We arrived around 9pm at the Sanford Airport just north of Orlando, FL. We had previously booked our mini van rental through a popular travel website which made our reservation for us through Thrifty Car Rental. After we got our luggage, we made our way to the car rental area of the airport. There were counters for all the well known rental firms with friendly employees helping the waiting customers, except for the Thrifty counter which was completely vacant. Immediately we began to panic, as we had secured a steal of a deal for our week-long mini van rental, had a group of people with us, it was late, we were tired, etc. We waited at the counter for a good 10-15 minutes in hopes that someone would see us and help us. There was no sign or anything saying they were closed or to go anywhere else. Finally, someone from a neighboring car rental firm told us that Dollar owns Thrifty and maybe we could go to the Dollar counter (which was in a different area of the airport). So we lugged all of our things to the Dollar rental place, where we were grudgingly greeted by two employees in the midst of flirting before we showed up. Fortunately, they were able to help us out and we finally got into our mini van about 45 minutes of this whole ordeal.

To top this off, two days before leaving to go back home, the gear shifter of the mini van fell off! The van still shifted, but you could pull the shifter off and on with ease. We called Thifty to see what we should do (we didn’t want to get stranded somewhere in case the shifter quit working). They said all we could do is drive back to the airport (45 minutes from where we were staying) and exchange it for a new van. We opted not to because we only had one full day of vacation left and didn’t want to drive for an hour and a half for this.

The only good thing was that we didn’t get charged for the shifter. I know it wasn’t our fault, but I’ve heard of car rental firms trying to nickel and dime customers before. We must have been lucky!

I think I would rent from them again, but only if we get a steal of a deal again.

Rating: 7