Don’t do it…. Honestly folks, walk away.
We have been coming to SXM for 15+ years. We are the most easy-going couple who hardly ever post negative reviews. Not so today….
We booked a car at Europcar through an online car rental search engine. We reserved a Hyundai Accent (or equivalent) with an automatic transmission. When we arrived in SXM, the Europcar lot was pretty much empty. They had our registration but no cars. We were offered our choice of two vehicles with standard transmissions. I can drive a standard but that’s not the point.
The car we were given was a Chevrolet Spark. When we said it wasn’t equivalent to a Hyundai Accent, the agent shrugged his shoulders and said “it’s got 4 doors.” The car was well dented and scratched – even the roof was dented. It looked like it had been rolled or was hurricane damaged. In several places tape and stickers were used to conceal holes in the body. The air conditioning was marginal at best. Quite often the car would pop out of gear on hills – scary for sure. The car would have been pride of the fleet for Rent-A-Wreck. It had a spare tire which was flat. They filled it but we had to ask them to add a jack and wrench.
The agent said that they didn’t have any other cars available and that maybe Monday we could swap it out. When we drove past the car lot several times it was always empty.
There were several other people who came in the Europcar office after us - also with rental reservations. One was sitting on the curb in tears as she couldn’t drive a standard.
When we returned the car prior to flying home, a customer at the counter was being forced to buy collision insurance even though he protested that the credit card he used to rent the car covered that. If he didn’t take out the additional insurance, he was told he couldn’t rent the car. No ethics here…
Bottom line on Europcar? Never again…….
I have had to rent a car post Irma since my car was damaged in the hurricane. That being said it was years since I rented a car and I have to tell you I have had terrible experiences renting cars. One time I was quoted a price at the airport and when brought to the office the manager of the car rental agency gave me such a runaround I told him bring me back to the airport.
