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Seattle, WA

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Budget Car Rental

1.6 (497 reviews)
Open • Open 24 hours

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All of the car rental places are in same building. For whatever reason budget is the only one with an EXCESSIVE live. About 50-75 people deep. The line took a 1.25 hours to get through. All the other places maybe had 10-15 people in line. Absolutely nuts. Go with ANYONE else.

Line out the door waiting on cars they don't have.

They literally ran out of cars. We waited in line for an hour and 10 minutes and despite having reserved our car they did not have one to give us for at least another 30 minutes. The line stretched out the door and they had no cars available to give people.

Check engine light came on w an overheating alert; car only has 1238 miles on it.
Faheemah M.

Worst rental experience ever!! If you are returning from a cruise (or on a morning when a cruise ship returns) DON'T RENT HERE (this location or downtown on 5th Ave)!! Spare yourself!! Here's the "play by play": -Prepaid for a rental to pick up at 10am on Saturday, July 12 at the 5th Ave location. Was scheduled to return it at the airport at 8pm the following day. -Showed up, line was literally a block long. After 3 hours waiting, half of the line was finally told the location did not have enough cars, even for those of us who pre-booked and prepaid. -We were given two options: (1) leave and wait for a call 3 hours later, when they would have more cars (where were we supposed to go with 4 luggages?!), or (2) take a taxi/Lyft/Uber to the airport, where we could get a car immediately AND be reimbursed for the ride there. -We took option 2 and took a $77 Lyft to the airport. When we arrived, we learned that we were LIED TO!! (1) There's no such reimbursement option. And (2) the airport location could not simply transfer our reservation without additional fees (i.e., they wanted to charge us the airport rate, although we had prepaid and it wasn't our fault that this location did not have a car for us). -One of the managers at the airport was rude and implied that he couldn't offer us anything at all but a bill. His coworker called me over and promised to make an adjustment. We left with a car for the same amount we prepaid. He also said he'd try to get us some money from a higher-up for the taxi and would call me back the next day. He never called, and I never received the $77. -The car from this location turned out to be a LEMON! I had to have the car towed back the next morning using my AAA because it started overheating and the check engine light came on. Mind you, the car was pretty new and only had 1,200 miles on it. Yes, you read the mileage correctly. -Once we towed the car back to the airport location, we were given a replacement and guess what? A BILL!! The manager (Marie Larson) had one of her employees *supposedly* reopen the account for the car I returned in order to provide a new one, but something must've gone wrong and I ended up being charged $256.77 for having a car for 2 hours. That was on top of the $154.43 I had prepaid, plus $77 for a Lyft from this location to the one in the airport. - At the end of the day, I paid $488.44 to do NOTHING!!! Due to all of the issues, my mom and I weren't able to spend a day traveling around Seattle. Instead, we spent hours simply trying to get a reliable car that we prebooked and prepaid for. -I am still fighting Budget for my money back. It's criminal. Never again will I rent from them. Worst customer service EVER!! -I see other reviews saying that they were wrongfully charged hundreds of dollars, too. This seems like a fraudulent scam and I hope everyone reports them to the Better Business Bureau. If I could give 0 stars, I would!

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1 month ago

Super long line. Line for Fastbreak even slower. There has got to be a better way to get people in their cars.

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Lien was abosultly amazing first class service all the way I will def coming back to this location for this amazing service

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Review Highlights - Budget Car Rental

“I am a Fastbreak member, so I can't speak much on working with their front counter staff.”

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Enterprise Rent-A-Car

3.9(620 reviews)
0.0 mi

I only rent a few cars a year when traveling domestically. I'm always preferring Enterprise these…read moredays and this last trip was no exception. We got a deal through Expedia and ended up being able to pick out a Toyota RAV 4. We greatly prefer getting a Toyota as we have two at home and know how to work the controls. Not crazy about driving an SUV and although the RAV 4 is a nice machine, the LE version was somewhat bare-bones. Not complaining as I had a hard time even finding the lights the last time I rented a Ford. Everything with our rental was great. Enterprise always has excellent customer service and all the people I dealt with were terrific.

A last-minute trip needed a last-minute car rental. Enterprise is my go to and I usually only rent…read moreabout once a year so it's not necessarily a familiar process. But the staff team that works the SeaTac venue was truly seamless. It was Gabe who first assisted me to confirm my paperwork and I think that took less than 10 minutes because I've been able to make the reservation by phone. I want to be really clear that I talked to a human to make the reservation and that made all the difference for me. The online version of it was inefficient and didn't allow me to ask questions and get clarification that I needed so I hope Enterprise continues to allow customers to talk to human Customer Service representatives because not all questions can be answered online. Then I was sent to the next area which involved some trepidation because it was a vast area of garage space but immediately Natalie who was part of Enterprise approached me and took my tentativeness and turned it into confidence. She walked me past several areas and made sure that I was put into a vehicle that suited my concerns. And instead of feeling limited by my selection upstairs I felt I was actually given some options in which car I could land in. That made a tremendous difference. Her welcome was genuine and she was very helpful. So between Gabe and Natalie I had a great car pick up experience. And then I'd like to mention Christian who helped me get out of my car when I returned it 24 hours later. He helped me figure out why I would not get a day return back Despite returning at 12 hours earlier, and he was friendly and very positive about his work. I think he was celebrating a work anniversary actually but I don't remember which one it was. Regardless kudos to Enterprise for having such great staff work with us to make a car pick up and car returns simple and seamless. My only issue now is that I left some keys in the car and I would love to figure out how to get a hold of them. I did email Enterprise but have not heard back. I wonder if there is a more direct route to figuring out Lost and found items?

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Enterprise Rent-A-Car
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Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Enterprise Rent-A-Car

3.3(104 reviews)
2.9 mi

I had a great experience at this location. The staff was friendly, professional, and took the time…read moreto explain everything I needed to know. I've rented cars from several other companies, but this Renton branch has been the best experience by far. A special thanks to Frida. She was respectful, knowledgeable, and made the entire process smooth and enjoyable. Her excellent customer service really stood out. I would definitely rent from this location again and highly recommend it to others!

It's hard for me to leave a negative review when the people here are super friendly and work hard…read more It's taken me weeks to post this because I don't want to penalize the employees if staffing decisions at a higher level are to blame. I like the app and website for Enterprise. I've rented multiple times from Enterprise. I'm a part of their Enterprise Plus loyalty program. I've always found Enterprise to be a convenient, painless experience. On this occasion. I've never had to wait so long for a rental vehicle with so few people in line. And the vehicle was dirty inside and out. I had to ask them to clean it again before I left. REALLY DIRTY. I made my reservation on the website for a Saturday , 4/25, 9 a.m. pickup. Easy peasy so it seemed. I actually got a call the day before from a rental agent who said they might be short on vehicles if someone doesn't return on time, but they would pickup up a vehicle from one of their dealers if necessary, and 10 a.m. would be the time I'd be out of there if that was the case. She asked if I wanted to show up later just in case that happened. I said I'd show up at the original time in case all the returns were on time. I appreciated the call and heads up. I try to be flexible and roll with things. When I arrived on Saturday morning, before they opened their doors, I was optimistic because I saw a vehicle from a distance matching what I reserved in the lot. Still dripping from being washed. Confidence was high. When they opened their doors there were I think 3 customers in line ahead of me (not including spouses, etc..). At least one of the people in front of me was a walk-in. No reservation. They took forever, and weren't picking up a vehicle until later in the day from what I gathered . Great. There was only one rental agent to start with. And another one showed maybe a half hour later. We were going nowhere fast. At one point the agent announced she was checking everyone in first. And then people would get their cars. Understaffed, she said. That's a TERRIBLE system. If you can call that a system. Another customer was on some deadline pressure to return a loaner vehicle at the dealer and they weren't going to make it. When they got to me, I did the walk around with the 2nd agent and the car seemed pretty dirty on the outside once I got closer, although you could see water droplets from being washed. I mentioned this to the agent, and she said, yeah, the previous renter probably went out to the woods or something. We finished the checkout process and she went on to the next customer. Before I left, I wanted to make sure I understood how to fold down and stow the seats, that's why I rented this particular vehicle. Supposed to be effortless. When I opened the compartments to stow the seats it was ABSOLUTELY FILTHY. Food, crayons, garbage. I was going to put my bag in one of those compartments. Even before I opened the compartments there were wrappers and crumbs visible still under and behind seats. I was 100% grossed out (see my photos if you want to be horrified too) . I didn't want to get blamed for the mess and dirty vehicle. And I shouldn't be paying to rent a dirty vehicle. I waited until the rental agent was done with another customer and I told her I needed the vehicle cleaned again. To their credit they took it back and took another crack at it. It took another 10 minutes maybe? They apologized again for being understaffed (only one detailer and he did his best but their vacuum isn't good for detailing. That sounds problematic to me.) Anyway between standing in line, having the vehicle cleaned again, adjusting the mirrors, etc.. I didn't get on the road until about 10:15 a.m.. It shouldn't take that long to pickup a rental vehicle when pickup time was 9 a.m. I'm still a loyal customer. I'll continue to rent from Enterprise, but customers shouldn't be standing around waiting for that long or receive vehicles this dirty. If you choose to rent from this location, be prepared to wait and hour or more before you get on the road. I suggest taking care of people who made online reservations first. Especially if they did the online check-in process already and are Enterprise Plus members. If staffing is the underlying issue, please hire more people. If training is an issue, please do more training. And please buy a better vacuum. And charge the customer that rented this vehicle before me $10,000 for trashing it.

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Enterprise Rent-A-Car
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Avis Car Rental

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1.7(407 reviews)
0.0 mi

this was where we returned our rental: i'll say, once you put it on Maps, keep driving around look…read morefor signs to Avis / Car Rentals; maps won't directly take u. the way there is a bit tedious, driving around inside garage. pull up little earlier, so u return the car with time

Probably the worst rental car experience to date.! To start off, although this is the Sea-Tac…read moreAirport location, the rental facility is only reachable via airport shuttle. With the wait and the ride, it took us about an hour to just reach Avis where ANOTHER line is waiting for us. After another 30 mins wait, we finally reach the counter where the staff was very rude and demanded my corporate badge for the corporate leisure discount I used. When I couldn't provide it, she demanded to see my most recent paystub and studied it for a good minute when I pulled it up on my phone. This is such an odd ask and invasion of my privacy. Through many years of using corporate leisure codes, I've never had to provide my badges or paystubs. After check in, we got sent downstairs to get the car. Once again total chaos! The lines are mixed in with Budget, and they ran out of cars, so we had to grab anything that's available (not even the class of car we booked). Overall took over 2 hours for car rental. Returning was also chaotic, the return area was overrun by cars and the line waiting is out of the garage. A lot of yelling from the staffs, and there was no official check out process. We gave them the key and that was it.

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Avis Car Rental - Maintenance required warning

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The 'shorter' line.

Fox Rent A Car - 12.15.25

Fox Rent A Car

1.7(1.1k reviews)
0.0 mi

I was concerned. I did a package on Expedia and the Fox rental popped uo with the best car choice,…read moreso I went with it. My biggest issue was with someone in line who literally took forever, sucking up one spot while the other spot turned over at least 3 times. How much time do you need at a rental counter? They do a little heavy sale on the CDW, but you can turn it down and move on. After that (amd befoe, like on the shared shuttle), the experience was the same as pretty much any other non-elite status renter. was shocked at the quality of the car. I wanted an SUV and got a really big and nice VW Atlas. It was full size adn then some, with heated seats. It was more car that I was expecting. return was easy, and we were on our way.

HORRIBLE experience. You can't actually read what you're signing. The screens are blank, and your…read moreagent will *helpfully* tell you what each screen says. You can verbally decline roadside assistance and additional roadside coverage, but guess what? You signed for it! We were told we should prepay for fuel. We opted to take our chances and refill ourselves. We paid $1.50/gallon less than the prepaid cost. I spoke with the manager when I discovered these things. He said I shouldn't sign for anything I can't see, but he's well aware of how the place operates. SCAM. Knowingly pay a little more at literally any other rental company, or you'll pay a LOT more for this crap.

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Side

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Drug paraphernalia found under backseat when lifted up to clean

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3.5(560 reviews)
0.1 mi

I don't usually have positive experiences with rental car agencies, but overall we were really…read morehappy with the SeaTac Alamo! The rental process was easy (most of it done online without needing to talk to anyone), and the car itself was in good shape, with a full tank, and there were no billing issues upon returning the car. That in itself makes this experience unique compared to other car rental agencies. My only complaint was that the checkout process was quite slow, getting out of the airport. Other than that, super recommended!

I felt that I needed to rate 5 stars and review this Alamo location because I've had a couple of…read moreexcellent experiences now, whereas in general, I've had my share of terrible car rental experiences. In summary, every employee was refreshingly courteous and professional, and the entire process was executed well. After having reserved through Costco, checking in was quick, smooth, and painless, ending with the friendly staff person giving us clear and helpful directions where to go next to pick out a car. Another friendly staff member directed us to our section of the lot, and as we were about to drive out, another friendly staff member answered a few miscellaneous questions before leaving. On returning the car, a final friendly staff member offered to help get out bags out of the car and clear directions how to catch the shuttle back to the airport. Really great customer service here!

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Budget Car Rental - carrental - Updated October 2026

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