
inventory. Instead, they took advantage of the busy holiday weekend traffic to pressure me into paying double.

In summary, this is what I have attached for documentation.

Thank you,

Mary Farrell

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✅ Priceline confirmation showing $295.48 prepaid

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✅ Fuel plan receipt for $65.34

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✅ NuCar's itemized receipt showing $606.94

Please see attached
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42544_PHX01-225880 (1)
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42544_PHX01-225880 (1)
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052326 - Priceline car rental, Phoenix (2)
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488.7 kB
052326 - Priceline car rental, Phoenix (1) (1)
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052326 - Car rental NU, Phoenix
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