National Car Rental Reviews

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.