The best experience in car rental

Overall satisfactory, but the sales representative was not aware that we had already purchased full insurance through QEEQ and still tried hard to sell us additional insurance, even asking the platform staff to call him! Luckily, I firmly explained that we already had full insurance, which was not visible in their system, and the sales representative relented. At the car lot, you can choose your vehicle yourself, though it may not be the exact model you had in mind; it will be from the same series. We ended up with a Nissan mid-sized car, which performed well and was easy to drive!

Our flight was delayed, so we picked up the car at 10 PM without waiting in line.

I have rented cars abroad dozens of times, but this was my first time with Dollar and it was a terrible experience. 1. This was my second time driving on Highway 1, and I specifically rented a classic American Mustang convertible. When I arrived at the store, they told me there were no cars available. One staff member said the same car model was oversold by six, so basically, I couldn't get it. They offered me an upgrade but wanted to charge me an extra $160. WTF? 2. I reluctantly decided to take a Fusion, but then there was another problem. My credit card authorization for the deposit failed. Neither my wife nor I could use three different credit cards successfully. (Later, another staff member retried, but it still failed). So, I had to call my friend in California to use his license and ID to rent the car, which took another half hour. 3. After getting back in line and waiting for my friend to redo the process, the second staff member finally gave me a free upgrade to a Jaguar XE. However, the whole process took an hour and a half, causing us to miss the most important scenic spot, Big Sur (we planned to catch the sunset there), which was the biggest regret of this trip. Overall, Dollar has a car shortage and oversells, has slow service, rude staff, and their credit card machines inexplicably fail (I must note that this was the only company where my credit card had issues during my entire US trip, everything else went smoothly). This affected our trip, and the experience was horrible!

We initially chose Dollar because they had the lowest prices, likely due to a big promotional event. This made the place quite crowded, and we had to wait almost two hours in line for our turn. The representative who assisted us was a Chinese-speaking person, which made us feel at ease, but he was very persuasive in selling additional services. Although we had already purchased comprehensive insurance that included roadside assistance when we booked from home, the clerk mentioned that the assistance might only cover towing for 5-10 miles. This made it hard to decide on the spot, and for an additional $7 per day, we decided to purchase it. He also sold us a full-tank gas option, saying it would be convenient to return the car with an empty tank since gas prices in California were high. Perhaps due to the long wait and feeling hungry, we ended up buying this service too, adding another $89 to our bill. In hindsight, it wasn't really necessary, as we had to carefully plan our refueling to take advantage of this offer. When it was time to choose a car, most of the options were gone because of the crowd, and we couldn't get the Chevrolet Suburban LS SUV we wanted. We spent another half hour in the parking lot and eventually settled for a Nissan SUV. We had six people and a lot of luggage, so we had to fold down one of the rear seats to fit our 28-inch suitcase. Returning the car was similar; with our additional shopping bags, we had to fold down the third row completely to fit two 28-inch suitcases, two 24-inch suitcases, and one 20-inch suitcase, plus several large backpacks. It was a bit crowded with two adults and two children in the second row, but fortunately, the hotel was close to the airport drop-off point.

Like: Great vehicle we wanted a hybrid....did not see one staff at the gate showed us one and we were happy....lots of thanks to the exit staffer...and return staff very fiendly as well!