I should preface this by saying that I've rented cars from Sixt in France and in Scotland. Both of those experiences were excellent.
Sixt Belfast, however, is a very different story. It was bad. Like, sleazy used car dealership bad. Really, really bad.
First, Sixt does not have a counter at the Belfast City Airport, you have to call them for a ride out there, they are about a mile away from the airport. This is an important point, because realize, you're out somewhere you don't know, not at clear on how to get back to the airport if things go sour. You can't decide that this not the group you want to rent from and walk right next door to Hertz. You're stuck. This is a significant element in how things went for me.
The gentleman picking me up at the airport was certainly friendly and outspoken, no doubt about that, not much else to say.
At their office, things began to go wonky. I had pre-selected a vehicle to rent from the Sixt website. I'd settled on a higher price because I wanted to guarantee an automatic transmission: I'm from the US, driving on the left is not the norm for me, and while I'd just had a week of left hand driving in Scotland right before, I didn't feel the need the extra work of shifting in the opposite direction. The price for that vehicle, as agreed and accepted on their website, was to be $390.
But they didn't have that vehicle. And they told me that if I wanted to stick with an automatic, I would have to pay an upgrade fee. Which came to about 15 £, per day, which worked out to be about $20 per day, about $160 over the entire eight day rental period.
Ouch. Not a huge ouch, but, ouch. I was very specific in checking with them that they truly didn't have the vehicle I'd scheduled, or anything smaller with an automatic transmission, and they were very clear they did not, and I was stuck with the upgrade.
Next, they started working on me about the extra insurance. I didn't want the extra insurance. I hadn't been in an accident in forever, and even then it hadn't been my fault at all. They indicated that the vehicle came with a 1200 £ deductible, but said that what I really needed was to pay for the 100 £ deductible. I told them very clearly that I didn't really want that. The gentleman there said, very clearly, that if I didn't pay for the insurance upgrade, they'd have to charge 1200 £ on my credit card and hold it until after the rental was complete. I was fine with that, that didn't seem unreasonable, and told him so.
This gentleman then told me that when I returned the car, the group receiving would work really hard to find something wrong with it, and work on getting the 1200 £ from me. I asked if I understood correctly that he was saying that if I didn't take the extra insurance, they were going to gouge me for 1200 £ when I returned the vehicle. He nodded slowly in confirmation.
Had I still been in the airport, I would have left immediately and gone to a reputable outfit like Hertz, or similar. But I was stuck.
The fee for the added insurance was 24 £ per day, about $31, and worked out to be about $240.
The total they came up with was 770 £, about $1,000. For an eight day rental.
I told them there was no way I could afford that. One of the gentleman that was working me over then asked, "well, how much can you afford?" It was surreal. I told them maybe as much as 500 £. They then spent about twenty minutes messing with the computer, taking off random insurance items, whatever, and got it down to 670 £, and told me that was the best they could do.
I'm stuck, it's taken much longer than expected, I'm now behind schedule. I said ok, and that was how it went.
In Sixt Edinburgh (Scotland), they'd given me a list of issues they'd known about, and told me to check the vehicle in case there was something else wrong. Sixt Belfast folks told me that there was nothing wrong with the vehicle. I went to do a walk around, found several issues, they told me not to bother, and wouldn't record the issues I reported. They said "We know what's wrong with this vehicle."
So, know this, and decide for yourself if this is an outfit you'd like to do business with. I would take a pass. read more