Budget Car Rental Ireland Reviews

Rented a car for from Budget from Bordeaux Airport. I was dealing with Romain. Because of flight time he kept the office open later for me to collect the car. I needed to drop the car back slightly later than originally agreed and was no hassle at all. All the staff were extremely pleasant. Definitely book with budget again.

Went to Dublin airport to pick up a car for a couple of days from start to finish it has been a pleasure dealing with Budget car rental the main desk at Dublin airport the staff were all friendly and doing there jobs professionally told me exactly where the car was parked the car itself was cleaned inside and out and brand new looking. customer service is excellent didn't have any problems I would definitely rent a car off Budget again highly recommend to anyone.P.S every company gets someone moaning about petty things trying to get something for FREE but hey LET THEM OFF I had a great experience and not one bit of trouble thanks to all the team at BUDGET I will deal again shortly regards Chris O

When I went to pick up the car, the staff member was really kind and explain me everything very well. I am not familiar with the toll system in Ireland and he gave me very good tips about options to pay for M50 toll. On the top of that, he helped me lots to get a coat I forgot in the car when I returned it. He was kind and helpful and that is much appreciated when you are travelling alone in a foreign country.

one of the best car rental companies, edel, when I requested information, she gave me full support and also provided me with the best solutions, also when I was assisted by Manoel when returning the car, I completely request it, I highly recommend it in Dublin at the airport.

I have rented from Budget three times now while visit Ireland. Their rental prices are excellent right along with their customer service. We had an issue due to an accident in which we had to switch vehicles. This process was seamless. Traveling to Ireland this fall and they will be the vendor I choose!!

worst experience possible. rude employee, created several obstacles to renting the car and in the end I lost my money, time and schedule made for the day

I've rented from a lot of car companies in Ireland, and Budget is by far the worst experience I've ever had. I sincerely believe they actively search for customers to charge fines to in order to reach internal targets. If you rent with Budget, you are liable to be charged for supposed 'incidents' that no other car company in Ireland or at Dublin airport would dream of doing. When they do take your deposit, there'll be no warning. No estimate of how much or detailed description of why. No challenge to your response. In my case, the Budget representative found the tiniest of scuffs on a tire then heavily pressured me into signing a piece of paper on which I clearly stated that I did not remotely agree that there was any issue. He reassured me that there would be an opportunity to discuss this with the incidents team - after all, it "was nothing to do with [him]" in his own words. I can only assume that singing that paper has given Budget the right to take hundreds of euros from my card. Avoid the risk.

Our car broke down so we needed to hire a car for two weeks to return to Dublin and until ours is fixed. This morning, my husband hired a car at Belfast airport through budget.ie. He paid the full 300 euro car hire using his debit card and went to collect the car this evening. They said he needs a credit card in his name and to pay a 1600 euro deposit. They wouldn't allow someone else in our family to use their credit card instead. So they charged him a 50 euro cancellation fee and refused to rent him any car. Apparently it's in their small print, which is hard to find amongst the realms of information on their website. A credit card requirement etc should have been clearly visible beside the payment section when he filled in his card details during booking! My husband didn't cancel the booking, they forced him to! And charged him 50 euro. Waste of time and money. Unscrupulous scam artists who made an already awful situation 10 times worse. Pathetic, unethical customer service! My parents had to drive us back to Dublin! We do not recommend budget.ie!

In May 2023 we made a reservation through Discovercars for a car rental with Budget at Cork Airport, Ireland. The reservation was priced at 661 euros, inclusive of insurance. The prepayment was 107 euros. However, upon picking up the vehicle at Cork Airport, Budget did not accept the insurance from Discovercars, nor was the prepayment credited. Consequently, instead of the promised 661 euros, we ended up paying a total of 1084 euros! It appears that the two companies operate under the following "business model": Discovercars acquires customers for Budget by making them believe they're offering cheap car rentals. However, Budget doesn't accept the insurances offered by Discovercars, leaving customers no choice but to pay a much higher price for the rental. Discovercars pockets the prepayment without providing any practical service in return: I call that a rip-off. update 20.11.2023: Six months after the incident described, after 23 emails exchanged between me and DiscoverCars and two phone calls, DiscoverCars finally decided to refund us at least 76 euros. While this doesn't cover the entire overpaid amount of 423 euros, it is at least a sign of willingness to accommodate. Budget on the other hand has refused to refund any amount.

Absolutely ridiculous from start to finish. Not made clear at all where to collect the car and was sent on a wild goose chase to get to the place from the airport. When collecting, asked for my credit card to be used for a €2100 deposit. Despite pre-paying insurance online, was told it was useless and to go directly with them instead. Was then mentioned to me that if I left a deposit €30 instead then €2100 is no longer needed. He then asked me to sign the document to confirm, amount ended up being €153 and have only refunded €123. They are saying that I asked for Windscreen cover which I absolutely did not. They are refusing to give the refund even though they are going against Consumer Rights Act 2022 for providing misleading and false information. I have also been advised to speak to the third party company regarding this even though I paid the money directly to them onsite. Basically just fobbing people off, it isn't 'Budget' when you're effectively being charged £60+ to hire a car for 24 hours... Won't be using them again and advise anyone to use another company and to go directly as it'll be much cheaper. I'm not going to be made at fault for being given misleading information by a member of staff. *in response to the below reply from you* - No information was provided prior to collecting the car on how you collect. You should notify customers via email and direct them to your website. - the €30 was not explained to me what it was and was advised that the full €153 would be refunded. This is the issue, misleading and false information was provided. Do better - I have asked via email for you to provide proof of where and why the €30 is non-refundable after being told it was and no one has. Unfortunately, this hasn't been a great first experience using you and I won't be using you again

Used these guys out of Kerry Airport. Amazing service, super helpful, wide choice of vehicles and extremely reasonable rates. Will use every time I visit Ireland.

Awful from start to finish, I booked through a price comparison website and made sure the one I picked said pick up from terminal. When arrived was told I had to pick up from car centre with staff being very rude to me. After that was fine until drop off I took photos of the car when I got it and checked most of it but didn’t check the tyre. On return I was accused of damaging the car in multiple places which I could refute all with photos except a small dent on tyre they told me I was going to be charged for it. I wrote an email in response trying to refute the claim, it took them over a week to respond and on the day they responded they took the money without giving me a chance to respond. Do not use them they are crooked and thieves

Good service but customer agent was very nervous.

The first time I've been told to take a video of the hire car on pick up. When I questioned this with the lady with the blonde hair and glasses at the hire desk in Santry, she raised her voice and talked me down. I quote "It's the customer's risk if they decline the zero excess insurance. The onus is on them to take a timestamped video of the car" When I replied that this was the first time I'd been asked to do this by a car hire company, she barked "We are not other companies". 1) €150 for 5 days to ensure a €2000 excess is a complete rip-off. 2) The car was had several scratch marks, nicks, and a missing part on the rear bumper. The onus is not on the customer to prove previous damage to the car. That's the responsibility of Budget. Forcing customers to take a timestamped video to prove they are not responsible for historical damage to their rental cars is a bullying tactic to try and get customers to take their extortionate zero excess insurance. I won't hire again from a company with extortionate charges and aggressive tactics. Neither will I accept a member of staff being so incredibly condescending and rude. I vote with my feet. P.S. Don't bother with a stock answer and feeble excuses. I've read the other reviews where people couldn't get an answer on the supplied breakdown number and you tell them to use the same supplied number as if they're clueless. Stop being condescending to customers. Wake up and improve. PS. You missed the point completely Lisa. It's Budget's responsibility to record historic damage and compare this to anything new that occurs. A massive fail on your part. Budget won't listen so we vote with our feet. Be warned everyone!

*Avoid* at all costs Would give *zero* or , even minus stars if possible. Rude condescending staff member with obvious contempt for her customers . *Lots* of damage to car on collection - according to her ‘the onus is on us’ to prove it was not caused by us. ( by taking a video of the damage i.e. do their jobs for them ) to prove that the damage was all there *before* the car was collected She was utterly disgusted that we had the ‘temerity’ to have arranged our own insurance . Dirty car with damage is *not*what we expect from a so called car hire company . There is presumably some kind of scam in operation where they fob off damaged cars to customers who have a €2,000 euros excess . Reputable car hire companies either fix the damage *or* record the damage themselves . Be careful too , if you’ve taken full insurance already with your booking agent Budget will still try to bully you into taking their €30 a day insurance too . Dear Budget rent a car - for your information ‘we have NOT taken the risk for damage already caused to a car *before* we collect it . Worst customer service ever - avoid at all costs . (Also if we hadn’t rented a car in Ireland before , she gave us no information whatsoever about tolls, or anything helpful whatsoever ) Further to Budget’s rather lame reply dated 7 November below : We are *fully aware* that the *insurance* we chose to take-out meant we’d be reimbursed by the insurance company *after* we firstly paid any charges to Budget . We had no problem *at all* leaving the required deposit - however as with the semantics used by your complaints department , the agent would not put the €2,000 deposit on a debit-card - she claimed it was ‘illegal’ as they’d be billing us for damage we’d not yet caused - in fact you’d have been taking a deposit ( with our permission) and then refunding it once no damage/loss had been caused by us. Not sure what would be illegal about that ! Then she refused to use my credit card , even though I was present in-person in front of her - but was not one of the drivers . The driver then had to go through a security check with his credit card company to authorise the deposit . *However* , that wasn’t really our complaint , it was the Budget agent’s attitude ( from the moment we arrived) AND the fact that we were made to record damage to the car caused by others - in effect doing Budget’s job for them. Agents on returning car were ok , and we had no issues with them , but this would still not encourage me to ever use Budget again .

I Hope that I never have to use Budget Car “Customer Service” again. They provide a telephone number for the Dublin Airport desk. They claim it is a 7 day service. But on Saturday morning 14th Oct I tried at least a dozen times to call; but no answer. I had to go to the airport. When I complained I got the usual trite response. I wanted to extend my booking and give them more money. They were not interested enough to man the desk. A first world problem maybe but for me lesson learned. Budget are off my list.