Avis Budget Car Rental

Was a bit scared based on the Unilocal reviews but encouraged about the comments regarding new management. Indeed it is new franchise management — very nice married couple who manage the place now. Friendly and responsive — almost felt like I was borrowing a car from relatives rather than a sterile car rental agency. I would highly recommend this place if you need a car rental. Genuinely seem caring and a pleasure to deal with them!

Wow. They totally turned this place around. Lady at the desk was efficient, polite, and helpful. I was totally impressed. So different than this place was before!

Basically a scam. They apparently don’t do any sort of preventive maintenance on their cars. Instead, they rent them out until they break and charge you for the repairs.
I have had mechanical problems with their cars systematically in the last year, but the last one was the nail in the coffin: lousy tire started deflating one hour after I left and ended up being perforated. It took them 3 hours to replace the car, and of course I was left with the bill for something I didn’t break.
This, plus the fact that the office is completely disorganized, I’m switching to another company.

I only rent the basic car for one day, from Buffalo to Boston, they gave me a budget about $ 80.00, but they charged me about $ 300.00 when I returned the car!!! They charged me $ 0.3/mile and another unreasonable $ 151.00! This is ridiculous!!! I’d rather to buy flight tickets next time! Avis is soooooooooo horrible here!!! !!! Please please please do not rent Avis car in NY and MA!!!

This is definitely my worst experience ever with rental cars. I didn’t even get a car. First of all I had to wait for several minutes before anyone show up. Then someone showed up and asked in an unfriendly way: «What are you doing here?» «I have a reservation» «Don’t tell me you just made the reservation here … When did you make the reservation?» I felt like I was been scrutinized and criticized. There is nothing wrong with making a reservation an hour earlier. But they are not sorry at all for having no car for me and turn me away. Yes they did not even say «sorry». They acted like I have to beg them for a car. I guess I will not look at Budget again.

The service here is amazing. They definitely want to help you out and go out of their way for you. Really great guys.

I’m basically confirming others’ reviews for this Budget location.
My husband and I waited in line for an hour; not because there were many people before us, but because it took one hour for two staff members to help two customers. After those customers were gone and it was our turn, the staff member blamed the customers for making them take such a long time.
It didn’t take very long for us to get our car once we were being helped. It was a little disorganized but within 10 – 15 minutes, we were in our rental car, on our way out of the parking garage. We were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, that maybe the people before us really were very difficult customers.
About 7 seconds later, we found out that we need special tickets to exit the parking garage. We did not receive these. When I went back to the desk to ask for them, the staff members that were helping us asked me if I rented a car with them. It had been 4 minutes since I had left the counter.
Once I convinced them yes, I did JUST rent a car with them, the male staff member told me that he gave me the tickets already. When I said he did not, he argued that he gave them to my husband, so I must not have noticed. (I was standing next to my husband during the entire time we got our paperwork.) When he finally handed me an «extra» pair of tickets, he said, «When you find the ones I gave you, bring them back.»
WHEN, not IF.
The car itself was fine. It was a 2013 car but kind of worn on the inside (stains on seats and cup holder areas).

Poor customer service. Both the man and the woman behind the counter seemed unhappy and inconvenienced by having to deal with customers. I reserved my rental through Priceline with collision insurance. The man informed me that I’d still be financially responsible for damage to the car and that next time I should rent through the Budget website. I tried the Budget website and it told me that no SUVs were available to rent, yet I was able to rent a Budget car through the Priceline website and it was waiting for me. Both customer service reps expressed contempt of my business, b/​c it was arranged through Priceline, which was an unpleasant start to my trip. That said, the return experience at the airport in Pittsburgh was great! The gentleman that met me to inspect the car was super friendly and made me feel welcomed!

Not to add fuel to an already lit car fire — my brothers and sisters in reviewing have already done a great job of capturing the sad state of early summer affairs at this Budget locale — but I thought I’d share just one experience of this morning.
Went to return my rental car, stopping to top off the fuel tank at a station nearby. When I went to settle up payment at Budget, I notice a $ 20+ fuel surcharge had been tacked on.
According to the rep, the car’s tank was less than full. When I replied that he could go check the level himself, since I’d just filled the tank, he scratched the fee, saying something to the effect of having to turn the car over/​not having time to check.
I do not trust these guys. Do yourself a favor and go to the Enterprise on River Street — the other side of Central. They’re an upstanding operation that puts this Budget to shame.

I’ve rented from Enterprise, Fox Rent-​A-​Car, Thrifty, Avis… all the big ones. Never have I had such a poor customer service experience as I did when I went today to pick-​up my rental.
When we arrived, there were two people working. One older woman, and another man. The woman (Annette according to the rental agreement) was the rudest woman I have dealt with in a long time. It was like being on hidden camera or something to see how long we could deal with her rudeness before we jumped over the counter.
They didn’t have our car, or any cars, available for our reservation. She told us to come back later in the afternoon and paid no mind to the fact that we had already taken off part of the afternoon from work to come get the car.
Luckily, when a car did get returned while we were standing at the desk, the woman sneered, «Now you’re stuck with that car… you should’ve waited. That’s what you get». She proceeded to throw shade our way while taking down our information, and threw the final papers at us with much disdain. No pleasantries, thank-​you, please, etc.
Usually I can tolerate my way through negative customer service experiences, but given the other reviews associated with this location, it seems like it’s not uncommon. I called Budget corporate to relay my experience. They were very apologetic, said they’d send some freebies in the mail, and said they would code the complaint as «employee misconduct», apparently one of the more serious offenses.
I cannot stress enough: Do not go here. If you MUST go here, have the lowest customer service expectations you can so that when you are ultimately disappointed, it won’t be too much of a deviation from the norm.

Horrible service – avoid at all costs.
The lady here got angry at me because she didn’t have a car that we reserved. I asked if there was a better way in the future to avoid this Seinfeld-​like situation and she said, «If I could stop Budget from letting you make a reservation online I would. There’s no guarantee there will be a car here if you reserve it online.» WHAT?!
So I asked if there was someone else I could talk to because she was just blowing us off, and she was like, «Fine talk to that guy.» I think it was the manager. He immediately said they had a car available. She apparently didn’t know the car was in even though the key was right in front of her. So then he leaves and she goes to me, «You’re not going to get a car just by huffing and puffing!» But… I did. So.
The rest of the time she was so rude I could only bite my tongue and raise my eyebrows incredulously. She threw the papers at me and wouldn’t look at me. She didn’t say bye or address us again.
My goodness! I just want to rent a car! I know people have tough days and not everyone’s going to be Polly Sunshine but this lady went out of her way to be nasty. I will not rent from them ever again!

You know, I wrote a long complaint about this business, waiting in line for 1.5 hours, broken promises, lies from the staff, yada, yada, yada. But ultimately, this direct quote pretty much sums up my experience:
«I can’t give you a discount. Go to the airport. You’ll wait in line for hours… Would you like to go to the airport and sit instead? You can get it [the car] there.» *
* That’s a direct quote. I recorded the conversation, because the conversations before me went the same way, and I did spend more than an hour listening to them.

Quick update: it took 30 plus minutes to return car because there there was no one there.
DO NOT RENT HERE.
This location is a joke and budget should force them to close.

Long lines. Half-​an-​hour plus long, be there early. Tiny counter with only two agents who struggle with weekend demand.
The agents did not appear to understand my attempts to explain there is more than one currency in the world (my voucher was made in Euros, not USD), refused to call/​ask someone to figure out what to do in this situation (as they did not know how to handle this correctly — airport locations are not stymied by such reservations), were arrogant («you should have paid it in US Dollars if you were coming to America») and eventually demanded me to pay more or to cancel the reservation. That extra charge was cancelled later by Budget customer support.
The car was an upgrade and almost new, the place is easy to get to and the brusque guy was more mellow and apologetic the day I returned the car, which mollified me a bit. Nevertheless this is not the usual level of service I am used to from Budget.

Great hassle-​free service and reasonable rates. We got our car within 10 minutes of arriving at Budget. The employee didn’t try to sell us extra insurance aside from exactly what we needed was helpful and efficient.
Would recommend Budget over other car companies in the Central Square area (i.e. Enterprise).

Note: this is a Budget franchise, not part of the main corporate structure.
I never write reviews, but this place is SO bad that I feel compelled to express my opinion and warn people away from it.
It took more than 1.5 hours to get our car. When we arrived, there were around 15 people in line. When we left, there were 30, so I can only assumed that it took around 3 hours for the other people to get their cars.
There were two service personnel. One was fine, but she was extremely chatty with the customers even though the wait was 1.5 hours. The other service personnel was just plain rude. The couple before us declined collision insurance, and he seriously yelled/​lectured them, «Who is going to pay for the car if you get in an accident!» After they politely responded that they have insurance through their credit card, he continued to badger them rudely about who will pay for potential damages. I understand that car rental places make a lot of money from the insurance schemes, but seriously, it’s NOT part of your job to yell at your customers when they decline an optional service. He also yelled at a customer who was in line when she complained about the wait.
On the other hand, if you want to bond with random strangers, this Budget store will provide you with ample opportunity.

takes forever in the line. more than two hours to get the car, with FEW people ahead. WHAT ARE YOU DOING GUYS. never wanna come back

If you want to get berated while you’re waiting in line, rent here.
If you want to know what customer service shouldn’t be, rent here.
If you are having a great day and want attitude, rent here.
I’d rather walk a mile and pay more money to rent from enterprise in Central than rent here again.
They are very, very rude, unhelpful, slow, understaffed, and extraordinarily unprofessional. it took me 30 minutes to rent a car and an HOUR to return it… yes, ONE HOUR. i was also told that if i wanted a receipt, i had to call a toll free # and they would email one to me. WTF?! you’re kidding me, right? i then took out my phone to record his response and asked him to repeat it… and got a receipt.
my experience was so bad, i sent an email to budget corporate offices to complain. the response was that my feedback was «not unique» and that they «thank me for my feedback and are already looking into the service at this location.»
stay away…
STAY AWAY…
STAY AWAY!!!

Very poor service. Rented and prepaid a 12 passenger van 2 months before the date I was going to use it. I called 2 weeks before the day I was planing to get it to schedule a pick up. The person that took the phone was unpolite, would not pay attention to me, was typing in the computer while attending the phone call, would talk to others in the office while I was at the phone… I had to repeat myself over and over to finally hear that they would not do pick ups outside Cambrige… But this is not all.
1 hour exactly before I would go to pick the van up and go to the airport to pick up my family, I person from Budget Cambridge calls me and tells me that they dont have enough vans !!! That they would do everything they could to get me the van… this while my family was landing at logan. 30 minutes later the same person calls me a tells me that he they dont find any van or similar and recommends that I wait until he finds one !! @#$% I cancelled the contract right there because he did not have any resolution plan and his only advice was for me to wait to see if he would find any in the next hours. Very very poor service. Would not recommend this to anyone. If they would have called me 1 week or days before I might have comprehended the situation… but 1 hour before??? ridiculous. I was lucky I made 25 calls and got a van. Budget could not help.
Furthermore this person tells me that budget would fully reimburse the cost and instead I got $ 10 cancellation fee !!!

I have been renting a car every week from this location for the past three months. Yes, it’s a little bit hard to find if you don’t know where to look, but there are signs in the parking garage and inside the entrance to Shaw’s, and you can always ask at the hotel front desk if you get lost. It really isn’t that difficult.
The employees are friendly and will gladly give you the MIT discount if you have the appropriate ID (and they recognize me now, so they apply it automatically and remind me if I forget). Yes, they can be a little bit chatty, but I’m sure that working at a car rental counter is kind of boring, and I’m more than happy to chat with them while my contract is printing.
When my online reservation has been lost, the employees have arranged for me to have an alternate car. There are plenty of signs that direct you to the appropriate place to return the car, and the parking garage is no more confusing than any other parking garage in Boston.
Yes, rental cars are expensive. Yes, sometimes your online reservation gets lost. Yes, the attendants can be kind of cranky sometimes. But I’ve never had a poor experience with this Budget, provided that I treated everyone that I spoke to like a human being, and I will be renting many cars from them in the time to come.