No additional upselling, just asked if I needed an upgrade. Overall, the pick-up process was very smooth. However, the Nissan X-Trail given this time wasn't as good as the previous Honda CR-V; the 1.5T three-cylinder engine's performance was quite poor, and the fuel consumption wasn't any better.

We picked up the car from a store at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, which was very close to our hotel. BUDGET and Avis share the same location. Though we originally scheduled to pick up the car at 10 a.m., we asked the staff if we could delay it a bit because we needed to return something at Union Square. The staff agreed without any hassle. However, the downtown location had very few cars available, and we were given a Hyundai. My husband doesn't like Korean cars and wanted to switch or pay for an upgrade, but both were denied, which made us quite sad. Friends who picked up their car a day later at the San Francisco airport got a free upgrade to a JEEP, which made us very envious. If you want more options, it's better to pick up the car at the airport where there's a wider selection. We returned the car at the Los Angeles airport. There are a few gas stations a few blocks away from the rental company, so you need to navigate. The return process was very quick; the staff briefly inspected the exterior and checked the fuel level, and we were done.

Had to change car on the second day, first car got a flat tire. Changed at another location without any problems other that Budget system update.

See next comment for the initial problem. The person at the pickup location had me call budget customer service, which was awful. I could not hear the representative, who occasionally just said things that were read off a card ("there is no note for that specific situation", which, as a standalone sentence, literally doesn't mean anything). After speaking for several minutes, I offered to send the email I received. I was told how to do so (only telling me the case number after having sent it once) only to be then told that it would be reviewed in 3-5 business days. I received an email the next day answering questions that were not in any way related to the issue I discussed at length on the phone and saying that the drop off location said I'd returned the car without fuel when I still had the car. This was incredibly bad service and makes me think that the entire customer service operation is purely scripted and not worth bothering with. I held budget as a preferred service before. Not any longer. The man at the counter at the pickup (Lee Kirstein?) was wonderful, called his manager to fix the issue, and made the whole thing possible