I thought I’d share a quick post about my experiences with Dollar Rent-a-Car in Washington DC this past weekend, which were…. not so good 🙂 Some of my experiences may be just due to overall business (the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington was also the same weekend), so I can’t tell if this is a systemic issue at the Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA location or not, but there are still a few things that, if I had known about it sooner, I might have chosen to rent somewhere other than Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA.
Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA location
The biggest problem I had with Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA was its location – unlike most of the other rental car companies at DCA, Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA is off-site. See the below map for an idea
I did not realize Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA was off-airport, so I walked from Terminal A through the underground walkway over to the rental car terminal (where Avis, Hertz, etc. are), only to find out that Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA was NOT there, so I had to take a shuttle back to Terminal A, and then the Dollar shuttle off-airport over to the actual location.
Once I finally got over to Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA, there was about a 20 minute line to process my application, and then I went outside and waited another 20 minutes or so for a car to be ready.
I had actually signed up for Dollar Express, which in theory is supposed to let you skip the line, though I only signed up the night before and for whatever reason, it takes 1-3 days to process?!? I’m not sure it would have made a difference anyways, since there weren’t any cars available?
Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA car
I rented a Compact Car, which was what most of us in line had, and there weren’t any Compact cars. Some were being returned, some were being processed, and there were Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA employees just driving in cars (I don’t know where they were coming from!?). After my 20 minute wait and I was at the front of the line, a car drove up, the Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA employee checked it over for like 30 seconds and then gave me the keys and said I was all set.
I know I say to never rent a “standard” car, but I was underwhelmed by my Chevy Spark. It was definitely a “cheap” car, and the one feature I really missed was a CD player. I had brought along a book on CD to listen to but there was no way to do so. I know you kids with your fancy iPods and such, but that was definitely a bummer.
Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA cost
One thing I can’t personally complain about was the cost. I had used Autoslash (my review), one of my Top 10 miles and points tools, and they had found me a deal for only $32 for a 2 day (technically 1.5 day) rental. While in the aforementioned LOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG line, I heard that the guy in front of me was renting for the exact same length of time (pick up Friday afternoon, drop off Saturday evening) and was quoted $65 (love the vagaries of rental car pricing!)
This was actually my 2nd time renting a car at DCA, and the experiences could NOT have been more different. Last time, I rented at Avis (which is on-airport), and because of my Avis Preferred status (which I got for free), I was in and out of the car rental place in about 5 minutes.
(SEE ALSO: Avis changing the car rental price when I add my Wizard number)
This time, even though I landed a few minutes early at about 11:20 a.m., it was nearly 1pm before I was actually on the road
Looking at the 91 reviews on the Google location for Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA (average rating, 1.7 out of 5 stars), I can see that I am not alone! Next time I’m at DCA, I’ll pay a few bucks extra and go for one of the other chains!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Hi all. Let me add my comments about two recent pre-paid rentals at EasiRent, London Heathrow and GoldCar at Rome FCO. Both are off airport and the base price is cheap.
The EasiRent pickup and return is in a hotel car park close to the airport. They say there is a free shuttle. In fact you have to use the Hotel Hoppa bus service which only runs every half hour. I just missed a bus so had to wait 28 minutes. It then took another 25 minutes on a tour around Heathrow to reach EasiRent. The check-in line was not that long but the hard sell to take their insurance was highly annoying [I have a CHASE Sapphire so don’t need expensive rental company insurance]. What was worse however was that I was charged $46.46 for gas. No full to full here, just a payment up front no matter how much gas you use. The car was a Fiat 500 mini and I didn’t expect to use anything like that amount of gas. The return was smoother although unlike on the way there the shuttle was not free. The Hotel Hoppa service cost me $7.50. I could have used a free public bus but that would have taken even longer and has no place for baggage.
In Rome at GoldCar the pick-up service was worse. They do have a free shuttle both ways but nowhere on the confirmation does it tell you that it is operated by Parkn’Go. I waited 15 minutes then called the rental car office. The shuttle will be with you in 3-4 minutes I was told. I waited another 10 minutes before calling again. The shuttle came, I was told. I was then told that it was a Parkn’Go bus with a GoldCar sign at the front. When the next Parkn’Go shuttle arrived 10 minutes later I saw a very small GoldCar emblem on the front. However the driver refused to take me there saying I would have to wait for the next shuttle. When I finally arrived at GoldCar there was one girl manning the whole station and it took me 25 minutes to get a car. The hard sell insurance and the conditions were atrocious. I was told that if I did not take their insurance and the car broke down I would have to call their nominated road service company who would make an unrecoverable call out charge of EU600. I would not be transported with the car but would have to make my own way back to wherever I wanted to go, and then to their depot to pick up another car.
Morals of the story: never rent from GoldCar in Rome and think ten times before renting from EasiRent at London Heathrow.
Personally, I will now forgo the saving, at least on short rentals [as both these were] and only rent on airport from one of the big companies. My experience with AVIS at Heathrow T5 last month was reasonably priced, fast and seamless. Shame that last week they wanted 3x what EasiRent did for a four day rental. At Rome two days ago they only wanted twice as much but I should have paid it. GoldCar’s terms must have been drafted by the Mafia!
I had a very similar experience when I arrived at DCA. I was using Dollar at this location for the first time and had no idea it was off-premises. At any rate, I actually got a decent car once I got to the location (a Chevy Cruze with only 2,000 miles). When I returned the car, there were at least 20-30 people milling around waiting for cars to be ready. I overheard one man telling his wife that they estimated it would be about an hour. Since then, I have not rented from Dollar at DCA, even though the price is typically lower than the rest. It’s not worth waiting an hour to save $20.
I rented a car for a week at dollar and got to say these people are professional ripoff artists. Beside charging me 75.00 for supposed smoking in the car. They charged me 9.99 for a gallon of gas after I filled up before returning it. And they did all this before I even got out of the car and walked inside. Never again. My opinion…they are a bunch of thieves! !!
I recently rented a car with Dollar Car Rental. I picked the car up at the Orlando Airport. After returning the car 2 1/2 days later, I received a phone app notification that my credit card was charged $300 by Dollar Car Rental. When I called the rental agency to inquire, I was told it was a cleaning fee because I smoked in the car. I don’t even smoke! I will never rent another car again without complaining about every single thing, including any odor that may be in the car. I was told I should have called roadside assistance as soon as I noticed the odor.