Advantage Rent A Car

Hidden fees, employees who do not care, and a location far away from the rest of the rental companies. This place is terrible, do not use it. Listen to the other reviews. Lost $ 88 to these clowns for absolutely no reason. Had to end up taking a greyhound and a taxi to my final location because they were asking for an extra $ 500 in hidden fees. I downloaded the Unilocal app on my phone just so I could warn others about this place. Listen to the other reviews on here, do not use Advantage. Almost ruined my vacation.

Worst rental car company I have seen in years. I travel a great deal for my job as well as some leisure travel, as well. Avoid this company at all costs. Their ploy is have the lowest rates and then offer the worst service once you are at their mercy. Totally not worth what looks to be a value out of the gate. Too bad Unilocal doesn’t offer 0 stars as that would have been my choice.

holy crap I should have read the review before I rented from them. 1 hour to be picked up and now we see charges up to $ 300 for this rental that’s only suppose to be $ 107.

I booked my car on the Advantage website and pre-​paid $ 525 for 2 weeks. On 8÷5÷15 I got to the airport and then walked out to the pickup area arriving at 9:05 PM. Advantage’s office was to close at 10:00 PM so I had plenty of time to catch a shuttle, but the shuttle never came. After a half hour I called the local office and got voice mail. I tried a few more times and always got voice mail. I left a message. There were a group of other people who were waiting with me for Advantage who had been on my same flight and had also been waiting for an hour so I was sure I did not miss the shuttle bus — it just never came.
I then called the Advantage 800 number and waited on hold for a human. By the time someone picked up it was around 10:00 PM and they told me the office was closed.
I called Advantage and the person I spoke to was quite rude. Basically they would do nothing about the situation. I told him I wanted to cancel my pre-​payment and get a car from anther company because I had to drive somewhere that night. He said that he could not refund my pre-​payment but would submit a request to their corporate office. I rented a car from another company that was still open but I ended up paying about $ 200 more for the same period.

Bought ALL the insurance for extra $ 30/​day. Had a very minor collision & they tried to NOT pay!!! I was not intoxicated or anything like that, they had over a dozen people call me saying that if the wreck wasn’t «x» dollars, they wouldn’t fix it, another person called and said if I receive a ticket, they didn’t have to pay. I specifically asked if there were any exclusions or deductibles -«no ma’am, they won’t pay if you get DUI though» well, I didn’t get a DUI or a ticket!!! Don’t rent here especially if you want piece of mind about insurance cause you won’t get it. I still don’t know if they’re paying for the minor scratch I gave another driver. Police came & said it was a non recordable event –that’s how minor it was!!!

Very inconvenient. Employees are unprofessional and shady. They tried to tell me that a 20 minute ride to oak park would take up half a tank of gas in a Hyundai elantra and that I should prepay for it. As if! The car itself was a piece of junk. The location was inconvenient and it smelled — bad — as did their shuttle bus. Only good thing was the cheap price which I guess is the only reason this place is still in business. Avoid if possible and pay a little more at a reputable company.

This was my first time with Advantage. Initially I thought it was okay experience despite they tried to charge me much more at the counter than online confirmation amount quoted. Shady but not uncommon practice with some rentals.
The location is away from other major rentals so you have to rely on their shuttle that does not always runs smoothly, their phone was busy for 30 min, I just got lucky to catch the shuttle passing by.
I left a phone charger in the car when returning and they never bothered to let me know.
On top on that, much later they charged my credit card through another party for unpaid tolls, improbable amount even if that has ever happened which I am disputing with my credit card now.
So, you may try your luck with them but I’d rather pay more and use more reputable rental service.

Check in was not as smooth as checking out.
But the good is that we did get our own mini van shuttle back to our airline terminal. Our driver Big Jay was excellent. He made sure we checked that we had all our stuff out of the rental, got all our bags out and loaded, and even helped my Mom into the seat. He even tolerated her stories. He made sure our bags were even unloaded close to the skycap counter so I didn’t have to lug them over along with dealing with my Mom. Big Jay performed 5 star service. And if not for him this review would probably be down to 1 star.

The employees are terrible. I spoke with the manager, Carl several times and he was very sneaky, trying to squeeze every penny out of me that he could.

Unfortunately I was dooped by this Southwest deal. I thought I was paying for the car rental when I bought my flight, but when I arrived to rent the car they charged me double! Everything took forever. I waited 30 minutes just for the shuttle to pick me up at the airport and take me to the car rental place. I wasn’t the only one waiting, there was a whole group of us.
I am really disappointed in how the customer service lady tried to persuade me numerous times to get the most expensive car when I told her every time I wanted the cheapest. She even lectured me when I turned down purchasing their car insurance! This is their service, and I dictate what I want. The car itself was fine but I don’t ever want to deal with this place again. Even if I have to pay more, I’m going elsewhere to not have to deal with the inconvenience of waiting, horrible customer service, and non transparent prices.

I would give them a million negative stars if I could. I was going to Chicago for a friend’s wedding and booked a car with advantage because everyone else appeared to be booked (turns out the restaurant convention was in town). My reservation was booked under the account of a major international corporation, so you would think everything would be set, but no. I took the shuttle from Midway to the car rental outlet, only to be told I had to take one more shuttle to advantage. There was no shuttle there, so I called the number. They told me they had no more cars, despite my having a reservation. They told me to get a car through another co and send an email to them later (and I should write down the info – with what pen and paper? I am at a shuttle stop. Also, like I trust you to pay me back?). I tried some of the other car rental places, but because they were just about fully booked, they only had much more expensive options available that I could not afford. T (hey also told me advantrage does this often.) So I had to take the shuttle back to the airport and then take two trains to get to my destination and had no car for the weekend so my plans were altered.
A COMPANY SHOULD NOT ACCEPT RESERVATIONS IT WILL NOT HONOR.
I intend to write the company I made the reservation through to tell them their corporate relationship was not respected, but I am not even going to bother writing Advantage’s corporate offices, because it seems apparent that they do not give a damn.
The worst car rental experience I have ever had in decades of renting cars.
I hope they go bankrupt.

Terrible. Just terrible. I made a reservation with Advantage about a month in advance. I booked this on the cheap through Southwest Airlines, hoping to save a few bucks. Well, you get what you pay for. I arrived at Midway Airport after a long day of flying halfway across the country; then the fun began. Advantage is off-​site. So, unlike virtually every other rental car company at Midway, you can’t just walk up to a desk near the baggage claim. You have to FIND Advantage. It was almost like a little scavenger hunt. Is it near the baggage claim? Is it outside near the garage? Sadly, no one at the company seems to have had the forethought to post better signs. Had my face not started to freeze while I was hunting in 30 degree temps for someone from Advantage to help me, it would have been fun. I guess. Finally, I found the sign for Advantage. (Turns out the pick-​up spot is in a barren, windswept corner of the parking garage near the snow drifts.) But, alas no person was there, just a lonely sign telling me to call a phone number. I call the number, and lo and behold, I am told that they RAN OUT OF CARS and that I should talk to Hertz. To their credit, Hertz took care of me quickly – in and out. The way it should be. Advantage? Never again.

Not worth it! Although my interactions with staff members was fine, this place is very inconvenient to access. You should add at least 30 minutes to your planning because you’ll have wait for the shuttle, ride to the off-​site location, and pick up the car. Also, the signs in MDW airport pointing you to the shuttle are not very clear at all. I would not have booked a car through them on priceline had I known they were offsite. There were comparable prices offered by the companies that are on-​site at the airport.

The people here were horribly rude. Darlene was the woman working the desk and she acted as if everything we needed her to do was a huge inconvenience for her. The reservation we made was in my friends name, but we planned on paying for it on my card. We found out that it was their policy not to allow this, so they needed to put the reservation in my name. We were okay with this, until we found out that with the added surcharge for me not being 25 yet, they needed to hold $ 600 for the week, which was most of the money we had for the trip. We told her that wasn’t going to work, and we had to walk to the nearest chase bank in the snow with our luggage. When we told her that we would need to switch the reservation back she seemed EXTREMELY put out. As we were walking, Darlene called me to say that she had left my pending reservation open on the computer and it had timed out and closed, so the $ 600 was now held. She told me if I wanted to just come back the car was in my name ready to go. We got back and told her that we did not want the car in my name, and she told us that if I asked my bank to call them they could release the funds quicker. She also told us it would be a short wait for a car, which was confusing to me because they should have had the car that was already reserved in my name. While she was dealing with us, other people walked in and Darlene was also rude to them, telling them to «sit down». Not «please sit down» or «I’ll be right with you» but «sit down.» After two hours and no car, we left and went to Alamo, which was a breeze. The final annoyance came when I called my bank to call them, like they had told me, and my bank said «no they need to call us and they should know that». When I called advantage and told them that they told me they would not call them.
I would not recommend this place to anyone, and I would not go back. Make sure you have plenty of time to wait if you do go, especially when dropping a car back off.

I was going to visit my family for Thanksgiving and reserved a rental vehicle at Advantage a month and a half prior to my pick up date. They gave me a really really good deal ($ 150). The day I was to pick up my car I called the customer service hotline to make sure everything was still good to go, confirmed, what-​have you. The lady I spoke with said that everything was the same, she repeated to me my pick up time and drop off date, etc.
A few hours later I was on my way to pick up my rental vehicle. I waited by the shuttle area to have the Advantage shuttle pick me up but it never came. So I went inside the airport to call the hotline to have someone send a shuttle. When I spoke to the lady she said that the reservations had been switched to Alamo. I asked her if they would still give me the same price but the lady didn’t know for sure.
I finally got to the Alamo office by shuttle and was told that my new rental price would be — $ 450. Holy cow! I told the guy to wait until I could contact someone from Advantage to see if I would be refunded the difference. This is not Alamo’s fault for being expensive. Alamo’s great I’m sure, but I’m not rich.
I got through on the Advantage customer service and was transferred a number of times. I finally spoke to a guy who said there was nothing that could be done — as is usually the case. I told him that it was very inconvenient to have customers with reservations get to the airport to pick up their car only to find out that they didn’t have a car any longer. I told him that if I’d had known earlier I could have called somewhere else and found a reasonable price, something I could afford — now, here I was at midway airport with this new rental car price being 4X as much as what I had budgeted for. He interrupted me mid gripe and said, «But we did contact you — that’s why you know…» Then I repeated the beginning of my story again saying that I called to have someone send a shuttle and THAT’S when I found out. Then he was like — oh yeah, that’s right… Then he transferred me to someone at the midway office so I could gripe them out — find out why I didn’t receive a call — one call, I mean, really. Coulda saved me like hours and wouldn’t have wasted a damn trip to Midway.
Anyway — got connected to the midway office and no one says «hello» like what you would normally hear when calling someone. No. I heard yelling, cursing and what sounded like a personal problem between the Advantage employees. I just hung up. I clearly was getting no where.
My boyfriend found another rental company but by the time we reserved it the rental company was about to close so we would have to wait until the next morning to pick it up.
This was one of the worst customer service experiences I’ve ever had. The one thing they could have done differently was call me so that I could have then called Alamo to find out their charge then immediately call other car rental companies to reserve with them. I would have been able to get a car that night, saved time and a damn trip to midway.
C’Est La Vie.