Budget Rent A Car

Luckily, we were first in line, so we were at least served quickly. We had booked a Ford Fusion (or similar) through Costco’s web site. The guy behind the counter did the usual song and dance, trying to get us to upgrade, telling us that we’d probably need 4WD where we were going (to a ski resort) and that the only sedan they had on the lot had high mileage (i.e. the tires might not be that great!)
While he sent us out on the lot to look at a few of the options, we thought he’d go ahead and serve the next people in line, but when we came back after 5+ minutes of dawdling about, looking at cars, we came back to black stares from the next customers. We said to the agent «We thought you were going to move onto the next customer while we looked at cars…»
I was peeved that the ‘upgrade’ spiel now seemed to be the norm with car rental agencies and they NEVER seem to have the car that you book. I really wanted to stick to my guns with the price we’d bargained for on Costco’s site. Therefore, we took our chances with the ‘high mileage’ sedan. As it turned out, it was just fine, although we were annoyed that there was NO WINDOW WASHING FLUID or ICE SCRAPER. (We bought our own scraper at a drug store). Considering we were there during a snow storm, these things weren’t acceptable. We complained to the guy who checked us in on return and he gave us a ‘$ 20 off your next car rental’ coupon. It would have been better to give us a $ 20 refund at that moment off the car we’d just rented for 10 days as we’ll likely not use the coupon on a future rental. We’ll likely not rush back to Budget in Albuquerque or anywhere.

Horrible and dishonest business practices! I missed a flight from Dallas Love Field to Albuquerque on 11÷10÷15 and rented a car to drive back. The Budget Rent a Car employee Bobby who rented me the vehicle didn’t tell me about any return period grace time and told me I was «covered» for insurance and then charged me for liability insurance etc. without asking me or telling me it was optional. I hit some traffic and was checked in to Albuquerque the next evening at 7:23pm, the arrival time printed on my rental agreement was 6:55pm. My original charge was supposed to be $ 238.98 for a one day, one way rental. Expensive enough I think! The employee Sarah at the Albuquerque airport where I returned the car charged me for another day bringing my total to a whopping $ 433.36 for a one day rental! She told me «There was no grace period and she couldn’t do anything to adjust the total» and recommended I call the Budget office where I rented the car for a refund. Well you can’t actually do that so I called Budget Finance dept. on November 13^th and an employee Zach told me that there was actually a 29 minute grace period and that I shouldn’t have to pay the extra charge. He said they would adjust it and refund the money to my credit card. Two employees gave me two different answers about grace periods but I could find nothing in the rental agreement about this. Early that next week I called to check on the refund and another employee Alex said there was a record of my call and adjustment but it was never, and needed to be approved by the Finance Dept. While I was on the phone, he contacted someone to get the authorization and told me I should receive a refund of $ 154.24 to my credit card. One month past and I contacted my credit card company and confirmed that a refund from Budget was never received. I contacted Budget today 12÷15÷15 and spoke to a woman who looked up my record and said $ 194.00 was supposed to be refunded but never was and she had no explanation why not. She said she would email me the new receipt for the original total and the refund would process within five days. I asked her to email me the new receipt and she told me it takes an hour to receive. They did send the receipt let’s see if I finally get a refund!

I had a similar experience to C.L. the next day. I listen attentively to all the extras they try to load you with and routinely decline all of them. When I turned in the car with only 23 miles on it, I fully expected to be charged a gallon or two for this little Hyundai economy car as I did not have time to buy gas. Instead, they charged me an additional $ 18.69 — more than an entire tank of gas — and insisted I agreed to it ahead of time when I know I did not, and then had the gall to tell me to «listen more carefully» next time. Unbelievable. ABQ is great but not Budget; try anyone else.

Don’t rent from here! They lie and try to cheat you. They charged for insurance, even when I declined it, they charged for gas even when I had filled it up, they had checked the tank and took my receipt for the gas! When I tried to get the charges taken off my bill they wouldn’t! The employee, Victor, was incredibly rude. Both the supervisor and Victor were not willing to help or budge one iota.

rented Full size car via price line got a Mazda 6 not close to a full size but nothing we could do because it was already paid for 2 months ago … oh wait we could have upgraded for an additional $ 25 a day the then once we declined the «customer service rep» copped an attitude I will not use budget ever again

I’m very upset with this place. First of all, we waited nearly 45 minutes in order to get serviced. After the typical dribble about trying to upcharge us for insurance, larger cars, etc, we were finally given directions to our car. The Budget representative specifically said to be sure to only get your final gas fill-​up within 5 miles of the Budget facility, as they will be checking your receipt to authenticate your distance when you turn the car back in.
Because of this and my not being familiar with the area, I went out of my way the evening before our plane flight, hunted down a gas station that ended up being just about 5 miles away, stressing over if I’d have to deal with Budget claiming it wasn’t close enough, and using our hotel’s shuttle to get back for the night. Turned out, Budget didn’t need that receipt at all. Thanks a lot, Budget, for making your pickup and return process so damned obscenely annoying.
I’ve never had a rental car place make me do something so silly, and I sure don’t plan on being back.

Absolute WORST customer service I have ever seen. I travel a lot for a living and am in and out of airports, hotels, and rental car agencies consistently, and this was by far the worst experience ever. I would highly suggest that the manager of this location, or the regional manager for that matter take a look into your lack of customer service at this location and look for resolutions very quickly.

We’ve been waiting in line for over an hour with less than 10 people in line in front of us. Serving each person is taking between 12 – 20 minutes, with most taking longer than 15 minutes. Every other rental car counter is moving folks through like it’s their job… Oh, wait.
Lesson learned. Next time we visit ABQ, we will try absolutely any other rental car provider.

This is the worst, most inefficient process I have ever seen. Every person in line has a reservation… So why does it take 15 minutes per person to confirm the reservation and pick up keys? I can literally hear the ancient laser printer printing hundreds of unecessary pages, with the staff physically calling the car lot to see what is available. How do they not know how many cars need to be ready right now?

Staffing is low, waits are long — even if you are a Fast Break member. Would not recommend

The agent (Maggie) offered me an upgrade for a total of $ 55. She hurried me through the agreement process. I trusted her and didn’t do as great of a job reading everything (my fault) because she was talking me through it, but it was a lie. I was charged an additional $ 400 in addition to the $ 250 I prepaid, so I asked the agent I returned the vehicle to about my charges, and discovered that Maggie had charged me $ 55 per day for the upgrade. When I picked up the vehicle we discussed that the ~$ 15 per day upgrade fee (4 day rental) was a really good deal and Maggie agreed and even commented that she gave me a discount because I was a special education teacher. I was told by the agent when I returned the car that it would be fixed the next day. 3 phone calls later and I was never called back with the final decision. I called again and they said «too bad.» This was my first rental with Budget. I will NOT be back. Stay far far away from this place.

I’m going through the rental process right now in real time. I always rent with Budget when I go to Albuquerque though this is online so I’m pretty sure I’m not dealing directly with the Sunport location near the airport directly. I reserved a car and I got a great rate of $ 200.53 including all fees and taxes and my credit card was billed. I changed my plane reservations to later in the day so I decided to change my car return from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM so we could have dinner before we departed since our flight won’t be arriving in Portland until 11:30 PM.
I went online and tried to change it but it gave me new and much higher rates if I made the change: $ 300 more for that one hour!!! That’s far more then the entire original rental fee, including taxes and fees.
One is allowed to cancel the change but when I checked that option, I got a message that I had to try again to cancel. I tried half a dozen times more with no success.
I immediately e-​mailed Budget and just got this message back last night:
«We already tried to make the
modification to your drop off time from 5
to 6pm. Your new estimated
reservation total would be $ 516.48 USD. This
is because when we try to do some
modification we have to re shop prices
so you get the prices from today.
We are really sorry for the inconvenience.»
They want to charge me $ 300 for one more hour. This is absolutely insane.
If Budget makes the one hour change without charging me the extra $ 300, I will rent from them. If not, I will cancel the reservation and never, EVER rent from them. My trip isn’t until late September so it’s not like a last minute reservation.
I am pissed.

LEANNE was my rental clerk. She totally took advantage of me and scammed me. I am furious that my rental went from a economical total of a week/​180 $ to $ 500 because I was taken advantage of. These people are ruthless just to make a commission. Please read all the fine detail. I recommend not using this company. People and companies like this are what is wrong with this world… anything to make a buck… no moral no etiquette. I will never use this company again. Thanks for taking my hard earned money for your money grubbing commission based on lies and deceit!

Classic Bait and Switch. Pre paid car. then arrived at location didn’t get free upgrade offered. then was warned that we had to get an upgrade because the weather might be bad and we would be stuck. etc etc… Very sad. Car was nice and clean. Pressure sucks when you are tired from flights. extra driver fees etc just stupid and are no charge when you are booking thru AARP… Salesman was just that a used car salesman. Sucked you into conversations and upgrades that are not needed or necessary. So far Customer service has been basically helpful. Strong letter to follow. Taxes and extra fees add up quickly here… fees all were doubled. I had thought by prepaying this weeks ago everything would be easy. NOT!!!

Do not use Budget unless your budget is limitless!!! I booked the car thru Priceline which included the taxes and fees/​surcharges of just over $ 65…That being said, the agent Staci at the counter was über friendly. Talking and chatting us up about restaurants in the area, sights to see and where she was from etc. She suggested we upgrade for the Priceline cost of $ 12 a day to an SUV due to snow and mountainous terrain in the area we were going to. She even said, «Why not, it’s just an extra $ 30 each for you to be safer». We thought $ 12 X 5 = $ 60. We also wanted to add a driver and she said «No problem, I just need to see an ID»…In amidst all the directional conversation, shops to hit and chit chat she said, «initial here, here and here». At NO time… not ever, not one utterance of any other costs, were we informed that we would be paying AGAIN, the $ 65 in airport and state taxes/​fees like this was a separate rental, or that we would be charged an ADDITIONAL $ 13 a day for the second driver. Imagine our shock on returning the car to discover our bill wasn’t the $ 180 + $ 60 = $ 240 we agreed to, but a whopping $ 350!!! We protested of course, and Russel at the counter was sympathetic but said he couldn’t alter Staci’s contract and she would call us when she came in later… yeah right. Finally a manager, Rion was consulted, who after extensive discussion magnanimously gave us $ 35 off. I fully recognize that I initialed the contract and the charges were in there, And instead of being polite and listening to the conversation and trusting that what we were being told was correct… I should have read it. I just want you all to be WARNED!!! I saw the same thing being done as we were standing at the counter to other patrons… the warm, friendly chit chat to cover the contract fine print. If I could bold the warnings I would! Just don’t go with Budget!!!

Ok here’s one for the books. Just returned a rental car 14 hours early to budget rental car. The car was prepaid for. When we got the car they want me to present a different credit card then the one we used to rent car with because they are not real bright. I was told this card would not be charged at all for anything unless of an accident, and guess what they lied. So because we returned the car early I was told we broke the contract and the charged me 287.00. What the mess is wrong with these people well after and hour and a half they got it fixed they said but I don’t believe them we will see. My advice is NEVER ever rent a car from Budget. If I could give you a negative 10 I would budget retal

I love Albuquerque car rentals, because you hop onto one bus, ONE bus that will take you to all the car rentals. What a genius idea. Not like Los Angeles where you have to wait for your exact rental company. Okay so the car rental place rocks because it is clean, they have large restrooms with a changing room, not a baby changing room, but an adult room. New Mexico art on the ceilings.
Our wait for the Budget counter wasn’t too bad. Our clerk was sweet as pie. She gave us some pamphlets that had discounts. Who does that? They do. After you check out, there is someone outside who’ll point you to your car. Keys are inside the ignition, and you are ready to go. Before you exit, someone checks your car and contract before you leave then you are on your merry way.
If you own a GPS, bring it. Prices were super cheap, totally recommend.

Ordinarily, we don’t review car rental places. But, judging from our experience, it looks like Budget Car Rentals in Albuquerque is getting an undeserved bad rap from other Unilocal reviewers, so here’s a good one. For a very reasonable price, we rented a shiny red Mazda that got 35 miles to a gallon of gas. The check-​in process took just a few minutes, and the friendly clerk even gave us some tips about seeing Chaco Canyon. The car handled well and offered a very smooth drive. And we won’t hold it against Budget that it came with Texas plates!
All in all, it was a pleasant and problem-​free rental. We’d recommend Budget in ABQ.

I booked a car online and I was given a quote. When I got the the counter, they added so many taxes and fees that it turned out to be more than double! I almost refused the car, but we needed it to get around. The only add on that I accepted was the Damage Waiver which was $ 30/​day.
Everytime I asked the receptionist a question about the fees, she just said «that’s what you chose when you booked it» — well, apparently not, because I wasn’t quoted for $ 400. She didn’t try to force any other add ons (only GPS & XM radio), but I suspect it was because I was already freaking out about the final price of the renal.
We ended up getting a free upgrade because they «ran out» of Hyundais. When we looked around both at our arrival and departure, we didn’t see any Hyundais or any other cheap cars, but I’m not complaining. The Mustang was actually very nice to drive.
The car’s exterior and interior were clean and looked to be in good condition, but when we popped the hood, it was covered in mud. Guess they didn’t check that.
My two stars are not so much for the location, but the company in general. My quote was significantly less than the final cost and it’s terribly misleading.

I’ve rented here a few times for work — — I’ve never had an issues. The staff has always been friendly, and I’ve never had to wait long in line.
But it was kinda interesting this past week — — it was crazy busy because of the Balloon Fiesta. I had a late arriving flight on a Friday night, and my two choices for my «mid-​size reservation» were… a Lincoln Town Car or a Ford F150. LOL
So… I went with the F150. :) There’s zero % chance I could possibly park an LTC.
But these were my choices due to the late flight and the Balloon Fiesta traffic. The attendant did advise me that I could switch it out the next day, but I was so busy — — that I didn’t have time.
And I grew to like the F150 — ha!
Each time I’ve rented here… it’s been an easy and friendly experience.