Budget Rental Cars

[la37]

We had called and reserved a car about a month before our cruise. My brother had some trouble with a rental in the past in which the company had charged the deposit to his debit card and would not release the money for about a week. I talked to Budget ahead of time about this issue. We were going to rent the car on Wednesday at the airport and turn it in on Thursday morning before the cruise at Cocoa Beach. Then we were going to rent it again on Sunday morning at Cocoa Beach and turn it in on on Monday afternoon at the Orlando airport. We were assured that the $200 deposit would be held on the debit on Wednesday and credited back within two days. That way we could use the same $200 on Sunday when we rented the second car. When we got to the rental desk at the airport they said that it would take up to two weeks to get the deposit credited back to the debit card. This meant that we had to have an additional $200 for Sunday for a total of $400 in deposit plus the rental fee. We rented the car to go to Cocoa from the airport on Wednesday because we were kind of stuck there with no other transportation but when we got to Cocoa Beach I made arrangements with Arts Shuttle for Sunday. We did not rent from Budget on Sunday and we will not rent from Budget again. I do not rent from companies that lie to me. This is just to let everyone know to beware.

 

[DrCavin]

It is frustrating when person A says one thing & then person B has a different view on the situation. Renting a car, checking into a hotel, etc using a debit card should only be done as a last resort, the person checking you in may say they will only charge x & next thing you know some other amount has disappeared or funds not released when they said they would be. It seems that car rentals are the biggest pain in the butts about using debit cards. I guess they have been stuck with some repairs to vehicles & want to make sure the funds are available if they find some damage.