I really like Silvercar. They have an all-Audi fleet and their all-inclusive model comes with free GPS, wifi, and satellite radio. You pay only actual tolls (no administrative charges) and can pay a flat $5 and they’ll refuel your car at market rate.
No $9.79 per gallon charges, and no filling up at the gas station near rental car return charging nearly $5 a gallon.
It doesn’t work for them everywhere, however. They used to have a Houston Hobby location but that’s closed. Now they’re closing down Dallas-Fort Worth.
Their website and app will not reserve cars past July 1 at DFW, and customer service confirms it’s because they are shutting down the location.
Dallas was a tough location to work at — customers had to take the rental car bus to the airport’s rental center and from there Silvercar would send a car to pick up passengers and take them to the nearby rental lot to pick up their vehicle. Things are far faster where they’re able to pick up passengers at the airport curbside and bring them to the lot straight away.
Silvercar has remaining locations at:
- Austin
- Chicago O’Hare
- Dallas Love Field
- Denver
- Fort Lauderdale
- Los Angeles
- Las Vegas
- Miami
- Newark (Wallypark)
- New York City (non-airport locations, Silver Towers in Manhattan and McCarren Hotel in Brooklyn)
- Phoenix
- San Francisco
These aren’t cheap rentals, they start at $49 a day in some locations but that’s often cheaper than I can get midweek airport rentals and it’s not that much more than rental agencies charge much of the rest of the time — plus you get a nice car and nice set of features.
Hopefully things will continue to work out better than they did at DFW and Houston Hobby!
That’s too bad as I do like Silvercar and did use them at DFW last year. But I think they will have challenges at airports like DFW (and AUS comes to mind as well) where getting into a rental car from an established company is a lot faster/easier than Silvercar. But at a place like LAX, I think Silvercar wins every time for convenience.
LAS has the same process.. have to take the bus to the off-site rental car facility then have someone from Silvercar pick you up.
Is Silvercar still expanding?
SFO also has this “remote” setup where you have to take the train to the rental building, then get picked up from there. Hopefully that doesn’t also go away.
Guess I’ll find out how bad the DFW experience with them is, I have a car reserved 6/20-6/24 there…MUCH cheaper than my other choices.
@Gary – maybe this explains the free day redemption I was able to get 🙂
Why do DFW and these other airports not allow a curbside pickup?
Maybe Silvercar needs to set up a Transportation Network subsidiary (like Uber, Lyft) that only offers rides bewteen the airport & the lot.
I am bummed to hear this, but they really were in an inconvenient location at DFW. Having to wait for, and then ride, the bus to the rental car place was just not acceptable for the level of service and convenience that Silvercar advertises. Plus, the drive from the rental car place to Silvercar’s location wasn’t short either.
When I rented from them almost exactly a year ago, the agent who drove us said they were expecting that the airport authority would allow them to pick up at the airport, but I guess that never materialized.
@swag Pickup at DFW requires a limo license (or did last I looked). Drop off doesn’t.
@TracyT – how long did it take on return to the airport? Just curious since I haven’t rented here before.
@Frank Doyle – I think the SFO location has fixed that problem as you now just take the Park N Fly shuttle and they are stationed at that parking lot. Much easier. They also gave me a ride back to the terminal last year when I was running late for a flight.
The DFW logistics were a major pain in the butt, so I’m not surprised its closing. It was by far my worst Silvercar experience. The pick-up was fine as they just drive over to the rental car building, but when you drop off at their location its quite a ways from the airport and then they drop you at the rental car facility to take a shuttle back to the airport. Ugh.
It’s always nice to have competition, but the problem I would see in successfully launching an airport car rental business in the USA is that the established competitors are quite good. If you have Executive Emerald status with National, I suspect you are VERY satisfied with you car rental experience. I personally believe National consistently does a better job with customer satisfaction than any other travel provider I use. So why does anyone need Silvercar? Only if your a car snob, I think.
@iahphx – I’m happy with National but am able to save $200 on an upcoming trip via Silvercar. As long as the airport agencies are so pricey I’ll keep looking around. But if the price is even close then there’s no reason to not use National
I’m guessing the bigger reason is because Uber/Lyft is eating their lunch among biz clients.
What exactly happened with Silvercar at DFW? When I first used them, they were located on property at the rental car facility – just take the normal rental car bus. Anyone know why they moved off property?
I’ve never had luck with Silvercar at DFW. Both times I tried them the remote entry system wouldn’t open my car because their satellite system was down. On the first rental there were many other people all standing around their cars and no one could get in their cars. Because they are so automated there were no employees around to assist. Hope they have better luck in other locations. If you’re on an expense account their business model would be a good idea if they combined it with have having employees around to assist when the technology breaks
I recently learned that Silvercar likes being just off the airport premises, like in Austin, so they can avoid paying airport taxes.
FWIW, I am flying into DFW but still going to use Silvercar from the DAL location – with the 15% summer discount (FTUNI15) 3 days was WAY cheaper than the other big companies – I will just take an uber from DFW to the DAL Silvercar location and then take the car from there. Arguably no less convenient than the rental situation at DFW.