Car Hire at Ithaca Tompkins County Airport

Jeep Grand Cherokee we rented battery died. Had to exchange cars. People at desk could not have been more friendly,helpful. Got replacement car quickly! Budget representative from central location on phone,however,not helpful and wrong information!

Pros: - last minute availability for a rental car with different drop off location - a kind and helpful employee at return (Newark) Cons: - car was dirty, didn’t look like it had been cleaned with pet hair everywhere and food/slobber marks on seats. - back center seatbelt was unusable. - car was given to us with 3/4 tank full.

I asked for an email receipt so I didn't notice they had my drop-off location wrong - a bodyshop in Buffalo instead of the Syracuse airport. Luckily, I spotted the error in time and Enterprise fixed it right away over the phone.

The vehicle provided was fine, but not the one/size reserved. Rented an 11-passenger van months ahead (to transport a wedding party). Got the rental, and it was a 7-passenger Yukon Denali. The person at the counter said, "we never get 11 passenger vans here." The rental person was totally unhelpful. She said they usually call people in advance to warn them, but for some reason, they didn’t call us. She said they'd be glad to rent us a second Yukon (at full cost to US!). After we expressed our dissatisfaction, she said she could check Elmira or Syracuse and we could drive there to exchange it. After calling, no passenger vans were available. They charged us over $1900.00 for a week long rental that we couldn't even use for the wedding. We ended up getting an ACTUAL 11 person van from Enterprise and our Avis rental sat in the driveway all week. I will never recommend Avis to anyone!

Very friendly personnel, super quick service.

Pickup was excellent, drop off not so much. I dropped off at 5am, so there was no one around of course. My proven stems from trying to get details on the drop off. Something like this would have been helpful "For the Syracuse airport, follow the signs for rental car return, being careful to not go into long term parking. You will turn into the parking garage just before passenger drop off lanes. Once inside, for Avis, drive past the first few rows that say other rental companies. Find an open space in the Avis section and park. You will bring your rental agreement and keys(and your fuel receipt if you topped off gas) inside the terminal. You are supposed to write your mileage on the rental agreement, but I had no pen and neither did the Avis counter. Also the place I got gas didn't give me a receipt at the pump, so other than a full tank I had no proof I got gas, no pen to leave a note. You will most likely come in the center entrance of the terminal and Avis is to your left(north). The drop box for the rental agreement and keys is well marked"

Everything was going perfectly but after dropping off the car I got charged with extra $30 and I was not sure where that was coming from. Probably never going to use KAYAK, other rentals might be bit expensive but at least they never charge you snikey extra money.