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If you think the troubles with Advantage Rent-A-Car were over - you’re wrong. We lost another hour on our way back to airport when we brought the car back. Aside from numerous annoying mechanical issues with the car itself (nothing major - just annoying) it turned out that the contract on it was closed, so a new one had to be created. How these people get anything done - is just beyond me. Literally spent between 40 minutes to an hour just dropping off the car. Would have been more, but some manager type said he wants us out of there so the sales rep had to fill out some forms by hand to enter them into their system later.

I remember I was complaining about car rental companies before, but Advantage Rent-A-Car has truly beaten all the expectations of bad customer service.

Aside from that the vacation was anything short of amazing. Had a lot of fun on the beach and in parks, rested a lot and came up with new project for myself.

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There’s no doubt about various companies struggling in times of financial crisis. There is also little argument about lowered consumer spending. So if you want to keep doing business you have to provide an outstanding customer service to keep clients and to attract new ones - and that has to be just a part of overall picture.

Enter Advantage Rent-A-Car, where I booked my vacation’s car rental through Expedia. Upon  arriving at Orlando International Airport I was trying to figure out where’s their desk, since itinerary didn’t show anything about them. Finally I figured it’s out of terminal location (my bad, didn’t read the fine print) and nice electronic voice on the courtesy phone told me that there are Advantage Rent-A-Car shuttle buses every 10 minutes departing every 10 minutes from one of four locations at the terminal.

There were a few people in that location already, but they were quickly picked up by two other car rental shuttles. Then those shuttles came again. Then again. The Advantage Rent-A-Car representative told another waiting couple over the phone that they have four buses out there. As we found out later - he didn’t lie, we saw other three buses peacefully standing on their designated parking spots when we finally were picked up - 30 minutes later! Well, spending 30 minutes under Florida sun isn’t all that bad experience - but I rather do it on the beach, than all dressed up at the airport.

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