National Car Rental

I normally rent my cars through Hertz due to my membership with them and various other things. (See my 'op' on Hertz) On this occasion I needed to rent a car during the last bank holiday weekend. As this was for a personal trip rather than business, I asked my girlfriend to sort me out a car, she ended up booking with National due to the special Bank Holiday rate of £53 from Friday 12noon until Monday 9am. Not bad eh? = VEHICLE COLLECTION = On arrival at the branch I was greeted by friendly staff, one of the first things you will notice is the colour scheme for National....green,very green ... more

My mission was to organize the transport of 6 people (4 adults and 2 children) from our rural Glasgow retreat to the Costwolds for a wedding via London to pick up another passenger without spending a second mortgage or requiring 2 days to sleep off the effects of a 7 hour drive ? The second part was easy, no way I was going to driver the whole way so we booked a no frills EasyJet flight from Glasgow to Luton. For the first part I thought I would go online and try to hire a 7 seater people carrier. Tried all the big names - Herts, Avis, Europcar these companies were quoting funny money in ... more

My company is renting all their cars through National Car Rental. And recently I made use of them quite frequently, so I thought, I tell you about them. They offer a very good booking service. We for example have an online booking system integrated in our Intranet - you simply fill in the data, get approval by your manager and usually 1 hour later, get the booking details emailed to you by National Car Rental. One option they offer is very useful for me. You don't actually have to go and pick up your car at a branch - even though they have a very good nationwide coverage. You can get them to ... more

Being a frequent renter I recently swapped my contract from Europcar (who are possibly the worst mainstream car rental provider) to National and Alamo Car Rental. The staff at this company are exceptional and have done everything from paying for my taxi fare to the rental location, to providing me with a lift home when I forgot my drivers licence and even providing me with a special account that suits usage of the cars. Renting is always a pleasure, at regional locations they take the time to go through the rental procedure, answering any questions you may have, explain the insurance options ... more

Don't use National! I booked a car online for the weekend using the internet pre pay facility, the rate was £45. When I came to collect the car I was told that there was a rental extension charge, even though the pickup and drop off times were exactly the same as I requested online. The rental extension charge pushed the price to nearly £70, so an increase of more than 50%. When I asked about this I was told that customer services were closed and there was nothing I could do. So I cancelled the car rental on the spot and now over 3 weeks later I am still trying to get my money back. The whole ... more