Thrifty Car and Van Rental Oxford

I used this service regularly for about six weeks and could not fault Thrifty Oxford at all. The staff (especially Sophie and Mo) were always really friendly and super helpful, providing a personal but very professional service. Booking/changes were made at short notice with ease and understanding and service was always given with a smile. The cars were always in great condition and deposit refunds consistently done within 24 hours. Also brilliant value for money. Couldn't have arranged a move and new job without it.

Lovely service, nice car (upgraded up a category), close to train station. Honestly no complaints. There was even some small damage to the front wheel I naively didn’t notice when I took out the car (was in a rush to get going!) and after 5-10 minutes of waiting they agreed it was pre existing damage that wasn’t noticed and refunded my deposit.

Only watch out is that they do have quite stringent requirements in terms of documentation you need (bank statement, proof of address, etc) which caused issues for some people renting car before me in the queue. But as long as you read the rental car form properly you’ll be fine...

Be careful about this company. When you pickup your car, you have to CAREFULLY check each individual rim. They will charge you 85 pounds per scratch (< 2cm) for each rim. The latest experience, the manager Gill tried to charge even a previously scratched rim on my account, took over 20 mins to correct this. This rental company seems to be cheap at the beginning, but please do not try your luck here.

Treat is as lottery. They are slightly cheaper from competitors, but..

well, what's the use if you can't even get the car. You may have read other reviews mentioning documentation. I'll add another one. They are, indeed, very fussy regarding documentations.

As a background, I'm an international student, so it wasn't all that clear which sets of documentation I would need (resident vs international). Just to be on the safe side, I printed my bank statement and tenancy agreement as proofs. Well, guess what? They refused these and insisted that any documentation needs to be dated within 7 days (it wasn't mentioned at all before) and if I couldn't provide gas/utility bill mentioned in the example then I would need a letter stamped by university, and they keep repeating I have read their T&C* so I should understand these. Good god.. I have no clue why tenancy agreement wouldn't count, isn't it, literally, a proof of residency?

Now, I understand that they are probably just trying to limit their risk exposure of loss/whatever as this branch owned (instead of leased) the cars. But from customer standpoint it is an absolutely ridiculous experience. It's very close to Christmas, thus, I can't even procure the letter as college office has been closed, and what's even more important is, the holiday for kids will be ruined now. Obviously they don't care a bit about these customer issues. Wonderful.

*to add salt to the wound, their T&C said that if they declined the documentation, then online pre-booking payment cannot be refunded. I seriously wonder if this is how they make their money. Also, to cancel booking (or in my case, making serious complaints), you have to call the main office with a very long queue line, can't even do it from the branch.

I have rented with this particular branch on multiple occasions for about a year, so feel well-placed to be able to leave this review. I must admit, after seeing the other negative Google reviews I was initially quite apprehensive about renting from this branch. However, I have never had any issues with this Thrifty branch and my experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. Matt and Mohammed, in particular, have always been helpful and pleasant to deal with. I believe the reason underlying many of the negative reviews is that this branch requires more supporting document than the most other companies and many customers either skim through the email specifying the required documentation, or don't read it altogether. I did ask what the reason was for requiring so many documents and I was told that it was related to the fact that the branch owns all of the cars it rents out (as opposed to leasing them, which other companies to). In my opinion, the minimal amount of extra effort it takes to collect these documents is justified given how much cheaper this branch is compared to other car rental companies in Oxford.

Bottom line: the staff here are friendly and helpful and I have had nothing but a positive experience in renting from Thrifty. However, it's important to read the e-mail which specifies what documents are required. One suggestion for improvement would be to emphasise this information in bold to ensure that it isn't overlooked.

Take pictures before giving the car back! Especially on the rim and fuel.

Car arrived at the garage 40 minutes late, one bar off the fuel with damages to both front rims.

Car returned to the same garage, again late. I was told all I had to do was leave the keys with the garage and be on my way.

Then had a phone call afterwards, explaining further damage on one of the rims (because it does not match the picture from the previous renter) and that I had "driven off" when they started inspecting the car.

With no way to prove that the scuff was there before I had picked it up, I'm now stuck with a charge.

Be careful when using this company, and take every precaution.

Hired a car with delivery to my house. Due to urgent issue arising wasn’t able to use it; so it was collected not driven by me. Thrifty claimed I had damaged the hub cap. Given it had remained un driven clearly that was incorrect. This is not the first time that has happened. On collecting cars from their depot I found they clearly haven’t updated their computer to reflect damage from other users. When I tried to raise this, they refused to speak to me.

I went to book a small van Richard was very helpful in trying to book for me. The following day I was emailed from the main office saying that I could not hire me a vehicle because I did not have enough credit history. They need to look into this. It is ridiculous to expect people to provide all this paper work, passport, driving license, bank statement, utility bill. Then charge £282.00 plus £750 deposit on picking up the vehicle. I am not having a go at the staff they do their best. It is Thrifty management I am having a problem with.