Eek! Wow, the 1.5 stars overall rating for this place is SCARY! ...and a bit surprising.
Two things I should mention:
1. We arrived at the Denver airport sans any car rental reservation and upon landing, learned that we needed to rent an automobile. Our situation was very last minute and, to our dismay, when we approached all of the better-known rental businesses such as Hertz, Enterprise, Budget, etc., everyone was completely booked. One of the shuttle drivers for the other companies recommended Payless, pointing to the end of the street, telling us that Payless "is better." We had no choice at this point and were relieved when the Payless shuttle driver confirmed that they had available automobiles for us to rent.
2. Shortly upon arrival at Payless, I noticed the 1.5 stars average rating, gasped, but, again, sucked it up because we had no other options. We considered ourselves forewarned of a possible nightmarish experience.
To our pleasant surprise, we didn't have much to complain about Payless.
Pick-up at Denver Airport: As I mentioned earlier, we approached the shuttle driver, fingers crossed, and asked if Payless had any availability for us. Luckily, they did, so we hopped on and were quickly driven to the office.
Rental Office Experience: We arrived to a practically empty building. Initially, I thought that the place was clean and tidy, but as I started to really pay attention to details, I realized that venue needed some major care; the busted baseboards at the entry looked really ghetto and the FILTHY window sills, almost each with a dead moth or two, super grossed me out. The women's restroom could have also used a good cleaning.
With no line, we were helped immediately by Shailesh who was very nice and friendly. He even gave me a free bottle of water, so that I could take an aspirin for my headache. Our final total rental invoice amounted to $1,228.79 for June 18 through 25, 2024 for a standard SUV. I thought that this was a decent price for what we got.
From arrival, to leaving with our rental took about two hours altogether. The first car didn't have the appropriate USB connector to charge my phone, so Shailesh ordered another car that we could use. As we waited for the second automobile, two were driven up for pick-up (one for us, another for another customer). After comparing the two SUVs that were pulled up for us, the gracious other client agreed to trade rentals with us because his had the USB connector that we needed. Unfortunately, though, the other patron accidentally drove off with both keys, so we were stuck. Shailesh kindly had a third vehicle pulled out for us, a 2024 Kia Sorento, which was new, clean, and functioned perfectly.
No issues whatsoever with the automobile. We were very pleased with our rental.
Rental Return Experience: We drove up to the return area and shortly thereafter, a Payless shuttle arrived. The driver instructed us to leave the keys in the car, swooped us up, and drove us back to the airport. Easy peasy. THE smoothest, most convenient, and easiest rental car return experience EVER!
Really scratching my head over all of the bad reviews because, other than the venue issues, our Payless experience was quite great. I would definitely consider renting from here again if I return to the Denver area. read more