My Experience Renting from Sixt in Las Vegas

Although experiences may vary, mine was terrible.  I tried to rent a car from Sixt, last Tuesday.  Here's what happened.

1. I waited for their shuttle.
2. I got in their shuttle and couldn't get the seatbelt working.  They didn't want to wait because it's such a short ride.
3. I tried to rent my car.
4. They tried to scan my Oregon ID with the standard, state-issued change of address label on it.
5. They could not get it to scan and futzed around with it for a while.  This took more than ten minutes, alone.
6. Finally, they decided to just "sign" that they saw the ID.
7. They do the paperwork before you get to the car, including a listing of the pre-existing damage.
8. My wife and I inspected the vehicle and identified a lot more damage than was on the paperwork.
9. We went back in so we could get the other damage recognized and they asked for the keys back because they "couldn't run the ID."  Again, this is a standard, state-issued Oregon ID with the state-issued change of address label in the correct place.
10. They claimed they were going to refund what we had paid and that we would get confirmation of the refund within two days.
11. They gave us an invoice for a one minute rental at $35.
12. It has been nearly a week and we have seen no indication that they are even attempting to process a refund (no email to indicate it was happening, as they said there would be; the charge went through on our credit card).  Getting out of there took another fifteen minutes.

All in all, we spent over an hour and a half getting charged $35 by Sixt in order to not get a car from them.  I will get that money back but who knows how much time and effort it will take in order to get them to refund, or get our credit card company to charge back, the fee they have incorrectly charged us.  In the end, I bet it will be another hour and a half.

Over and above the inconvenience, there is the direct financial cost to me.  If I had booked with a reputable company initially, I would have paid a lot less for unlimited transportation than I ended up paying for very limited transportation.

So the net effect of my experience with Sixt will probably total out at something like:

• They disrupted the beginning of my vacation with their incompetence.
• They caused me to spend more money than I needed to on transportation.
• My transportation options more severely limited.
• I am having to do work to get them to correct (or at least verify that they are correcting) their mistake.

Enterprise, Hertz, and AVIS have never pulled this crap on me.  If you are considering renting from Sixt, I would highly recommend almost any other option - even one that appears to cost more.