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Holiday Travel Hell Part 3: If you book with Payless Car Rental, make sure your flight is on time
As I've written over the past few days, my and my sister Ali's trip to Tampa started about fairly rocky. There was the disinterested and blatantly untruthful American Airlines customer service agent, and then the lost car rental reservation with Expedia and Payless Car Rental (we still don't know who to blame, but Exepedia eventually worked it out for us).
But while I sat around the Payless Car Rental office, watching a TV blaring Fox News and learning new swear words from Ali, I witnessed half a dozen clients come to Payless to pick up a car, only to learn that their reservation had been cancelled because the customer was late. Payless employees maintained that reservations are only held for four hours after the original booking time. No cars were left once the reservation was cancelled, so travelers had to take the shuttle back to the airport and start over with a different agency. This was December 28th, right in the middle of the holiday season, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for travelers that were late for their reservation through no fault of their own -- flights were delayed and connections missed, as I knew well. One couple was late because their luggage was lost, and they had even called Payless to let them know they'd be late.
On the other side, I witnessed Payless employees take abuse after abuse, when I'm certain many of the situations weren't directly their fault. To their credit, they handled each outraged customer well, moving on to deal with the next one after the previous stormed out. That's got to be a job that requires a strong cocktail at the end of the shift just to get your blood pressure down near normal.
So what's going on here? It's hard to say -- Payless cars seemed to be the cheapest, and judging by my experience there, it's a bit of a fly-by-night operation. I doubt the employees were getting paid enough to handle the kind of abuse they received -- but it also seems completely ridiculous to cancel a reservation if a customer is late. I can't imagine how many reservations were lost in 2007 when flights were delayed.
Is it possible that Payless profits from canceled reservations? That's definitely worth looking into.
Has anyone out there had this kind of experience with Payless Car Rental? We'd love to hear about your experience.
Filed under: Business, North America, United States, Airlines, Transportation, Airports
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stephanie Aug 8th 2011 6:07PM
MOST REDICULOUS EXPERIENCE RENTING A CAR IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!!! I had to call 3 times before someone finally answered the phone while we waited for the shuttle. Total wait was 45 minutes. Shuttle driver was nice, friendly and helpful (only positive). While signing paperwork, front desk agent tried to up-sell a car grade but I declined. Then, he offered additional insurance, but I declined again. Then he began to harrass me and tried to frighten me into buying the additional inurance by telling me that my insurance will not cover the total charges if I did have an accident (which I KNOW is wrong since my husband had a car accident 3 months ago in a rental in the same city!). They treated me like I was stupid and didn't understand my own insurance policy. They were condescending and arrogant and essentially told me that I was wrong and did not know what I was talking about because they are "in the business" and I am not. Then, I was told that if I declined the insurance, I would have to pay a $500 deposit to be held on my debit card for up to 2 weeks. I told them that I did not have to pay that when I last rented a car from one of their competitors a few blocks away, but both agents then told that I did and I must not have realized it. Then they told me that the other vendor also ran a credit check on me and I just didn't know. I check...not true! I told them that I definitely would have realized it if I had $500 being held on my bank card. They basically told me that I didn't know what I was talking about...they are right...I am wrong. I ASSURE YOU, I AM NOT WRONG! Finally, after becoming extremely frustrated, I seriously considered having them drive me back to the airport where I could get a car from another vendor and told them so. But, we were exhausted from traveling over the last 8 hours and my daughter who is 34 weeks pregnant was swelling up and our aunt who has medical issues that were causing her to feel faint just wanted to get on the road so we decided to turn the other cheek and go. It took looking over 2 cars with a fine tooth comb (both of which had dings and paint chips, scratches, cigarette burns, bent rim/hubcaps, and were not very clean. I was terrified to leave the lot as I had to sign a waiver stating that I was responsible for any damages, locked in/lost keys, tire issues, loss of rental time if car was returned in a condition that required it needing maintenance, etc. Yes, these are "normal" documents, but the means to which they went to explain to me how seriously they take their contract (which was largely due to my decision not to purchase their additional insurance!), had me afraid to drive the stupid car! When I was signing the final page, I was asked if I wanted to use their gas re-fill service. I declined as it was near $8 per gallon. Then the agent said to me in a highly disgusted tone that I would need to bring the car back on full, showing a gas receipt from a station within a few miles of their location after filling up and "topping off" the gas. I said, you do know that "topping off" gas is bad for the environment, right, I mean it's written on every pump? He said, that was their policy and acted like I was crazy. Then he proceeded to tell me that if people returned the cars on full but didn't top them off, eventually after so many uses, the car wouldn't be on full anymore. I was like, WHAT??? That is the dumbest thing I have EVER heard! If the car is returned on full, the tank is FULL - dumb ass! I know this is incredibly long, but believe it or not, I left out a ton of details!!! Like I said, absolute worst experience in customer service ever in my life. Pay the little extra, deal with a reputable company, save yourself the aggrevation, ESPECIALLY if your intentions are to enjoy your trip!
Charlie Murphy Jan 13th 2008 8:14PM
I had the same experience with Paylee in Atlanta and ended up paying a higher rate with them because the type of car I reserved was given to someone else. They really stuck it to me as they had me by the balls. Thake their car at the much higher rate or go back to the airport at 11:30 PM and start from scratch and take the chance I could get a car from anyone. I will not use Payless ever again.
Anonymous Apr 8th 2008 9:35PM
Charlie, if you want to really stick it to them you should have taken their insurance and wrecked the car once you were done with your trip :)
Kris Jan 10th 2008 2:45AM
I have not used Payless, but know I have had a similar experience with budget. They claim that if you give them your flight information they will hold your car until your flight arrives. We flew from Vegas to Chicago and were delayed five hours on a red eye nonr the less, only to arrive and find out they had given away our car. They only had two cars left and did end up honoring the rate on one of those two cars. But it is un neeeded stress added to a situation that just is not needed.