Thrifty Car Hire Ireland Reviews 

What an absolute joke of a company. I paid for the 'b' grade car as i needed a bigger car than a mini and was given a Hyundai i10, even though my letter said "renault clio or similar" and when u originally booked it said "ford focus or similar" the people behind the desk could not give a monkeys and offered me to.pay an additional €5 a day to get a bigger car- out of pure principle i declined this. Want to know how I know this car is actually classed as a mini? When you search it on search engines under hertz/thrifty (same company) it says "Hyundai i10 or similar-mini". No reply via email as of yet and hopefully i will receive at least an apology! They were very unhelpful on the phone. Their only saving grace was a LOVELY man who check the car with me. He should be the staff member behind the counter.

Maybe if they paid their staff well they wouldn't have to be brutal regarding the commission they get for every "upgrade" they manage.

I rent cars 4+ times a year for 2weeks at a time. I will NEVER use hertz/thrifty again after this.

Recommend using europcar/carhire.ie instead.

We really had a terrible user experience with Thrifty.

The employee tricked us into accepting a vehicle upgrade. He told us that it would be better to get an Diesel car, because we are driving through the country. His argument was that we would even save on buying a so called "Diesel upgrade", which he even calculated exemplary on a paper. The "Diesel upgrade" should cost 85€ but save more than that. We accepted this, but it clearly was a trick to buy an unnecessary vehicle class upgrade.

Furthermore, all prices talked about were only net prices and tax was added. This is simply rip-off.

After we complained about this, the customer relations said no word about our complaint.

NEVER AGAIN HERTZ / DOLLAR / THRIFTY.

Excellent VALUE CAR RENTAL.

If you're renting a car in Ireland, don't get ripped off by others and rent through Thrifty. Best Value for Money on car rental in Ireland. Rented a 172 VW Golf for 3 days for 50euro!

If Renting & not taking out full Damage Insurance BE SURE TO INSPECT CAR AGAINST THRIFTY'S VEHICLE INSPECTION REPORT BEFORE YOU EVEN START THE CAR UP! REQUEST THE REPORT AT THE DESK WHEN YOU COLLECT THE CAR AND DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL YOU HAVE IT AND CHECKED THE CAR THOROUGHLY AS THE INSPECTORS SOMETIMES MISS MARKS AND THINGS ON THE CAR THAT YOU MAY HAVE TO PAY FOR! Any marks or damage you see on the car that's not on the Inspection Report...report it immediately to a staff member before you leave just to cover yourself as if you don't you may be liable on returning the car to pay for damage that you havn't caused.

I didn't go for their full insurance as i rented through a car rental website and went with their Full Excess refund insurance which meant that if something did happen i would have to pay thrifty's hefty Damage Excess of 1500euro but i would get refunded from the external insurance provide eventually. But thank god nothing happened in my rental period as i was careful when parking to not park anywhere near anyone else to get any nasty surprises.

Great Cars for Great value!

Terrible experience. I will never use Hertz or Thrifty again.

I was charged €194.96 for a 2 day car rental that was estimated to have cost €36,73 when I booked online. BEWARE of this company!!

Ok I asked for insurance, which I was told by an employee at Shannon Airport (Brian) would cost €19 a day, yet there is a charge for €135 for Supercover on the bill I paid.

What's so super about Supercover, which costs €135 euro for 2 days on a compact car? I didn't hire a bugatti, it was a big old Toyota Corolla which wasn't well specced.

I should have checked the charges properly before leaving the service desk.

I complained over email, the email wasn't responded to in days, a message on Twitter did get a response, but in the end, they just rubbed my nose in it. I told them I may take further action - so here it is!

Do me a favour, book elsewhere

Shockingly bad customer service rude woman on the phone and they do not release the £1600 for 10 days. Will never use again.

We had to wait for quite a while (approx. 30 mins) in the queue at the counter. Thrifty gave as an economy class car instead of the booked compact class one and insisted a VW Polo is a compact car. Rude reaction on my request to give us a real compact class car.

First off, be warned that if you forgo insurance because you have it on a credit card, they will charge you a 30 euro "administration" fee without telling you about it. This fee, in my case, was not included in the quoted price that I booked online.

Second, I waited over a hour to rent the car and the line at the Thrifty was much longer than the line for any other car rental place.

Third, when I complained about the administration fee because it was not in the quoted price, they took nearly two months to resolve my complaint and then denied it anyway.

Terrible customer service, and hidden fees and ridiculous wait times - avoid this place.

ABSOLUTE JOKE OF A COMPANY. DO NOT....I REPEAT DO NOT RENT through this company. I had booked a car through Rentalcars.com but when I arrived at the THRIFTY desk there was a huge queue of people waiting for cars. The representative stated that I would have to wait 30 mins for my car, but I was in a rush and requested my car as soon as possible. I upgraded and was 'shafted' for 500 euro for 3 weeks and when i returned the car a further 72 euro "tax" i.e 572euro extra .....they are ROBBERS.....they are a 'poor man's Hertz' and I would NOT go with them EVER in your lifetime!! By the way the representative for Thrifty was Livia and apologised for charging me so much.....imagine.....the cheek!!

We had really bad experience with Thrifty-Dublin Airport.Before our journey, I contacted their desk to find out what cars they have in the category we booked, because we needed a car for 4 adults to travel around Ireland, plus bags. They told me that it'd be from the following cars: renault megane, astra, golf, focus. When we arrived they gave us a tiny Skoda Fabia, we did not fit in. I asked them why is it Fabia, I was told different over the phone. They said it is in the same category and the only option for us to upgrade for approx 70 EUR. The staff was very neglectful and unhelpful. We went for the upgrade, because we had to as we had no other choice. We got a Skoda Octavia, which had lots of issues that came up just 20kms after we picked up the car:
- tyre pressure warning light came up. Checked the pressure and it was under the minimum limit in two tyres. All the tyres had different tyre pressure. After we put air in the tyres, the warning light was still on. It was broken.
- empty screenwash. After using the screenwash for 3 seconds, it was empty.
- windscreen wipers were very old and not functioning properly. They left more mess on the windscreen then it was before. It was very difficult to drive safely, so we needed to manually clean the screen in every 50 kms.
- service light came up saying oil change needed.
I phoned them because of these issues. They told me not to worry, the warning lights might be broken as the car was fully serviced recently and prepared before we picked up the car.
- I know it is acceptable to have scratches on a hire car, but this one had scratches like it was driven off road through the forest.

All in all we felt and it seemed we were forced to upgrade to a more expensive category. Even though we upgraded for 70 EUR, still did not get a proper car for our money.

Not to mention that as the tyre pressure sensor was broken and the tyres had pressure under the minimum limit, how could they give us a car that was dangerous to drive. It seems they did not prepare it at all.

WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THEM AT ALL! AVOID!

Terrible! Avoid that place! I rented several times - they had one person in the office and one person in the pick-up area on each Saturday morning and gathered huge queues!

On my second time I was told I'd have to wait for 5 minutes while the car is prepared. I had to wait 20+ minutes and watch the guy wash the car in front of me slowly and juggling between multiple cars, delaying everyone, who was waiting. And then...I watched the guy smoke in the car hangar next to my car and then SIT inside, to drive off...The car was:
1. Not fully cleaned, still dirty on the outside, despite my 20+ minute wait
2. Smelling terribly inside - there is a clear sign that the car is non-smoking and there's a fine of 100EUR for smoking inside.

On top of that - there are multiple "NO Smoking" signs inside the car hangar.

I rejected the car and asked for an alternative one and was given another one, worse one! (Logan, the one before was Astra) which I also had to wait for to get it prepared.

+ They charge you for all possible damages in addition to the 2000 EUR excess (I opted out of the insurance, have a 3rd party one) - just a rip-off place! Think twice before renting there!

We hired via AutoEurope two nine seaters with super cover (full insurance) at Thrifty Cork Airport.
Unfortunately the deposit on our creditcards was very high: € 3000,00.
Too high for our cards, wich are limited € 2500,00 each.
The employee was very helpfull, but she could not give us the cars without this deposit, so she offered an extra insurance for 10 days for € 30,00.
In total it was € 600,00 for the two nine seaters!
In the end we agreed, so we could start our trip.
Good cars, one brand new. So far no comments.
But when we got the credit card bill, we were unpleasantly surprised: instead of the € 300,00 per car, Thrifty charged us € 400,00!
I'm still considering to dispute this amount with my credit card company.
In short: good employees, good cars, but Thrifte has to put the deposit on credit cards down, since not a lot of people have this limit on their cards.

Picked up a car from the city centre location of Thrifty Car Rental - very speedy service.