We had rental reservations with NU car, whatever that place is, and we arrived in Phoenix and tried to find the NU car place but it was not anywhere near the airport, and we found other people there who had had reservations with them but found their office closed! So it was 10:30 at night and we were stranded with no car at the airport after traveling all day and prepaying for our car! So I went to Avis and enterprise and inquired about a car and they wanted $375-450!! for a regular car. I was appalled. Then my wife texted me and let me know that the guy from Payless car rentals saw the kids crying and came over and asked if he could help so I went over and talked to Payless car rental and they rented me an SUV for $211 for the same period of time the other ones wanted so much more for! I cannot tell you how relieved we were to find Payless car rental. I didn't think that Payless car rental would necessarily mean that we paid less, but it certainly did! The car was great as well. We will be renting from Payless anytime we come down there again. read more

The check-in process was a nightmare. Each rental car company at the Phoenix Airport had a long line of at least 10+ guests. Only Payless had a short line of 3 people; I was the 4th. We arrived in line at 10:45am and did not get into our vehicle until 1:38pm. There was another party ahead of us whom had been waiting until 10am and still did not get their vehicle when we departed. Only 1 employee was working the desk (her initials are LL) and she was excessively slow. She carried on conversations with guests for an average of 45-minutes each. While I can appreciate the sentiment and her being friendly, she needs to read the room and realize the situation that she is holding up the line. Within the first hour, every other rental car company had resolved there line and had no guests waiting... except PAYLESS! Our line was now 15+ people long and was not making ANY progress. Another guest whom had lost his patience asked her why it was taking so long and she flipped her lid on him and called a manager to keep him at bay, even though his complaint and his reasoning was entirely valid. He did not raise his voice or do anything rude; it was her who overreacted. Mercifully, another employee arrived at 1pm. He cleared about 5 customers almost immediately before LL had moved on from 1 customer. But even then, he said there was a delay in his queue because vehicles were not being washed fast enough. This was a complete disaster to have wasted almost 3 full hours waiting to pick-up a rental car which was pre-paid, pre-organized and apparently in-stock and on the lot. I have had issues in the past with rental car companies when picking up from isolated locations, which has led me to always book at an airport because their stock is typically higher and efficiency is better. This was NOT the case for Payless. There were at least 10 parties of guests whom had to wait 2+ hours to pickup a pre-paid vehicle! Now that I am writing this review, I can see that the 2/5 stars rating and this type of customer service (or lack thereof) is common practice for this company. AVOID AVOID AVOID read more

I would give 0 stars if I could noon on Thursday 8/25/26 we arrived to an empty Payless counter with no rep. Avis reps with others in line yelled over that they could help, wait in their line. After waiting another 15 minutes, we were all told they had no cars and it could be 2 hours to a day before we could get a car. No solution, no explanation, no heads up via our email reservation. I am livid will never use any of them again! Spent an extra $120 because of late notice/no reservation. Thank you NATIONAL CAR RENTAL for coming to our aid! read more

This place is awful!! Pre-reserved a car through Priceline got off my flight straight to the car rental counter "No one There" closed with a sign stating to go to Avis, got to Avis a long line out the door guess what?? No clean cars available not enough employees to get the cars ready to cater to customers in line!! Walked around to another car rental company guess what no cars available! We were there on business we missed our meeting because the car rental could not get enough employees to get cars ready for their customers. What kind of operation are you running????? Especially at the airport!!! You guys owe me big time because that meeting was big money for our company!!!! What are you willing to do for us??? read more

I stood in line for over two hours waiting to pick up my van. During this time, I had 10 kids with me who were hungry and tired. This level of delay is completely unacceptable. Waiting more than two hours just to pick up a vehicle is beyond reasonable, and I will never use your company again. I will also be leaving a detailed review on Google, TripAdvisor, and Yelp to share this experience. I hope you take this feedback seriously and address these issues for future customers. read more

2 hour wait then they gave us wrong vehicle. One or two people max working the counter the whole time

They rented me an electric car in phoenix Arizona that wasn't charged all the way and had a flat tire ( I found this out 100 miles out in the DESERT) . They charged me more money on top of using the vehicle despite me charging the electric car for 10.5 hours (leaving me without a car for half the day) I called Sunday to make a report and they didn't file the report so they have no record of Me calling. I even re inflated the tire IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT IN A SUIT! NEVER RENT FROM THESE PEOPLE. Their quote of the "we undestand your frustrating and we are happy to assist you" Yeah, they were happy to give me a $50 coupon for my trouble you know just in case I want to go through this experience again. I said screw that, I'm filing a claim through my bank. They gave me a car that SHOULDNT HAVE BEEN ON THE ROAD. Period. read more

Payless Car Rental - The hole in the tire. I took this after I parked. - Car Rental Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

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Wish I could give it zero stars, because they cheated me out of over $75.00 for a three day rental at the MCI Airport. I explicitly told them that I did not want extra insurance because we were covered by our AAA , but the clerk checked the box to accept anyway and I did not notice it. He knew he was cheating me but did it anyway. The agent never showed me this page at all, and I never got a copy of it. He only shoved a small signing gadget, which only had room for me to sign my name with a stylus. No particulars were included in this signing gadget. I still maintain that I informed the agent that I was refusing insurance because we were completely covered by our AAA car insurance. He obviously checked the box without my approval. Don't trust Payless Car Rental, nor Avis which is their parent company. After a lot of time and trouble with my credit card company, Payless eventually gave me my money back, but I still will never trust Payless or Avis again. read more

Waste of time!!! Pay the extra few dollars for an another company. Spent just under 2 hours in line. If I didn't prepay, I would just move to another companies counter. Only 1 person on duty to check you in. Will NOT use these guys ever again. AVOID at all costs!!! read more

Payless Car Rental - 1 person working. - Car Rental Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Booked online, it all looked fine. Stood in line for 2 hours, everyone in front of us had issues, they didn't have all the physical cars there. Ended up canceling and going next door, don't use Payless. read more

The wait for this place is RIDICULOUS. Yes they have the cheapest rates...but you spend almost 2 hours in line to get your vehicle.

Ridiculously understaffed. Literally the only rental car service that had 1 employee. Avis is next to them and had 4 people staffed. Is shouldn't take a damn hour to get a rental car. Never again. Absolute trash rental car service read more

It was just my wife and I coming in for a graduation in Tucson. I reserved a full size car SPECIFICALLY for comfort and safety. We were given a Mitsubishi outlander. The car had many cosmetic defects, was not washed (dirty windows inside and out, bugs all over the front, stains on the upholstery, back bumper very chipped up, low uneven tread on tires). About 15 mins into our trip we got onto the freeway, and the car started to vibrate and wobble very badly. We realized it's only when it's over 60 mph. I immediately tried to call the Phoenix sky harbor location to see if the car could be replaced in Tucson as it was too far to drive back at that point, as we were on a tight itinerary. I tried multiple numbers, and could only get through to call centers, not the actual desk. Nobody could give me any useful information, other than they wouldn't allow me to switch vehicles in Tucson. So not only was the comfort I was seeking completely opposite of what I was intending to reserve in a full size, but it also caused a lot of anxiety as we were driving 2 hours to Tucson as out of towners, as we weren't sure if there was something wrong with the car that could cause a potential breakdown or accident. Upon return of the vehicle, there was nobody to greet us and I had to walk around the garage in 100 degree weather to find someone and ask if I needed someone to check us back in, and when I finally found someone they said no. Took it upon myself to go back to the front desk and inform them about the condition of the car, so that the next customer would not have the same bad experience we did. read more

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It is cause we're of Irish heritage? No, that can't be.... "Luck of the Irish" is actually bad luck, and we had a perfectly easy-peasy time renting from here, compared to all the other reviewers! I reserved a car from here bundled with my Southwest tickets. When I realized that I had booked a pick up time for before our flight was due to arrive, I called them up and asked for a later pick up. The man on the phone told me it was no problem and notified me that I could get a bigger car for a lower price than I had originally booked. Well, that's a no-brainer; sign me up! We were second in line, with only one guy behind us. Upon check-in, the man at the counter upgraded us again, at no extra charge. The agent told us what car to look for, where to find it, and that the keys were already in the vehicle. We didn't have to get help from anyone after that. My husband did the usual walk around and took pictures to cover our butts, including the gas level, which was over half full, but not completely full. The car was unlocked, and sure enough, the key was in the cup holder. Except, it wasn't a key, it was just a fob. We got upgraded to one of those fancy push start cars. Once we figured everything out, we were on our way. We had to go through a gate to exit the garage, and there was someone there to check us out. That was it! Upon return, we filled the car to just about the same level it was when we got it, and we never got charged anything extra. We returned it to the same place, where a guy simply scanned a barcode on the windshield, and then we left, straight up to the tram to the airport. We were told to leave the fob in the car, so we did. It truly could not have gone any easier! 4 stars and not 5? Well, truthfully, they don't do a thorough job of cleaning the cars. We found a previous renter's paperwork, complete with personal information, a map of Colorado, a parking pass for Rocky Mountain National Park, a mummified apple core, and a piece of beef jerky. Personally, this was not enough to disgust me to the bone, but I can understand how for some, it would be a deal breaker. 66/2023 read more

It's true only one worker at the desk . There was 5 people in front of me waited two hours. Then I could not find the car because it was in the Avis parking lot. Payless must not have their own cars at this airport. read more

The process of booking it's straight forward, the issue is waiting and hour or 2 to get the car . There is only one person in the counter with the amount of people at least minimum two or three employees. read more

We waited for 2 hours to get a car in their Denver airport location. The employee at the counter was very nice, but something was terribly wrong with the system. They kept asking us to wait for a car that then would not show up. We would go back to the counter and they would apologize and give us a different car, only for it not to be there. Back to the counter, they gave us another car, it was doubled booked, the other group got there first. Finally the employees helped us get a good car, a full suv instead of the mid we had asked for. That was nice, but 2 hours for a reserved car is too long read more

I got a tire blowout on the highway; wife and I almost got killed! Tow driver said all four tires were bald with wires showing. They charged for the gas that I could not fill up because the car was not driveable. DO NOT RENT A CAR FROM THEM. THEY ARE NEGLIGENT WITH ROUTINE MAINTENANCE AND CAN PUT YOUR FAMILY AT RISK OF DEATH! read more

Never, ever rent a car from Payless. Upon arriving in PHX there was a customer line and a wait for cars estimated to be over 3 hours. I decided to bolt and take an Uber. When I challenged my pre-paid reservation due to services not rendered, they punted me to Expedia which is where I made the reservation. Expedia has not obliged to my request for a refund, and I continue to dispute this through Citibank. Also, the 5 star reviews I'm seeing posted are clearly not valid. Payless is just terrible and I can't see why Expedia doesn't drop them. read more

If I could rate this place ,who is ALSO associated with AVIS which has the same employees who COULD help each other I would rate this a zero star. The Avis section had 7-8 representatives they only placed 1on the payless side. The Avis line went through .... You guessed it.7 times faster. We have been in line for close to an hour and only made it half way through a 24 foot line. When we asked for help for the frustrated employee getting yelled at by the disgruntled customers, the black gentleman smiled and said " they want us to clear the Avis line first." I will note that the long ass Avis line refilled multiple times since we have been here. This is not fair to the ONE employee at the Payless counter who is working really hard and fast for a company who doesn't even help their employees out. Sad to see the other 7-8 employees at the Avis counter leaving him alone to deal with upset customers. Honestly wouldn't recommend either Avis or payless to ANYONE. This is a service and right now paying for any service for a lot of people is tuff. The LEAST you can do is try to make it easier for the clients who have had a tiring long day from traveling. Additionally, when we got done with waiting in line, we moved to get our car thinking that we were done waiting. The line to get the car was EVEN longer!! However, the only good thing about this experience was the manager Sara. She was doing her best to get everyone through. This woman deserves a raise. Confirmation# 18031277US5 read more

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Great experience even with a late arrival after midnight. I got checked in for our car as easy to book online and attendant made everything work smoothly. Easy drop off. No problems. read more

Been here over 30 minutes and we're niw at 15 different people or families needing to rent a car, but Avis counter is sitting right next to this with four people working and one customer but Avis owns Payless like make that s*** make sense!!!!!! read more

Payless was the cheapest rate... $4/day less than Budget or Dollar. I am still waiting in line... 90 minutes and counting. Not worth it. I would gladly pay $20/day more to have better service and a more reasonable wait. When one guy got verbally frustrated, they kicked him out of line and said they would call security... after he'd been waiting in line all this time. Not a good look. They finally called in a couple more workers it looks like. Wow what a learning experience!! read more

I'm currently standing in line waiting. I've been waiting well over an hour. There is only one agent at the desk. One customer was talking to the one agent for half an hour. Never use this company, unless you want to spend your day waiting in line. Now, there is no one at the desk! If I could give zero stars I would. read more

Horribly long line - 50 people deep. Cancelled online reservation and walked up to Alamo for a car that day. Alamo was more expensive but my time is worth more than the difference in price. read more

Absolutely the worst experience ever. Prepaid for our car and we have moved 5 people in 45 mins. Incompetence abounds at the desk. One person has been standing there for 30 mins. And the person helping her is just on her phone. Whatever you do- do not use Payless Rental car in Phoenix. I won't be using it again ever. 27 people in line and 1 working person. And no manager. I asked read more

Payless Car Rental - Worker just standing there. Last 30 mins. - Car Rental Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

A really crappy experience. Big long line and only or person working. Two hour or more wait. Not the first time. Unacceptable. Lesson learned. Never rent from Payless again. Easy fix - have three or four agents at the counter to assist customers. Just do it! read more

Waited in like for an hour because there were only two workers and one of them talked to a customer for 45 minutes about personal business. The line had 15 people waiting and only two people at the register. No manager ever came. Customers complained to the workers. Manager rude. Customer service rude. Do not recommend read more

No stars. Employees are overworked. Waited over 45 minutes for a car. Got to the car and another person had been assigned the same car. Had to go back to the counter to get another car, add 10 more minutes to my wait. Also reserved a mid size suv, only to get a ford expedition and was not advised in advance. Another 10 minute wait to get out of the garage due to short staff. Never again.The employees didnt know the name of the manager on duty read more

Standing in line for more than 45 minutes, waiting to check out my car. We're three people serving customers; one left. One agent has literally been waiting on a single customer for 15+ minutes. How slowly can you work? And no recognition that there is a long frustrating line and that they should be apologizing for the wait. This is all before I even get the car; who knows what a disaster that will be. I would have given zero stars, but that's not an option read more

This company's customer service is terrible. We rented a car at Sky Harbor airport and drove to Yuma. The car would not start the next morning. We called roadside assistance and they were unable to find a replacement near and wanted us to wait for a representative to drive from California over 100 miles away and then ride back to their office and get a replacement car. Then drive all the way back to Phoenix to catch our plane. They basically were unhelpful. I ended up renting from another company after the car was towed. Basically left stranded! read more

Absolutely DO NOT rent from Payless! We agreed to rent a car from them for a total of $439. When we returned the car, got a receipt from Payless saying it was "paid in full" and showed a 0 balance. Then we got a charge from Payless to our credit card for $415. We called Payless and they kept telling us the people we need to talk to aren't reachable and to call back. It was only when we disputed the charge with our cc company that they sent them a document with the charge they refer to as "Optional Product Charges". All my receipts from Payless do not include that. Still don't know what it's for. Will never rent from them again and advise anyone else from doing it. read more

I was extremely excited to go in my Rocky Point trip, especially when I got a decent deal from Payless. Unfortunately, they didn't have any info on their website regarding driving the car to Mexico. I made the reservation Wednesday night, called all evening and all day Thursday trying to get in contact with the Phoenix location- since the answering service said I could only get up to date info from the actual location. NO ONE EVER ANSWERED THE PHONE!!! I ended up driving to the counter the day before we were supposed to pick up the car and found out that they do not allow their vehicles to cross the border!! So basically, I was up short. I had to cancel the reservation and scramble to find another company in the midst of Super Bowl rentals!! Long story short- don't rent here if you're trying to go to Rocky Point. read more

Be careful with this car rental company. They charged me for the additional insurance without even asking me! They have said they will refund it to my account "in 3-5 business days", but that is really not good enough. It didn't take that long for them to remove it from my account, but it takes that long to credit it back? Depending on the card and the balance and if you are on vacation away from home, that could cause very big problems for some people. I consider it very shady behavior. It isn't even my biggest complaint, since at least I will get it back eventually. I'll revise the review if it doesn't happen. I'm disappointed that Payless, a more major company, pulled that stunt that companies with a worse reputation try to pull. I will be steering clear of this company in the future to avoid more situations like this. For the price they charged my account, I would have been better off renting from a higher priced company, like Enterprise, that was closer to my home and wouldn't have necessitated an Uber trip to and from the airport in addition to the other fees. Lets also mention the insane wait in line to pick up a car that I had, presumably, already paid for. If it's paid for, there would not be a need for standing in line unless you wanted my card, so you could then bill me for insurance that I did not need! This brings me to the next issue, the vehicle itself. I requested a Tesla. Normally, a substitution is fine and it's common to get something different than what you booked. I am usually fine with that in a gas powered car, but THIS is an electric car! It requires charging at special stations that are not all compatible with each other. There are not enough chargers in Phoenix (or anywhere) that are compatible with a Mach E Mustang compared to the Tesla that I actually booked. Electric cars should not even be rented out if there is no adapter included for them so that they can be charged universally, because there are just not enough places to charge these car! For that reason, rental electric cars should never be substituted for a different make. If you rent a Tesla, you need a Tesla and are planning your trips around that particular type of charging station!! I really should have been credited back the last day of the rental for this car that I dropped off early because I had no place to charge it. Guess what, they didn't give me any refund on that last day. It was in the agreement, but the car itself was not satisfactory, so it should have been refunded. Even if I had not been charged for the insurance, that car turned out to be a huge waste of money and TIME. I spent a total of 3.5 hours at charging stations for the less than 4 days I had the car rented, not to mention driving around looking for charging stations only to find it wasn't compatible, or it was so slow, I'd have to charge it overnight. I only found two decent places to charge it and I had to drive very far out of my way to use those places and the prices were insane. I spent around a hundred dollars altogether on charging that vehicle and the grand total of mileage I used was 103 miles per the receipt!!!!!! Why was 103 miles running down the battery that fast? Something was wrong with the car and I should have gotten a refund. I am posting this review all over the place SHAME ON PAYLESS! read more

It should not take an hour to pick up the keys when only 8 people are in line. Then you go down an escalator and wait another 45 minutes to get the car issued. Car had major issues; oil change was overdue, tire pressure was extremely high, front end damage, stains in the seats, and the car had a bad shimmy between 50 and 58 mph. Would not let the wife drive it at all. When we returned it, the person said they knew about it because they were getting ready to sell it. Do not appreciate being issued a known unsafe vehicle. Absolutely ridiculous. Sign should say payless and getlesss. read more

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This is the worst car rental experience I've had anywhere in the country. The line to confirm your reservation was two hours long and just when you thought it was done they send you to this crazy holding area where hundreds of people are waiting to pick up car. Their system is archaic and slow and you can't just walk up to car space like every other airport. Total experience to pick up car is not worth the discount after you waste hours in never ending lines. I will say the rental car I got was very nice and the vehicle return was easy. Billing was fast and accurate. Overall I think they just need to work on the staffing and wait times for pick up or automate the process. read more

Get some intelegent people to replace there useless staff. Not one counter person has the ability to do anything on their own.

2 hour wait at airport just to get waited on The mgr said the other rental place was more important then this company. Six customer service reps for the other company, one for Payless.. The assigned spot was not the assigned car I paid for, had to track somebody down then they gave us another car that had no gas. It was 3 1/2 hours before we were able to get a car to leave the airport. Very bad experience never go with Payless read more

When I checked in there were computer issues. I had to run my credit card multiple times (with computer restarts in between). The front desk guy was less than helpful or apologetic for the wait and inconvenience. When I picked up the car, it was filthy inside (covered in dog hair, which my son is allergic to, and the floor was covered in dog hair and what looked like tree bark) read more

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Payless has now tried to charge me $450 for a smoke smell. This being a completely different issue than the pre-existing damage that they also tried to charge me for. Either I'm the worst rental customer on earth or there's something very fraudulent going on here I called Payless Phoenix location and they did reverse the charge, and open a second investigation into the discrepancies, hopefully this location can make corrections for their businesses sake read more

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