BWI Marshall Airport Rental Car Facility — Local services in Severn

First airport I've been to where the rental car facility was separate from the airport. The agencies available are Avis, Alamo, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Hurtz, National, Nextcar, Payless, and Thrifty.

There is a convenient shuttle from the airport that takes you to the departures from the rental car facility and they pick you up from baggage claim. They however do not let you ride to arrival / baggage claim. You have to get off the shuttle at departures and then go downstairs if you're wanting to go down there but I was just trying to get to the USO so that might just be a me problem. The shuttle has a good amount of seating but nothing compared to a plane that just unloaded so it fills up fast.

The waiting area at the rental car facility has plenty of seating. It's air-conditioned with restrooms and vending machines. The lines for the different rental desk's can get long. My first time was quick and easy. My second time was a nightmare, several of the companies share or work together, Dollar works with Thrifty and when I got there my reserved car was with Dollar but the desk was sending everyone to Thrifty and they were telling everyone they were out of cars with a four hour wait. Add to that I needed to get to Dulles and one way rentals were completely out at every other desk. I got into this problem because Nextcar doesn't have a return at Dulles at all. So if you have a flight departing at a different airport make sure the rental can be received there as there are a lot of companies at this location in Baltimore that are not shared by the other airports around DC. I had been redirected to Baltimore due to my connecting flight getting canceled and it was the only way in DC.

So lessons learned check your rental can be returned if you're not flying back out of Baltimore. Even though it says they have cars online they might not have cars there.

The cars are all pretty great, Nextcar did have a strong odor like cleaner or something burnt.

Good luck and I hope everyone makes it to their flights or has a good company they work for that can put you up for a night in one of the many cheap hotels if...

This is not the about the airport itself but about its rental car agency.

Where do I start? I will never fly into BWI if imma need to get a rental. Upon arriving at thrifty rental. No agent working. So dollar took on the task. To many people between both dollar & thrifty needing a rental for only 1 agent to be on duty. I waited 39 mins for service. Not to mention 3 customers before me all came back with a issue with their car. The agent ten tells me to enter my card. I asked why? She said I don't know. I told her you can't be serious. I won't insert my card unless you tell me why & how much. Make it make sense. Finally she says its a deposit. A deposit that will be refunded upon returning the vehicle. Ok that's all she had to say in the 1st place. I asked about the car being that I reserved a luxury car. Cadillac ats or similar. Unfortunately no luxury cars were available. The 4 I got to choose from was a 300 Chrysler, Traverse, Mailbu & a Empty spot cause no car was there. The 300 bumper was falling off the car. The Malibu smelled very bad. The Traverse I said I'll just take it if no foul smell. I walk the truck everything looks OK. At this point I'm tired and want to get to my hotel. I get in and guess what. The dash is saying please change oil soon. Everytime the truck is started it says please change oil. Next day I notice the inside of car is filty. The console dirty, not cleaned. Back seat filty. I'm not sure whose supposed to clean/service your cars but they need a new line of work. A stranger when i stop at a gas station asked when was the last time i git an oil change. A stranger. I said its a rental and how do you know it needs one. They said they can here the noise that the truck is making. I still have the truck as I text and I hope I have no issues getting the truck back to the airport rental area... Just know never...

Ok, going to slam this operation; not because of the facilities or the tenants… but because when I arrived at an off peak time (6am on a Wednesday), I had to wait 20 minutes for a bus.

Now, you might ask what the problem is and why I’m whining about a wait that arguably isn’t horrible at that hour, but…

In that 20 minutes, 4 buses for long term, 3 buses for short term and a half dozen transit buses passed through. I called the customer service number, got a recording that CS was closed and if I wanted dispatch to get forwarded. Followed said instructions and no answer.

The bus finally arrived, pretty full and with a really pleasant driver… got to the rental facility and there was a huge crowd waiting there as well with a huge load of luggage that may or may not have fit on our bus for the ride back to the terminal.

So, here’s the problem… I have a 7am flight tomorrow and have to build an extra hour into my schedule because of the possibility of having to wait for 20-40 minutes for a bus and then a 10 minute ride to the airport. The rental agent told me this is a regular occurrence.

D- for service levels. If long term parking can send 4 buses through in the same time that the rental garage sends one, there’s something wrong. What exactly am I paying a facilities fee for?

If management actually reads this and gives a $&@% about service… fix it! You have a really nice facility. Maybe staff it...