Advantage Rent A Car

This company is a cheater, I paid $ 47 prepaid tank of gas, but got a car with almost empty tank, car almost dead in the middle of nowhere.

***warning*** do not rent a car here! you are required to have your own car insurance if you live within 65 miles! news flash, if i had my

Do not rent a car from Advantage. They required you to have a personal car insurance and their staff really sucks.

So apparently to rent a car from there you need to have your own existing car insurance. I have rented a lot of cars in my time. I have never once encountered this stipulation nor can I imagine the reasoning behind its existence. This fact is poorly advertised. When I reserved my car online I was not warned of it at all.

Worst car rental company ever. I rented a car from here and got several problems with billing. They do not give a fuck about their customers. Motherfucker was charging toll fees 2 months after I returned the fucking car without even noticing. I wish I can give negative star. Also they never fucking answer. Sent few emails to solve the problem never got a fucking respond like is u a fucking high school bitch. DO NOT RENT A CAR FROM HERE FUCK THIS SHIT

This rental company is primarily for folks who come from out of town. They will need proof of car insurance. It was apparently notated in the website when you place the rental. I checked the website and the notice was there, but nowhere where you would normally look.
I was declined the vehicle that I rented. Luckily, I had read these reviews and had a back up plan.
I will say that out of the 3 people in front of me, only one had no problems. Their sole staff person was not the nicest and neither was the manager as they dealt with two families from out of town that were trying to secure their rentals.
I will not be coming back as the little money I would’ve saved is not worth the pain.

Summary: This place is shady. They bring you in with their low prices, tell you they can’t rent to you, then conveniently there’s a Dollar car rental 10 feet away where they can rent to you (with much higher prices).
Detail: Like most people, I tried to rent a vehicle here only to find out that I needed to provide my own car insurance and that Advantage doesn’t provide this. Why would I have MY OWN car insurance when I’m renting a car? Every other place I’ve purchased car insurance with the car rental company. Staff was also rude.

DO NOT RENT FROM ADVANTAGE RENT A CAR (especially through Europcar) LaGuardia Airport NY — THEY WILL NOT HONOR YOUR RESERVATION if you rented through Eurpocar.
Because they refused to give me a car even though I had a reservation, I had to rent Über at $ 106 and then rent from Enterprise at a higher rate since it was Memorial Day weekend at my destination!!!
This company’s representatives at the desk were RUDE and LIED claiming they had contacted their Manager when they had not. I WILL NEVER RENT FROM ADVANTAGE (and seriously doubt I will rent through Europcar if they continue to use Advantage). Euruopcar could not find any reason why they would not honor my reservation. The reason: They wanted to extort more money out of me!

Scam! Don’t rent here. Local insurance they say is needed to rent a car. Absolute bullshit. Do not rent here. They stole my money and wouldn’t even give me a car. Total scam artists.

First of all, they need to update their location as they moved to a different address but google maps and other listings still show their old one. Was confusing to find.
Also the place is very small, and on a Sunday morning they only have 1 staff person behind a small counter. Makes for a very slow process!
As so many others who posted on here, I booked a rental with Advantage through Expedia, and was shocked to find out that they require local renters to have insurance. This information was NOT provided in advance. If I was a local with insurance, that means I have a car… and thus wouldn’t need a rental!!! I have rented cars often including from LGA airport vendors, and Advantage is the ONLY company I’ve encountered with this policy!
Fortunately Dollar is in the same office, and I was able to rent from them.
So even when I travel, I definitely will be sure to AVOID Advantage

Stay away. I’ll keep this short and sweet.
1. They don’t warn you until its too late and you are at the counter, but if they classify you as local you will need to have car insurance. I don’t own a car, and I don’t insurance so I wasn’t able to rent a car. This is a pretty big deal that they should warn you about so I never rent from this company anymore. Thank God thrifty had extra
2. The actual location is terrible. Expect to wait in line for at LEAST 30 minutes and if you came in behind a group, pitch a tent because its going to be awhile.
They may be cheap sometimes, but pay the extra money and go elsewhere. You’ve been warned.

Had a horrible experience on March 25^th trying to rent a car for the weekend. I arrived at the location listed on my rental reservation (after walking 15 minutes in the rain from the closest bus stop), only to be greeted by a security guard who informed me that the location had changed the day prior. Advantage had all of my contact information — why hadn’t they simply sent me an email to share the new location?
I then waited another 10 minutes for the shuttle driver to arrive and take me to the new location (with a stop at the airport to pickup an infuriated customer who said he’d been waiting for over an hour to be picked up).
Insult to injury –The representative at the rental car counter refused to rent to me if I didn’t have proof of car insurance. Why would I have my own car insurance if I’m renting car where I live? Wouldn’t that indicate I don’t own a car?
I ended up walking to the Astoria Ditmars Q train station (20 more minutes) to take the Q train to Manhattan, and then took a train from Penn Station to my destination.

Wish I could give 0 or negative stars. Booked here because I have a corporate discount that amounted to $ 80 for a 2 day rental which was cheaper than the other options at the time.
After my flight landed, I waited for the shuttle which comes ‘every 15 minutes’. After waiting for about 10 minutes the shuttle drove by and barely slowed down. I tried waving my hands but he already drove away. I decided to walk to the location in the email they sent me THREE DAYS EARLIER because it was 15 minutes away. Upon arrival, I found out they moved to a NEW LOCATION two days earlier. There were several other renters there and nobody knew about the move. A guy whose job seemed to be to tell renters the location moved called us a shuttle to the new location which was 7 minutes away. After I got there, I tried to switch the reservation to my name since my friend as running late and they said I couldn’t do that. So I asked to cancel that reservation and make a new one. She said okay and proceeded to do so but after seeing all the incompetencies of the company, I decided to confirm that the rate would be the same. good thing I did because it wasn’t! The new rate was more than double my current reservation. Why would she fail to mention this? I then told her I would wait for my friend to arrive to keep my rate and all she said was ‘Next!‘
The worse part was when my friend arrived, we couldn’t even rent the car because we were ‘local’ and did not have our own car insurance. As everyone has been saying, why would I have car insurance if I don’t have a car and want to rent one? If they want to continue to impose this ridiculous and senseless policy, they should read comments and make it more clear on the website. We ended up cancelling the reservation and making one at Dollar, which was luckily in the same building. The Dollar employees were very professional and the rental process went very smoothly.

PEOPLE. AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE THE PLAGUE… READ ALL THE REVIEWS BELOW BEFORE BOOKING HERE! DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THE CHEAP PRICES ON OFFER!
If you’re a foreign driver, they want to see (in addition to licence and credit card) passport, return flight ticket and proof of liability insurance, which for a foreign driver is not possible to buy and they don’t sell.
They will refuse to rent if you do not show these at the rental desk. I actually just think they don’t want to rent to foreigners and are purposely making things hard. Under NY state law, the car must come with min cover automatically and refusal to rent based upon nationality or unless you take out additional coverage is illegal.
Not only is this place a sham, it’s also breaking the law.
Rent from here at your own peril!!!

I wish I could give a minus for this one.
Basically I book a reservation, but then learned online that this particular branch doesn’t provide car insurance for locals (I don’t understand why). As a local renter I have no choice but to cancel this reservation (three days before the actual trip).
Then I charged me the rental. I don’t know what to say and call the customer service. They told me there is a $ 50 cancellation fee. But hey, who’s fault is that? If prior to the reservation you told me as a local there is no insurance coverage, would I ever make that reservation?
Avoid this one when you have alternatives.

DO NOT RENT from Advantage LaGuardia.
If you live in NYC and wish to rent a car, make sure you have your own car insurance!!! Obviously if I am try to rent a car it means I do NOT own a car, therefore, why would I have car insurance?
The website did not mention that at any point and my credit card was, of course, charged for the full amount!
AVOID AT ALL COST!

I am an avid enterprise girl but given the deal that was offered on priceline, I decided to give this place a shot.
My parents were in town from LA and we had planned a 6 day road trip. I arrived early in the morning to pick up my rental and the girl at the counter said I need to have one of two things to rent the car out:
1. Needed to show proof that I had car insurance in the state of NY.
2. Needed to show proof that I had car insurance in another state with a valid plane ticket that showed I was from out of town.
Like what?
1. I am obviously renting a car because I don’t have one, hence no car insurance. Through priceline I had already purchased a $ 15/​day car insurance but Advantage said it was «not enough coverage». What the hell does that even mean? Apparently, the insurance (the full package deal, not just for collision damage) still didn’t cover for liability.
2. So I had my dad über his way out to LGA so that he could show that he was indeed out of town and that he had insurance in the state of CA. By this time, we are already 2 hours behind schedule after having been the middle man between priceline and the front desk girl (I don’t know why they wouldn’t just talk to each other but they said they couldn’t) and I was beyond annoyed. After I let them know that my dad would be arriving shortly, I asked how they wanted me to prove that my dad had insurance in the state of CA and they told me he needed to have paperwork or they needed to be on the phone with a rep from his insurance company… what? I’m sorry, is my dad the only person that DOESN’T travel with his car insurance paper on him? I literally laughed out loud. Riiiiiiidiculous.
I walked out of there, googled the closest enterprise and literally ran there. Rerouted my dad’s über to enterprise and we arrived around the same time.
Thank you Advantage for my morning exercise.
Walked out of enterprise within the next 5 minutes with a car.

I’m going to keep this review short and sweet. I rented a vehicle here in November for 13 days and got a great deal. The staff was okay with exception of discussing personal problems in the work place.
The real reason why I’m writing this is because I returned the vehicle November 15, it was signed off that the tank was full and no issues as far as damage was concerned. On November 24, I received an unauthorized charge of $ 87 or so from this company. On December 2, I received another unauthorized charge of $ 32. I called December 3 to learn what the charges were for. I was on the phone for 20 minutes before the call was disconnected. I figured it was an issue on my end so I remained patient and called again. Another 20 – 25 minutes of being on hold without having the opportunity to speak with a service rep and the call was disconnected. At this point, I waited nearly an hour to speak with someone and decided to call my bank and file a charge dispute.
My bank deemed the charges as fraud and have now voided the charges. Enjoy the charge-​backs, Advantage Rent-​A-​Car! Stop ripping off customers!
It only receives two stars because of the value I received otherwise I would’ve given it one star.

Adding to the negative local reviews. I booked on
and prepaid for the low rate.
I arrived on time for my pickup to find out about their local car rental policy, if you live within 65 miles of the branch, you need to have primary auto insurance. So either you need to already own a car, with insurance or your a rider on someone else’s policy. Since I don’t own a car and I didn’t want to forfeit my money, I had to be added to a friend’s policy.
I had to travel back to Brooklyn, talk to my friend and return 8 hours later after he successfully added me. When I returned, they did not have any cars available to rent. I asked if he could issue me a refund because they could not provide the service. I was told to call their customer service, which in turn told me that I’d have to talk to
for a reimbursement. Thanks for wasting more of my time.
Nowhere in the e-​mails I received did it explain the extra limitations on local rentals. 8 hours of my life wasted, an extra $ 25.00 spent on NJ Transit and spending $ 100 on a primary car insurance that rendered useless because of their inability to rent me a car, I went to an adjacent desk, Budget. 5 minutes later, spending only an extra $ 60 than my original booking, I got a car through them. No up selling, no crap.
issued me a refund with no hassle, thank god but I’m still out $ 150 from getting primary insurance and money spent on NJ Transit.
Burn in hell Advantage. Shame on you.

Well, usually one would think that renting a car makes your life easier. «Yeah! I can have independence to move and manage my own times».
That’s common sense, right? Well in the Advantage rental car world, this kind of common sense doesn’t quite apply.
After doing a long line, I felt that tickling in my stomach. «I’m the next one», I thought. I was almost there. So anxious to get that car and drive to my dear friend’s wedding! My timing was tight.
But with life, sometimes frustration comes. In this case through the hands of the retarded assholes from Advantage car rental service. I actually wonder why they call it that. Is it an Advantage to have to wait over an hour to get the car you reserved days ago?