Thrifty Car and Van Rental Brighton brighton

Decent place if you are looking for good deals on car rentals. Good selection of cars and great location (right next to the Brighton mainline station). You can check and book online and go here for pickup. Service is efficient and reasonably friendly (could be a tad warmer) but I think they are generally quite busy so this is alright.

I have to be honest, 100% unimpressed and dissatisfied. From the moment I walked in and got greeted (eventually) by a scruff in jumper and jeans (assumed vehicle cleaner) with 'someone will be with you soon mate' that started things for me and left me under no illusion as to how they would end up. Hired a BMW 530 Saloon 'luxury' car. From arriving to leaving it took all of 40 minutes as the team seemed far too concerned about cleaning a vehicle for a customer who wasn't even there yet, leaving me waiting looking at my car blocked in. I made an observation after a further 10 minutes or so that perhaps having paid the money and being that my car was there waiting, my car could be pulled forward and then they could clean the other car?! The lady working here didn't seem to understand my advice of customer service efficiency, it literally went over her head and I was lucky to get a grunt of acknowledgment. Staff are rude, haven't the first clue of customer service or priorities, including operational planning for vehicles coming in or out alongside cleaning and prepping. Enterprise are just up the road thankfully and in fairness, I've always been greeted by someone smartly dressed and at least addressed by my name or Sir (not Mate!) I would urge people to steer clear of this branch. If I rate them highly on anything, it's being very good at being utterly useless and disorganised. Safe to say, despite friends and colleagues suggesting not to use his branch, I have now had first experience as to why. I shan't be back!

Not recommended, avoid! Cheap offerings on the website and cars that look great. Friendly and easy going when you’re picking up the car. Surprisingly, their full-to-full petrol policy means filled up to about 70%, so you’re always overfilling when returning the car. When returning the car, suddenly extra costs pop up. Renting for a day for £40 changes into £100+ and their friendliness has totally disappeared. I’ve rented many cars at all kind of companies around Europe, but never experienced such a bad way to trick you into a costly adventure. I wish I read the many other telling reviews before. And what bothers me the most is I cannot longer be an easy-going car renter based on mutual trust that everything is going to be alright.

Really not sure why such low rating. I was greeted nicely, brought all my paperwork with me so didn’t take long at all. I arrived 1 hour early as decided to drop a car early next day anyway and it was not a problem. The price for automatic was the best I could get, way cheaper than well known companies were offering! And I got absolutely lovely new BMW 116. I loved the car! Drop off was quick as well and deposit came back through within 3 working days. Everything was perfect. Thank you Thrifty cars I will be coming back again!

I would strongly advise people to go elsewhere. We booked a 9 seater ford transit custom tourneo as we had 1 fit driver and four people with disabilities and mobility problems. So we wanted and needed space and comfort for the 9 days we booked it for. We only went for a week but as there is no flexibility for picking up and dropping off we had to pay for a further 2 days, it was annoying but I could of lived with that. However when my husband went to pick it up he was told about them needing a deposit, no emails or contact or indeed information had mentioned this previously, so the day before we left for holiday we had to find another £750 on top of the rental fee that we had paid in full. We were given the option of paying £17 a day extra to reduce it down to £250 which we would not get back. Luckily we managed to scrape together the amount although it was basically most of the spending money for the week. However as this was our first holiday in over 8 years we stretched things. Next my husband was shown the car which was not what we had ordered but a Citroen space tourer, which is a lot smaller, we managed to fit in most things, but the seats at the back didn't go down so it was a complete nightmare. In all honesty it has to be one of the most uncomfortable cars I have ever been in, there wasn't even lumber support on the drivers seat. We also found drinks bottles and rubbish from previous passengers, the drinks bottle went out of date in April so presumably no one had cleaned it out properly for sometime. On our last day we had to lose out on what we had planned because the car needed a top up of fluid to make it start, which was nowhere near anything to visit. So unless you are renting one from the Warwick garage who were lovely. Avoid the Brighton one because they were more interested in trying to get more money out of you with hidden costs, uncomfortable and cars that only look clean on the service.

Fab service , Miguel sorted everything for me , I had a lovely top of the range BMW delivered , but I wasn’t confident in driving it . So a different car was sorted and I had delivered a lovely sporty Ford Fiesta , I was very pleased with the car and service ,nothing was any trouble . I recommend Thrifty and Miguel is a lovely guy . Thank you very much

Friendly staff, quick check.

This is the third time I have used Brighton Thrifty. I went back the 2nd and 3rd time purely because I had such great customer services on my first visit. I was looked after by a gentleman called Miguel. He is awesome. He looked after me so well. I'm sure thrifty know this, but you are super lucky to have him work there. Miguel you are the best. Thank you for all your kindness and help.

Nice company and really professional. The worker named Miguel is really nice, he was very helpfully and professional. I would definitely go back again. We went there in the morning and he found us a nice car and nice price. We was really happy.

Thrifty have very different requirements to accept a rental than any other car rental company, including a gas bill. As a new arrival in the country, I didn’t have that (although I did have all the details their tiny small print asked for), meaning they wouldn’t rent the car or refund the money. When I asked why they had such different rules to other rental companies, the guy said it was because they have to send more solicitors letters to their customers. There’s a few different and equally good reasons here to avoid this company