So sad for your experience. You went through a lot considering that you wanted to do this traveling

In february 2011, I rented a time bomb from Thrifty Car Rentals. I thought I was renting a car, that was what I booked, but Thrifty fooled me. After the first 200 kilometers the car started to fail, and my wife and I had a tough time for 15 days!
I was with my wife in Portugal and decided to rent a car with Thrifty to go to Spain. Our road trip started on a cold rainy day of winter, and the first thing to fail was the air conditioning. Have you tried to drive a car when it's cold outside without flw bass tour air conditioning? Well, the windshield gets dangerously foggy, and the only way to fix this is by opening the window. Thank god I was in Spain and not in Canada. It was "only" 9 C (48 F) outside. Blood doesn't freeze at this temperature.
The next day I noticed that one of the tires was flat, so I filled it up. But that tire was actually loosing air, permanently and gradually, so I had to do that everyday for two weeks. And the reason is because Thrifty doesn't offer assistance to their clients in Spain, even though I was only 200 kilometers away from their closest agency.They didn't offer (or accepted, after I asked) to send me a replacement car. Instead, they told me I should fix their vehicle myself!
When I finally got back to Lisbon and expressed my discontent, they didn't care much, and just offered a miserable 20% discount, as a deal to get rid of me. The amount would be refunded directly to my credit card account.
And that's when I was fooled again. I should have known they would never reimburse me. They were only trying to get rid of a complaining client before another sucker came in to burn his money away with them.
Thrifty.com explaining what hapened. Few days later they confirmed my fear when I read their answer saying that was not their problem and I should deal straight with their agency at Lisbon. As if Thrifty Portugal, at Lisbon, was not really Thrifty.
So sad for your experience. You went through a lot considering that you wanted to do this traveling thing so bad. I just hope you were able to enjoy the places you went to, though. Did they gave you at least a little compensation for their defective car rentals?
Hi, See my Forum under " Dollar Rent a Car " in Travel tips. Thrifty is also part of Dollar Rent a car and has the same rules. They do not accept 3rd party insurance and if you are from the USA they will not accept VISA's CDW insurance.
Thank you for the heads up on this situation. I just read jkruge's post as well. My husband thinks I'm crazy when I'm paranoid about renting cars and the fear of being charged for extras or damage but I've read too many stories here on Fodor's to not be paranoid. Or a least forewarned and hopefully prepared!