This Is the No. 1 Car Rental Company in the U.S., Study Finds
A new study named National the best car rental company in the U.S.
Once the rest of your travel tasks are done — picking a location, booking flights, getting that fantastic hotel room secured — for most trips, there's one critical thing left to do: book a rental car. Somehow, it's often the thing that gets left to the last second, perhaps because it feels like the most daunting part of the journey, as finding a reliable and trustworthy rental service can be challenging. But, according to the J.D. Power 2024 North America Rental Car Satisfaction Study, a few companies rise to the top as the best of the best.
"When customers feel that a company is genuinely focused on their needs and provides a seamless experience, they are more likely to trust that brand and choose it repeatedly," Azari Jones, rental car practice lead at J.D. Power, shared in the study's findings. "Trust fosters loyalty, enhances the company's reputation, and differentiates it in a competitive market. This leads to higher customer retention and positive word-of-mouth. Without this trust, even a well-known brand may struggle to maintain long-term relationships with customers."
As for what factors play into people's level of trust in a car rental agency the most, J.D. Powder noted that "overly complicated vehicles, problems experienced during the rental car experience, and the inability to choose a specific vehicle" are more likely to negatively affect trust, thus damaging future loyalty to the brand. "Overall, just more than half (53 percent) of rental car customers say it was very easy to operate the features and amenities in their vehicle, an issue rental car companies will need to start addressing as in-car technologies grow increasingly complex," it added.
After crunching the numbers, the team named National Car Rental the highest in overall customer satisfaction.
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To figure out which companies were best, the team researched rental car companies in North America across seven key metrics: ease of rental, pick-up/drop-off, level of trust, vehicle, staff, value for price paid, and digital tools. It surveyed 8,379 business and leisure travelers who rented a vehicle at an airport location during the past year, with responses collected between August 2023 and July 2024, and then gave them a normalized score before ranking.
While National ranks highest in overall customer satisfaction with a score of 736, Enterprise came in a close second with a score of 726, followed by Sixt with a score of 708 in third. And these companies really do outperform their competition, as the team found that the overall customer satisfaction for the industry is 688. Alamo, Hertz, and Ace all ranked higher than the customer average.
See which ones need to work on their game a bit to ensure better satisfaction ratings in 2025 at jdpower.com. And if you need any more advice from your fellow travelers on which car company to pick, check out the winners of the Travel + Leisure readers' 5 favorite rental-car companies in the 2024 World's Best Awards.