Car Hire at Santa Barbara Airport

Dollar in Santa Barbara, California did not have a car ready for me, where I was told there would be a 45 minute wait. It turned out to be 30, but in the meantime the staff seemed to indicate I had all this trouble since I went through PriceLine. I wanted to reduce the number of days I would keep the car, and they proceeded to name 3 different prices as a result of the change, each was more than I had paid through PriceLine. The additional cost were a host of taxes that were not included in the PriceLine amount I paid that amounted to an additional 20%.

Manager at the Santa Barbara Airport was very helpful. 7 am pickup, car ready by 7:30 which was perfect. Their cars are older, mine was a 2019 with over 50K miles but got us safely from Santa Barbara to LA and then to San Diego.

Didn’t have the car I ordered. Car they gave me hadn’t been cleaned and it was blocked in by 5 other cars, so took 30 minutes to get out.

Friendly helpful staff

We asked for no insurance as we carry our own. It was added and at $25 a day it added 25% to our total bill. As a courtesy the return assistant deducted $40.

I reserved a Hertz rental car through Kayak several weeks in advance. On the evening of my reservation, I had to take a Lyft from my hotel to the airport ($30) and when I arrived at the Hertz counter they said “Sorry, no cars left.” No call, no email letting me know and saving me a trip. So I had to take another $30 trip back to the hotel and scramble to find another last minute car reservation. Had an important meeting to get to in the morning. Just an overall very stressful situation. Will book directly with car rental agencies next time and call to confirm car availability before picking it up next time I guess!

There were no available cars, but the app allow me to book a car and when I got to the counter the guy told me that they even have a waiting list

The car rental pick-up was closed at 9:00 (when I set the pick-up time through Kayak. This means I needed to spend about $200 in Ubers to get my party to our destinations and to return to the airport the next morning to pick up the car. There was absolutely no number to call for assistance. Why did Kayak allow me to schedule a pick up when the rental agency at the airport was closed?! It was a very frustrating and costly experience. I will book directly with the car rental agency in the future.

Loved the Mustang. Perfect car for a California road trip. I had reserved a convertible, however, and because I arrived 6 hours after my reserved pick-up time, I had to settle for a hardtop. My fault (though I really had no idea about timing when I booked the trip months ago), but I felt a bit overcharged paying the same price as a convertible. Sure, Avis puts them in the same class, but obviously, convertibles are far rarer as leased vehicles and should cost more. That's life, I guess. My other comment is I dearly wish Avis rented vehicles with manual transmissions. I realize it's a dying breed because fat, lazy Americans only know how to drive automatics, but why encourage such sloth? Distinguish yourselves in the marketplace by offering a few sticks. At purchase, such cars are a bit cheaper anyway, and you can rent them for the same or more than an automatic, so it's win-win for everyone. Giving in to American tastes is just lowering the bar. These people still buy minivans and eat at McDonald's, and no one ever went broke underestimating consumers in this nation. All of which is to say, offer more manuals, please.

The line at the counter was long but the staff moved it quickly. It didn’t have a car that I reserved, so I took a Frontier compact truck. The price was good and the return at a different location in Southern California was easy and painless.

Avis did not have the car I reserved when I arrived even though I called them that my plane was arriving an hour late and they assured me they would honor my reservation. It took an hour before they had a car that was within the size range I reserved and were trying to give me a much larger, uneconomical car. I refused it and they finally gave me a suitable replacement. The car I finally ended up with was great... Hopefully, this is all due to pandemic problems because the price was also triple of what I have paid in the past...

Everything was easy.

My rental car was not clean on the inside or outside. I’m not as concerned with the outside because I understand that’s harder to control, but I expected the inside to be spotless given the current state of the world. Instead, it was dusty, had sticky spots from a spilled beverage (I’m assuming), & dirt footprints throughout the car, such as on the passenger side (where I have not been sitting, or had a passenger). Additionally, there were no disinfecting wipes in the car for me to use to clean, which I’ve received in other rentals during the pandemic, so I had to use the ones I’d packed myself to clean the inside of the car to my comfort. It felt as if the car had just been dropped off by the previous renter, then handed off to me. I know there is a rental car shortage, & cars are in much higher demand right now as travel resumes, but as a renter I would hope that my safety is the highest priority! Adding this on top of what I paid for this rental car, I will not rent from Alamo again.