Payless Car Rental

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Leesbro63
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Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2010 3:36 pm

Payless Car Rental

Post by Leesbro63 »

Planning a trip to the Fort Lauderdale area next month. Rental cars for a week are expensive this time of year. I can get what the rental companies call a "midsized" car (but everyone else knows as a "compact") like a Corolla for about $450 for the week from National, who I have had good experiences with before. Payless is $250. Yelp reviews that I saw were bad for Payless, but I take YELP with a grain of salt. Another relative told me that Payless cars can be more "worn" than the others and the customer service experience isn't good. On the plus, Payless does rent directly out of the Ft Lauderdale airport (FLL) which is important to me. I don't want to go schlepping thru South Florida in February via taxi or even van to get and return the car.

Opinions appreciated.
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SquawkIdent
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by SquawkIdent »

I have rented from them out of Orlando (MCO) numerous times. I have had no problems at all.

The cars were all fairly new and the last time I rented from them I got a car with 800 miles on it. Customer service has been fine. Then again, I don't need a lot of hand holding (I already know the answers to all of their questions about insurance, GPS rental, etc.). Just give me the car with a pleasant attitude and let me start enjoying sunny FLA!

Have a great time in sunny FLL!! :sharebeer
rotorhead
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by rotorhead »

A neighbor of ours just did a Payless one-way rental from Miami to West Palm Beach. The return at WPB airport was done via the Budget Rental office. Not sure what the connection is there; but having using Budget many times in the past, I think that might be a good sign. You might want to check out the connection.
nhdean
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by nhdean »

It sounds as if you have already have made your mind up.
TravelGeek
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by TravelGeek »

rotorhead wrote:The return at WPB airport was done via the Budget Rental office. Not sure what the connection is there; but having using Budget many times in the past, I think that might be a good sign.
Payless' parent company is the Avis Budget Group.

Enterprise Holdings owns the Enterprise, National and Alamo brands. Dollar and Thrifty are part of the same group. Competition in the car rental market has been reduced through mergers and acquisitions in recent years.

I have rented once from Payless at SFO and it was okay (off site location). Given the cost differential, I would probably book it and then keep an eye on rates to see if any of the majors drops in price. The nice thing about car rentals is that they can be rebooked (unless you prepay), and the rates do change quite a bit over time. There is a site called autoslash.com that supposedly monitors rates for you.
adamthesmythe
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by adamthesmythe »

> I would probably book it and then keep an eye on rates to see if any of the majors drops in price.

For sure. This is highly advisable whenever prices seem high. Prices could change up or down up until just before the rental day. Not at all like airlines.
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heartwood
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by heartwood »

If you belong to Costco try their rental program. We rent cars for several months each year at our condo. I check AMEX first since they give you a five or six company comparison. I then check the actual company sites. Most years Alamo was lowest; the last two years it's been Enterprise. This year Costco was the lowest by about $100/month. They offered Alamo and Avis. Avis was the cheapest for what we wanted.

The AMEX site generally has Payless as the lowest for my location, but I believe they charge extra for an additional driver. Some include spouses, but many will charge $10/day to add a driver. Alamo, Enterprise and Costco have the additional driver free, at least for members of their loyalty programs or a Costco member.

Regarding the Yelp reviews, I share your caution about how reliable they are. However I'm also cautious when there are large numbers of reviews involved and the reviews are consistently bad. The Yelp reviews for Alamo and Enterprise in my location are very good compared to Payless and mirror my own experiences: Alamo, good; Enterprise, very good. I've been reluctant to try Payless due to the reviews, but then my price difference has not been as large as yours.
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climber2020
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by climber2020 »

Not Payless, but I rented from Dollar once (which I throw in the same category as Payless) and they stranded me at the airport and refused to rent me a car that I had reserved months in advance because I wouldn't buy the extra insurance. I'm sure many people have had normal experiences with these smaller companies, but since that extremely unpleasant encounter, I only rent from the big name companies and gladly pay extra for it.
John Z
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by John Z »

I just discovered http://www.autoslash.com/ a few weeks ago and tried some sample rentals and they were lower than orbitz prices.
Yes, check constantly since rates vary nearly every day or sometimes during the day.
Dave_M
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Re: Payless Car Rental

Post by Dave_M »

It was a few years ago, but we had a horrible experience with Payless @ Ft. Lauderdale. It took over an hour to get the car; but that was nothing. When we returned it, they were having some sort of shuttle issues, and we eventually had to call a cab to take us to the airport. They just didn't care, didn't try to 'fix the problem' or anything even remotely indicating that they cared.

Never again - the memory of how we were treated dwarfs the other memories of the trip.

ps. at Ft. Lauderdale they are in a pretty sketchy area.

pps. I (prior to this) rented from them several times in Orlando, and was generally fairly satisfied


Dave
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