National Car Rental Reviews

We left a smallish bag with a souvenir ceramic bowl on the back seat of our return vehicle by accident. This was at the small Jackson WY airport location last Thursday. We submitted an online lost and found request immediately before boarding our return flight. We never received any response even though their website says “Please rest assured that we make every effort to hold items that are left behind.” This is obviously not true.

I have rented hundred of cars from various rental companies. IMO National stands above the others in many areas, from the skipping the counter and going straight out to the vehicles and choosing the one I want "and usually getting an upgraded option" to the super friendly people at the gate who makes sure everything is just the way it is suppose to be.

In over 40 years of business travel, National Car Rental has given me the worst customer service experience of my life. As part of their Emerald club executive elite renters, I literally rented a car from them every week. Until this past February, when they refused to let me rent a car because it was a crack in my drivers license. It was Saturday night, I was sick and just got off a flight, and they told me to get out and take an Uber or go to another rental company. Unbelievable.

National Rental Car completely failed me. My rental died on the road, and instead of helping, they sent me in circles. The Uber link they provided didn’t work. They sent me to Enterprise, who had no clue what was going on and turned me away. I called over and over and kept hearing “your case has been escalated,” but no one ever contacted me. No car. No support. No compassion. I’ve been a loyal customer for six years, and this is how I was treated. I will not be renting from National again, and I want others to be aware of how little support you may receive when something goes wrong.

New policy not including any mes when picking up in one city and dropping off in another. Crap service. Are they too lazy to do math and give an accurate rate at time of reservation? No. They email you later with the hidden charges. Crap policy and terrible service. I will not be renting from a corporation that preys on its customers.

Booked/reserved a suburban out of BWI, Quote ~600 for the week. No Suburban in stock so I took the Tahoe. National's Dynamic Pricing changed my rate to ~1300 for a less class. Luckily this time I had printed my reservation out before travel. If not, once they change your rate you will never find it online in your account because it is overwritten. I have to email the PDF to customer service multiple times to get the credit back. Be warned, print/save your reservation to a hard copy.

I have always had wonderful customer service from National Car Rental. I love how I can just pick a car in the Executive Elite area and check out quickly. In every city I travel, I find the most friendly employees with National. I have never given them a bad review. However, I was at LAX in December of 2025 and decided to return my car the night before my early morning flight. I drove about half a mile from my hotel at LAX and returned my car at 11:15p.m. This location by the way is open 24 hours. When I arrived at the rental car location I asked for a quick ride back to my hotel as the buses had “stopped running” at 10:00 p.m. I was told there was no one to drive me safely back to my hotel. I asked again for assistance because the area around LAX didn’t appear to be very safe.

I rented a car for four days. I wasn’t going to make it back at the schedule time so I called to extend for another day. The price for the 1 day was almost the price for the previous 4 days. I was emerald club member for years and this make me not want rent from National anymore.

As an Executive Elite member, this year has been nothing short of amazing with National Car Rental! Every single location I visited across the country delivered consistent, top-notch service. No matter where I traveled, the experience was seamless and stress-free. I completed 57–58 rentals and will finish the year with an incredible 307–309 rental days! That level of reliability and excellence is unmatched. National Car Rental is hands down the best rental company out there—providing the same outstanding service nationwide. I’ve already shared this feedback on Google Reviews and Yelp, and I hope this message gets passed along to corporate because they truly deserve the recognition. Highly recommend them to anyone who values quality, consistency, and elite-level perks!

Please be careful if you rent from this company, they took 60,500 in miles from my rental reservation + 600.00 additionals in fees, and because I want to use my debit card leaving a 2,000 in security deposit and paying car insurance, they canceled my reservation and keep all the money and miles, this is a fraud.

Absolute lack of organization. 5 hours of waiting for a rental that was reserved over a month ago, just to find that they don’t accept any form of payment except a physical credit card. No Apple Pay, no debit cards, nothing. But failed to mention that at the start of the 5 hours wait. Will NEVER use them again.

I rented a car in Grand Junction, CO. They threatened me with a car detailing bill of $200 and the car was not bad. I've rented cars for my whole business career and never, ever had this situation happen to me -- and I know what bad is and they were just bullies trying to get more money. Usually I use Budget or Thrifty but in Grand Junction you do not have any choices. Be sure that you wipe your feet or they will wipe them on you. Oh and top of it there were no car mats. I basically told them to go chase me for it as they were out of line. Never use them.

Good evening, I am very disappointed with the misleading information, that I received from National Car Rental employee. Also, the way their management handled the situation. I called into NCR, On Thursday to ensure I had the proper coverages when in arrived in Cancun, Mexico. I was told by the NCR employee that the only coverage I needed was the collision damage wavier to rent the car. I asked several times to ensure that I was properly covered.

Like the so called car insurance hustle, the car rental hustle is just another "unregulated" industry that's allowed to operate with impunity. Specifically if mileage is "unlimited", why are rates outrageously escalated if a car is returned to a different state from where it was picked up? Additionally, the escalated charges don't appear on the receipt when the car is returned. When you question customer service about the inflated charge you're given the disingenuous answer of "it's to cover the cost of having an employee return the car to the original pick up location"? There is no such "cost" for returning a car to its pickup point. It will simply be left in the fleet of cars where it is dropped. Why is it necessary to lie to justify gouging a "customer" of 20 years?

Worst car rental ever. Car broke down at hotel and truck came to pick up car, new one was not delivered. left me stranded at hotel with no Uber, Lyft or cabs in town to get to work. Customer service would not return my many, many phone calls all night. Can't believe how bad customer service is and third party roadside reps. Neverr thought I would be stranded without any support.

I wanted to thank the staff at National Rental Car at Sacramento Airport. I received an email from Monique Barfield that they found my wallet while I was on my way to Chicago. It was such a reassuring contact. I filled out the form and I pay for the Federal Express and I got the wallet back the net business day. Nothing was missing from the wallet. Thank you so much for your superb customer service. Nizar

Awful management at KC airport location. They give you a business card at check in with an email to contact if there are any issues. Have emailed multiple times over the past two weeks with no response. Called the corporate office and they put in a message for a manager at the KC branch to return a call, and still nothing. Mine was a minor issue thankfully (needed to change payment method, which was promised I could upon drop off by the representative who checked me in), but want people to know that management is non responsive at this location! Have loved my experience at other National Car Rental locations, just do not recommend renting from the KC location in case you have any issues.

This is in response to National Car Rental in Jacksonville Airport location’s actions; specifically Victoria the Manager. I had a negative interaction with an employee when retuning my vehicle and because of that incident I’m now on a DNR list per Victoria. I understand that it was not mine or the employee's finest hour, however to stick a customer on a Do Not Rent list that has successfully rented several hundred vehicles since 2018 is an overreach. I have read multiple reviews about the Jacksonville Airport Rental location and it appears that this location is a lone wolf. They seem to treat customers however they want and have no oversight.

Had a confirmed rental pick up with National Emerald Club and after taking an Uber to the Killeen Airport to pick it up I was told they did not have my vehicle anywhere in the region. Had several hundred dollars in horse feed to pick up and wasted a hundred dollars on uber. Zero customer service and no follow up from management as promised. Why have a confirmation number if not honored?

I had a tire light come on for a slow leak in a tire. I messaged the text app that said they would handle issues during my rental with no response at this point 24hrs later. I have been trying to get a tire fixed or a different vehicle over 8hrs at this point with no one contacting me outside of me calling them every hour to find out the status. They sent me to an enterprise location who said they didn’t have any cars. I asked on multiple calls about a repair option and was never given an option for that. I drove 50 minutes to the airport location and was told they didn’t have any cars to swap it out but then the nice young man handling the returns there gave me the option to go to Pep Boys and they would repair it and charge it to National.