National Car Rental

I love National. Their cars are always newer, clean and in great condition.
As an executive elite member, at Boston airport I can go directly to the gaarage, pick my car of choice and be on my way. I do enjoy the ability to pick the vehicle of my choice !
My choice this time — Jeep Renegade
Heated seats
Heated steering wheel
Remote start
Back up camera
Leather interior
Very comfortable and a great ride !
I plan to get this same vehicle on my return in a couple of weeks !

Thankfully due to a change in the corporations I am employed by I am able to return to renting from National. I have experienced exceptional customer service at this location. I am an extremely frequent business traveler and many times will need to rent at multiple locations within one week. Due yourself a huge favor, particularly at Logan, and rent from National. If in doubt compare their reviews the other big vendors at this location.

This is my first review for a car rental, but I wanted to share my appreciation for the outstanding Emerald service that I received at Boston Logan.
My wife and I were renting a car for an extended New England fall foliage trip, and it was VERY important to me that we were able to have excellent Bluetooth and GPS working with the car that we rented.
I asked the Emerald concierge to assist me to select the best car for this purpose, and we selected a Hyundai Sonata. And this very helpful woman then set up the programming, doing so flawlessly. She even helped me locate the mounting device for the iPhone in the lower left section of the windshield so that there was minimal obstruction of driver view.
Everything worked: telephone; GPS; Pandora; iTunes, etc.
Thank you, National. You deserve five stars

Great selection of cars, friendly service. Just picked up an Explorer, loaded with option and 7 total miles. I am local to this National facility and have never rented here before. I am an Executive level with National, so I rent a lot of their cars. This place is near the top

National Boston Logan is getting better with customer service. The manager helped me get a car that fit my needs. He was very courteous and helpful.

Ok — I am extremely impressed with this car rental location. This time around they proved themselves to me 100%.
There were plenty of cars to select from, mine was clean and full of gas and gave me no issues.
It didn’t take long to get picked up, the ride to the rental location was fast and it was an easy return.
The best part of this location is their customer service. Being rushed as I always am when traveling, I forgot my GPS and a few other electric devices in the car. I received a call from them — and within a few minutes my address was confirmed and my stuff is being returned FedEx to me — that’s service. It is the first time I’ve ever received a call — normally they just keep my stuff — but not at this location — very nice BOSTON!

Depending on what time you arrive you may or may not have much option. As I arrived Monday evening after 11p, all I saw were Minivans (see pictures) in Executive and barely anything in Emerald Aisle. As soon as cars were arriving folks grabbed whatever non-​minivan type it was. I stood near the Executive Aisle for about 10 mins for something to arrive. Then a graceful employee from National tapped my shoulder and gave me a nicer car from the VIP aisle a volve s60. No issues with the nicer car. Upon return the lines were backed up all the way to the end. Attendant came over scanned and gave me a receipt, no issues. Upon leaving I peaked over to the Aisles to see if it was Minivan city 4 days later, the lot was full in the morning. Overall a great experience except the fact of waiting to get a car and not a Minivan.

I have worked with this rare outstanding team of Gary Gaines. To Mike Kenton since 2008 when we moved our younger daughter to boston for special medical care. Jay Stephanie Tyler and many many others all these years have given us amazing attention to detail, outstanding efficient cars, immediate excellent replacements if a rare problem occurred, changes in car size if capacity needs expanded or shrank for longer term rentals, and excellent rates.
Their fleet if vehicles have extraordinarily high turnover and the attention to detail and lack of technical problems with rental performance is rare.
Senior management for this entire operation of national/​enterprise is the reason for the high esteem and sense of personal satisfaction within almost the entire team of employees at Boston Logan airport operations– from bus drivers to car return operations.
I worked in Manhattan for over 20 years in consumer and industrial international and national mktg adv and PR requiring extensive travel starting in 1972. I have traveled with family for my husbands’s demanding position in Virginia and Minnesota for the last 25 years and NEVER have found any team in any city as outstanding across– the– board as at Boston Logan, thanks to Gary Gaines (now in more senior Mngt in St Louis, and Michael Kenton also recently promoted but still based at Logan).
In appreciation and special thanks to Gary Gaines just prior to his major promotion, I prepared from scratch my special home made Japanese recipe of 28 pounds of teriyaki marinated and roasted steak with 20 pounds of toasted almond (butter fresh parsley) Basmati rice in huge catering pans (2 days of cooking) HOT lunch for the entire national enterprise staff several years ago. I wanted senior management in St. Louis to realize how much customers in Boston appreciated Gary’s long hard work on our behalf .
Thank you everyone at Logan!
Tara Fujimoto Harris and family

We worked with Darly today when we picked up the car from National. There was an issue with the reservation and she quickly resolved it and made sure we were on the road as quickly as possible. Her smile and positive attitude made our day. Time for a raise!!! Thanks Darly!

Incredibly bad customer service… And, to get a refund will take you about a month, emailing and calling them every day. National never calls you back.

I booked a car through national in Boston through Hotwire. Due to a family emergency I had to change my reservation and come home three days earlier. I was not refunded any money for bringing my car back earlier. I spoke with National and Hotwire and both stated it is Hotwire’s policy that if you book through Hotwire that they can not refund your money. This seems really inflexible. This experience has taught me to never book through Hotwire because you never know when a n emergency may arise where you need to change your plans. It infuriates me that they are still getting the full amount even though I’m bringing the car in early. I’ve learned my lessen. I will never use Hotwire to book travel again.

One of the better selection of Emerald Club and Executive Club vehicles I have seen at a major airport; and always plenty of American cars to choose from. Also have the same brands consistently which I like because I know which vehicles have USB ports an where for my iPod. Have rented her about 20 – 25 times with only one bad experience (car had not been serviced). New facility is nice and easy in and out.

Very nice selection of vehicles. As an Executive Elite, you get out of there quickly as well. I like the new central location as opposed to the old individual locations. Now you don’t have to get wet in the rain or frozen in the winter since everything is enclosed. Staff is friendly and very quick.

I’d give no stars if I could. My boss, who is from another country and not that familiar with our rental car companies got mixed up on his Enterprise Rental and went to the National desk at this location. This is not surprising because their frequent customer card is good at both locations — that much he knew. Instead of looking at the confirmation number he presented and telling him it wasn’t with them but their sister company Enterprise, they rented him a car for several hundred dollars more than he had booked for with Enterprise. They basically took business from their sister company by doing this, took advantage of a foreigner, and charged him a bundle to boot.
He rented a VW and they call that an exotic specialty car which, of course, also cost an additional premium. Seriously! When I tried to speak with the manager at this location, I got no response. When I sent emails to the company, I got no response for days. When I called the national number, I had to pretend that I was booking a car to get through to a human being because there wasn’t a menu option to deal with someone for issues like this other than being bounced back to the my local National location, who had no knowledge or involvement, but were deeply sad to hear about what happened.
After about a week and a half of trying, I finally got through to a supervisor in Customer Service, I believe. He was as condescending and snippy as could be and was of no help whatsoever. He said he would «speak with his VP about the matter» but I never heard a word back and that was a few months ago. We ended up with a bill of over $ 400 instead of just over $ 100 for the rental. We will NEVER do business with them or one of their sister companies again. I resent that they took advantage of my boss like that. When I explained that we were a division of a very large international corporation and our travel department would be informed of this as they considered who we dealt with in the future, they seemed to scoff at it.

***This National is pretty similar to all the other Nationals I’ve been to; they had a pretty good collection of vehicles in their Executive Aisle – Nissans and Chevrolet vehicles like most Nationals but Toyota vehicles too like Camry and Venza; returning a vehicle is quick here; rental agencies have their own shuttle that takes customers from the terminal to the rental car center; the shuttle did not come as frequently as I have experienced with other airports***
I am not sure what the parking situation is here.

For the most part, I have never had any issues with this location. They usually have a large selection of cars for their club members and the check out and drop off process are super easy. My two issues that I’ve had were:
#1 — My boss and I came in one night on delayed flights and literally the only cars that they had left were minivans. It might not sound like a bad thing but literally there was at least 50 cars and they were ALL minivans! How does that happen. Don’t get me wrong, they were stylish Chrysler’s with leather interior and auto-​closing doors but they were minivans! After fussing at the checkout counter a little, I did appreciate the email that I got a couple of days later from management, apologize about the lack of selection.
#2 — One day when I was returning a car, I had a young kid (the scanner person) who was having a bad day. He got supremely upset when I started pulling into the wrong lane. Heaven forbid he have to get in the rental and move it. O-​M-​G! I have had some people wave me down with great speed and it is never a big deal. This kid was rude with a made up face and a wee bit too much attitude for me. He has obviously forgotten the golden rule about customers being right!
This National is my go-​to spot when renting a car from BOS and I don’t really have any real complaints about them.

While the car I rented was FINE (nice, even), my service experience was less than flawless. And the money I paid was certainly more than cheap. In fact, I wouldn’t really call it a value.
Experience 1 — I go to pick up the car at the airport lot, and there was only one person on staff in the building as far as I could tell. I waited awhile, which is par for the course. However, when I was handed the keys and told the type of car I also asked for the color (I’m really bad at knowing car types). The woman told me it was a Chevy something-​or-​other and it was parked outside to the left. She didn’t know the color, but assured me whatever car my keys got me into was my car. I went outside, saw a Chevy something that looked small (I had rented a compact), clicked the keytag and opened the door. Assuming this was the car I’d rented, I then drove to the check-​out gate where another person reviewed my contract/​papers and looked over the car before letting me pass. About 30m down the road, I got a call that I’d taken the wrong car and that I would need to come BACK TO THE AIRPORT (on my time) and bring back the keys at the very least (they said I could keep the car).
Experience 2 — I go to bring the keys back. Driving to and from the airport (and through the tolls) is already not my favorite Saturday activity. This time, the woman at the desk was significantly less than friendly and informed me I would have to pay more money if I did want to keep this car, as it was slightly larger than the one I was supposed to have.
Experience 3 — Returning the car is kind of a hassle and the parking lot where I returned it was a crowded mess. The staff there was fast and helpful, but it doesn’t change the gridlocked, stress-​inducing maze you have to navigate first.
In addition to wasting my time and not being overly helpful/​friendly, I was charged a higher rate than I was originally quoted AND this may be standard but the «fees» on top of the rental seemed innumerable and exorbitant. Net/​net, I’m not too impressed.

Ok, so I forgot to review National the last few times home. Here is the latest.
I used to be a Hertz guy… then I was an Avis guy, mostly because I worked there, and both of those companies were good.
Those guys are also finally getting what National has been doing for YEARS…“reserve a size car and pick what you want when you get there”. I’m stayin at National.
This rental? 2013 Chevy Equinox. Very nice! Tight ride, loaded with options (except leather). Put almost 900 mi on it, great gas mileage! Love the heated seats!
The rental experience? PERFECTION!
Looking forward to when they all move to the consolidated rental building later this year. Welcome to the 90’s!

Nice selection of vehicles to choose from. Attentive staff, their airport shuttle bus drivers are courteous. I enjoy renting from this location.

The best cars I’ve gotten at National I usually get in Boston.
So my dear Emerald Club friends, be sure to hop onto the National/​Enterprise/​Alamo shuttle when you exit the airport. They’ve done some construction and remodeling around the National car lot, but for the most part, things have stayed the same. Since it’s Boston, the Executive aisle is usually loaded with SUVs. However, you can find nice cars in both aisles from time to time. They’ll have Volvo S60’s and stuff sitting in the regular aisle if you’re lucky.
If you’ve never been to Boston Logan International Airport, it might be a bit confusing to drive around. If you get on the Mass Pike (I-​90) leaving the the airport, expect to pay $ 3.50 at the human-​operated toll booth just outside the airport. For rental car returns, there’s a Gulf gas station inside the airport that may be hard to get to depending on which way you go.