Gary Leff knows he shouldn’t complain too much about renting a car.
“It’s incredible even the idea you can rent a car in the first place,” said Leff, founder of the travel blog View From the Wing. “You give me this $50,000 asset and say ‘Bring it back’ and you trust that I will and it kind of works.”
Still. He has some peeves. So do many other travelers who vent about long waits, pushy upsells, surprise fees and even sometimes a lack of cars altogether.
“The rental car process is one that leads to a whole bunch of charges, or annoying steps to avoid charges, that are substantially greater than the rate that you’re quoted,” Leff said.
Here’s a sampling of common rental car concerns — and some solutions for how to handle them.
1 hour and 30 minutes later I’m through customs. Now it’s time to wait in another line for the rental car
pic.twitter.com/LTXrlowuWD
— K.Asante (@TK0Asante) August 18, 2025
Long lines
Jonathan Weinberg, founder and CEO of the discount car-rental site AutoSlash, said he hears from customers every day about their frustrations. One of the top complaints: long lines at the counter to pick up a car.
“Staffing shortages are kind of endemic,” he said. “I think the rental car companies are doing everything they can to keep their operations very lean.”
If a flight gets canceled and people rush to rent a car, or some staffers don’t make it to work, the lines “can just be astronomical,” he said.
Weinberg said the best solution is to join the loyalty program for any company you’re renting from. Usually, that means you can skip the counter — and line — and go straight to the garage for your car.
“Then you’re off and running,” he said.
Mystery vehicles
When Miami resident Bradley Gerber was looking to rent a car in Portland, Oregon, for a trip with his wife, daughter and mother-in-law this summer, he found himself considering makes and models he knew nothing about. A Mazda CX-50? Kia K4? What now?
“It seems like it ought to be easier to describe what you’re looking for and get the car that meets your needs,” said Gerber, who works in public relations. “Instead, you go to the website, they use these terms like intermediate sedan. Well, what is that?”
He asked an AI tool to compare the difference in cubic inches for head space and cargo between different vehicles. Gerber said last week that he hadn’t made a decision yet.
“I’m still working on it,” he said.
Travelers also complain about being “upgraded” to a different kind of car than they booked; maybe it’s technically a step up, but the new car might be too big for the type of trip planned, or for the driver’s comfort level. Renters can request a vehicle most similar to the one they booked if they don’t want to size up. If it’s the upgraded size or nothing, Weinberg said customers shouldn’t have to pay extra.
No-show cars
The complaint has been around for decades: you reserve a vehicle and show up to find zero cars. It was immortalized in a 1991 episode of “Seinfeld,” where Jerry Seinfeld learns at the desk of a rental car agency that the midsize car he reserved was not available.
“See, you know how to take the reservation. You just don’t know how to hold the reservation,” he says. “And that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding.”
Rory Francisco, 40, experienced that scenario in December at Los Angeles International Airport. The manager for an aviation company got to the counter of the rental car company and saw “dozens” of people standing around.
“The agent at the counter said, ‘Yeah, we are completely sold out. It’ll be probably a four-hour wait to get a car,’” Francisco recalled. “I had to literally just sit on the floor in the Hertz office at LAX and pull out my laptop and get some work done.”
And, yes, it took about four hours.
Experts say rental car branches sometimes end up without vehicles because they can’t always correctly predict what the need will be. Many companies allow people to reserve a car without paying in advance, so they aren’t penalized if they don’t show up. Some frequent travelers who worry about inventory take advantage of that policy and reserve cars from multiple companies to increase their chance that a vehicle will be waiting.
We’re having reservations about this scene. Stream the complete series on Netflix. #seinfeld #carrental #sitcom #jerryseinfeld #elainebenes
Insurance upsell
The desk agent might ask which type of insurance you prefer to add to your rental. Weinberg said that question could be a ploy to hike the total cost and earn the agent a commission when the answer might simply be “I don’t want to add any insurance” based on coverage a renter already has. So it’s important to know before you go.
Leff said that when he rents a car, he knows what his personal insurance covers and what protection his credit card offers.
“Basically, I don’t want any of their extras,” he said. “I don’t want their coverage. But like I said, I know that I have that coverage to begin with.”
Toll travails
Rental car companies offer different plans for handling tolls, but they generally come with an administrative fee.
Francisco, a former resident of Virginia who is moving to Los Angeles, said he bought a SunPass Pro, which works in Florida and 23 other states, to avoid those extra fees. Drivers can add a rental car’s license plate to their account.
Weinberg, who lives in New York City, said he usually grabs his own E-ZPass to use when renting a car. Sometimes, though, the toll will register the rental car’s transponder.
“One time it actually registered both of them, so I paid the rental car company’s and my own,” he said.
Damage inspection
Many travelers turn into documentarians before taking their rental car out of a garage to ensure they aren’t blamed for any preexisting dents or paint scratches.
Some rental car companies have turned to AI scanning technology that examines a rental vehicle when someone leaves with and returns it. Those tools have led to complaints that consumers were falsely blamed for damage.
“Renters should always take pictures from all sides as well as the interior of the vehicle,” Weinberg said.
Car seat fees
Carter Skeel, executive director of the Institute for Family Studies, was looking for a rental car for a work trip when he saw the option to add a car seat. The cost was about $14 a day. As a father of four kids under 6 and head of a family-focused research and advocacy group, he was troubled that the company would charge for something that is legally required.
“A rental car company would never charge for seatbelts, for example,” he said in an email. “This then results in a prejudice against family customers.”
In an interview, he said the need for multiple car seats in his family “shapes where and how we travel.” And he thinks the fee is symbolic of the way families are treated more broadly in public life.
“I would love for a rental car company to step up and say, ‘Hey, we want to be pro-family and this is just going to be something we’re going to comp for people because we want families to be able to travel and use our rental cars,’” he said.
Some rental car agencies such as Hertz offer free use of a child safety seat to AAA members, a good perk to keep in mind. But the bring-your-own approach can work for travelers who don’t mind the extra baggage: Airlines allow passengers to check a car seat free.
The list goes on
Social media users, Washington Post employees and travel experts also complain about the difficulty in figuring out the controls, audio systems and other technology in an unfamiliar car; paying extra for renters younger than 25; sorting out confusion over fees for additional drivers; being pressured to prepay for fuel; and receiving cars that are dirty or smelly.
With spring break here and summer road trip season around the corner, there’s room to add more to the list of gripes. At least there’s no lengthy TSA line to rent a car.
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