Payless Car Rental - Chicago, Illinois

Lauren Gray

If you’ve recently obtained an official temporary license certificate from the DMV, don’t waste your time here. My driver’s license expired, so I have a valid 60-day temporary certificate issued by the DMV. However, they refused to accept it, which made it impossible to proceed with my reservation.

I ended up wasting time standing in line, and I had already prepaid for six days of parking at a downtown lot. What’s even more frustrating is that they wouldn’t accept my recently expired license as a backup, even though it just expired this past December. This experience was incredibly inconvenient and poorly handled.

Brandon Ortegon

One star, had a reservation on 11/29/24 and requested an SUV because my mom can only get into SUVs for medial reasons. Went up the guy front desk guy was a total dick for no reason. I'm a first time car rental person, he had no line so I'm walking up as his only client, he's short and dry and dismissive. proce3ed to ask to make sure I got an SUV and he said yes and asked me debit or credit and I asked the difference and he just said "one does a credit check and the other doesn't so which one and one has a hold"

I asked him what does that mean and he just asks if I want to rent or not. I just paid and went to the car lot and find out they don't have SUVs so I have to go all they way back and tell him and he said "well we're out idk what to tell you" so I cancel it and and he said "okay you'll get the pending hold back in 2-5 business days"

Again paid on 11/29, I called on a couple of days ago wondering why I haven't gotten that charged removed and just to get a hold of someone is a huge pain in the ass a ton of automated system and transfers once I get someone and long hold times and the reps are dense... I had to tell them that I paid and NEVER drove off with the car 3 times to the same person because they kept asking me if I have the vehicle still and come to find out the asshole at the front desk never cancelled it and they had to cancel it and told me it may take 7-14 business days. I never took the car off the lot and so the I should get the charge cancelled. It's currently 12/12 and it's still pending on my credit card statement.

Boyd Buck

Review Update 28 Nov 2023: 25% refund was received after 1 more phone call to customer service. Summarizing: Rental Car was totally fine, except as described below, customer service did not meet my expectations.
Rental date 22 Sept 2023. Vehicle had expired temporary license tag that was more than 2 months out of date. I was concerned about driving the vehicle for fear of being stopped by the police. I spent almost 1 hour on the phone with 5 different agents who suggested I drive the car 1 hour back to the airport for an exchange. I really have to say I did not feel comfortable driving this vehicle and it did significantly affect my use. I had to rely on friends and family to drive me to events.
After the rental follow up by me, Customer service agent offered a 25% discount, still not received, and I accepted to avoid more phone time.VERY DISAPPOINTING. Vehicle itself was OK.

Marcey Rawitscher

I wish you could give negative stars. It took us 2 hours to pick up a car at O’Hare in Chicago. First finding their Desk is a challenge. Once you do the person at the desk is rude. Then you go up to a folding table in the lot and present your paperwork. There is a line but it is meaningless because Avis, Budgef and Payless apparently share cars. They make reservations for cars they don’t have. So 20 groups of people stand around while the poor person running the pick offers what is there and it’s sort of an auction. Who’s willing to drive a pick-up truck? It’s yours . I wanted a compact car for city driving. My first offer was a full sized SUV. I ended up with a sedan after wasting two hiours. There was a specific car assigned to me in the paper work. Where was that? No clue. Avoid Payless Budge and Avis at OHare

Jaz C

I had an amazing experience with this rental agency. Keith made sure the rental process was smooth and he was very knowledgeable. Returning the car was so simple. I will definitely book with this company again and I highly recommend this service!

Georgii Ivanov

Charged $107 for "refueling cost" but I returned my car full of gas and refueled full right before the return. Desperately tried to dispute bank transaction with all the proofs including photos of receipt and photos from the gas station. Never again! Worst car rental experience ever. Hope you'll choke on those $107!

Juan Carlos Ortuzar

The service we received this morning (05/19/2024) was excellent, and most importantly, the person who assisted us (whose name I unfortunately don’t recall) was solely focused on finding solutions for us.

My wife and I had made an online reservation with another car rental company at Chicago Airport. Upon arrival, we were informed that we did not meet their requirements—requirements that were not explicitly stated on their website. They were unable to make an exception as we were missing a document and did not fulfill their criteria, hence they refused to lease us a car. In our desperation, we turned to Payless, and the individual who assisted us acknowledged that the document in question is indeed necessary for renting a car. However, after we explained our urgent need for a vehicle, he asked us several reasonable questions given our lack of the document and sought a way to make an exception, allowing us to rent a car and resolve our predicament. He then graciously offered us a complimentary car upgrade, considering our numerous suitcases.

In my 61 years, seldom have I encountered someone who demonstrates such a profound level of empathy and an incredible willingness to solve a customer’s problem. This instance was one of those exceptional moments in my life.

If all the employees at Payless Rent-a-Car are as accommodating as the person who helped us, I wholeheartedly recommend this company.

Gilbert Munoz

Bad customer service at beginning. Paid for e-tollpass and car didn’t have one. Had to drive back to be told tollpass would be charged to plate on rental. Returned car with full tank of gas. Just received receipt with $70+ charge for gas. Cannot recommend. Called customer service and had charges for gas reversed. Waiting to verify charge reversed on my credit card.