My wife makes a car rental reservation in advance, flies to LaGuardia in New York, gets to the Budget Car Rental counter, only to be told that they won’t honor her reservation. Why? She has a debit card. Our 18-year-old son with her DOES have a regular credit card, but they want to charge an ADDITIONAL $115 per day if the car is rented on his card. If they insist on a credit card, can’t they use our son’s card, but still have my wife as the driver? The address for the card is our home address. The response of the supervisor – NO WAY.
We have rented many cars with this debit card without problems. Avis, National – no problem. Maybe it has something to do with their name – Budget. I guess you get what you (try to) pay for.
Never will we rent with Budget again, and I would urge all readers to seriously consider their competitors. When we made the reservation, no mention was made of their problem with debit cards. This is no way to do business, and we will surely spread our difficulties with them wherever we can.
Beware of renting through Budget!
July 14, 2008 at 7:38 am |
I’ve heard this before that some car companies won’t accept Debt cards.
It’s pretty silly that if you pre-book you’re not told, and if you’re not – why didn’t they make an exception?