National Car Rental

This location has the best service amongst all the rental car companies in San Diego. I come here on weekly basis and love being welcomed by their friendly crew. They have the usual emerald and executive aisles. If you don’t like what you see all you have to do is ask and the staff will do their best to accommodate you.
If you rent from national make sure you do sign up for emerald. It beats the hassle of going to a booth and get all that paper work signed and then walk to your car. I like nationals system of pick your car and drive off to the exit where you show your license and drive off.
They have most of the standard cars that other rental agencies have but their service is far more superior than the competition’s.

We have National Executive status so we usually rent with them when travelling. The status lets you bypass the counter and pick any car on their «executive» aisle and the get out quickly so it is a great benefit. We are usually looking for a larger vehicle since we travel with children. When I booked the rental, an «executive» aisle rental was similar in price to an SUV or minivan but we wanted the speedy check out so we went with the executive aisle. Usually this works out fine since there is a variety of vehicles on the aisle and if there isn’t much there, you ask and they bring more to the aisle.
Unfortunately, when we arrived, there were eight dodge chargers on the aisle and one jeep compact. We arrived late on a Friday night so they may have not had time to move more vehicles to the aisle and we asked if they had anything else since the rental car place was packed with vehicles (entire aisles of SUVs and minivans). The agent basically said you get what you see and if we didn’t like it we should have paid more to reserve something else.
This was a big turn off and we would not recommend anyone with status at National using this location. If you don’t want to offer a benefit then don’t offer it, but it isn’t right to make people jump through hoops to be «executive» members and then not deliver on the benefits.
It’s a shame that this happened because the rest of the experience was great. When we dropped of the car, everyone was friendly and fast. The shuttle to the airport was efficient and the driver (don’t remember his name but he was an older gentleman with a vet hat on) was very helpful. He went out of his way to help with our stroller and bags. If it wasn’t for the car selection, we would give this place 5 stars. Unfortunately, it seems to follow the trend of individual locations refusing to provide the benefits that the national company advertises but the local branch still wants the rentals that come with those customers.

I am currently working in the San Diego area, and National has always accommodated my needs. Great customer support

Best service we have ever received. Picked up an SUV. The guy was nice enough to show us how to fold down the third row before we left. Later, halfway through our trip, we changed to a minivan. The people were nice enough to point us to a place to leave the SUV that would minimize lugging our two huge car seats for our toddlers from the old car to the new car. When we dropped off the minivan before our trip home, they offered to drive us and all our stuff to the terminal instead of making us take the shuttle. I’ve never received such great service before. We will never rent from any other company for family vacations again.

I was looking up a place to rent a car from and this place had good reviews so I stopped by to rent a car. They quoted me roughly $ 200 a day on a compact car and I probably had a strange look on my face that was saying, «holy… what?» So the clerk that was helping me immediately noticed and grabbed a card from the cup in front of him and called up a neighboring car rental place and told me that it would be about half the price. He explained to me that they were getting new cars in or something to that effect so the prices were kind of high. I didn’t rent a car from this place, but I had a good experience because the clerk didn’t try to gouge me. He called the other place and reserved a car for me and gave me directions. Good customer service.

I’m an Emerald Club member and have been for years. I really enjoy how easy it is to rent from National. Car pick up and drop off is a breeze and prices are good, too! SAN location is great! Seconds from the airport and the airport shuttle is always running, I’ve never had to wait longer than 5 minutes. Staff is very friendly, shuttle bus is clean, and there’s a great selection of vehicles!

I enjoy renting vehicles at National because the staff is incredible, the cars are well kept, renting and returning vehicles is a snap, and there are so many vehicles to choose from. A special shout out to Millan, Allison. Doreen, and others. Thank you for making my experience enjoyable and helping me get my tablet returned to me that I left in the car.

No waiting for receipt it just shows up in my email and Thomas the bus driver is fantastic. He was friendly and helpful and made a great final impression.

Great rental experience. Picking up the car was a breeze and so was dropping it off. I highly recommend signing up for the free emerald club. This will make your experience even faster. The employees were all very nice and helpful.

I reversed a compact car for $ 240 for a week. When I pjcked it up at San Francisco, the guy handed the key to me without saying anything useless. No forced insurance selling (like Dollar Rent A Car did to me today.) I even got a free upgrade to Chevy Malibu. (However, Dollar «upgraded» to Hydai Elantra for 10 per day.) The return today was also effortless at this location.

They will not rent a car if you only have a debit card. Shitty experience.
I highly recommend renting from somewhere else.

Always awesome and helpful. Now do most all of my car rentals with them if I have the choice.

Rental car companies, just as sketchy as ever. Booked through southwest because they offer points on national rentals. When returning the car national had added a $ 5 fee for associating a frequent flyer account. They didn’t offer to waive it only to remove the fee and my frequent flyer number. WTF. So I’m supposed to pay $ 5 for a $ 98 dollars worth of rewards points after booking through your partners site. Of course National didn’t mention it, just hoping it would go unnoticed.
That was the end of the trip but the beginning wasn’t much better. «Would you like to be emerald club?» he asked. That way you won’t need to come in here and get a print out (read I’m too lazy to print you out a contract). Then he asks us the standard questions and we decline everything. We get outside to the gate and the lady at the gate asks where our printed contract was with a lot of snark. Then she proceeds to ask the same questions as inside annoyed at us the whole time.
I’m not sure if the employees are just lazy and dumping work on each other or if this is just how National operates. Either way, I’m the eff-​ing customer and I was nothing but polite and friendly. I will not take your snark, annoyance, and dishonest charges. Obviously won’t be using National again.

Really like national, emerald club is great, so quick in and out. Used the, often. I recently left some items in my car… luckily process was really easy and they had my list items at their office… very grateful.
Always great customer service.

Memorial Day weekend. 1230am. Enterprise closed. Alamo closed. So we all get sent to National. Line is out the door. 1 person behind the counter. 1 person out by the cars. Holiday weekend! Are you kidding me?! Enterprise never again. National never again. Alamo never again. What a joke

When I rent a car, which at times has been very often, I don’t look at the price as much as the overall service. Which is why I rent almost exclusively from National. I’m usually pleased with the entire rental process and I have never felt like I am paying too much. The #1 reason I choose National is that I can get off the plane, walk to the car of my choice (within a selected grouping of cars) and drive off. No lines, no waiting and never being «stuck» with a brand or model of car I don’t want. Word to National — if you ever discontinue that feature you would lose the reason I choose your company. I also like that National’s fleet is usually newer and equipped with the amenities I would choose when buying a car like leather seats and high-​end sound systems. In other words, their cars don’t feel like rental cars.
A recent rental at San Diego airport was reasonably priced (touristy towns like San Diego tend to overcharge for everything) and all of the convenience factors were there … hop on a shuttle bus, ride for 5 minutes, hop off and jump in a waiting car. By the way, the shuttle bus driver was happy and helpful.
There were a few relatively minor missed opportunities by the San Diego National location, however. First off, the selection of Emerald Club cars was pretty dismal, all similar looking bland family sedans. Since I was there on a pleasure trip I was hoping for something a little more sporty and fun to get around town in. Since their lot is primarily self-​serve there were only two employees nearby, and both of them failed the people skills test. Not rude, just not eager to help.
I chose a 2015 Toyota Camry with 3 miles on the odometer. You read that right, 3 miles. The car must have been delivered right to that spot by the transport company. Obviously the car was perfect in every way. Returning the car was just as easy as picking it up — just hop out, have the employee do a quick scan and get on the bus to the airport. The return lot employee was also happy and helpful.
So the net result is that this experience underscores why I have rented from National for many years and why I will continue to do so. The only slight negative was the attitude of the pickup location employees — the very people I would expect to be the most helpful. That takes away ¼-​star but not enough to rate the experience less than 5-​stars.

When I arrived at the airport in San Diego it seemed like every other car rental company’s shuttles went by twice before National’s finally came. I even tried to call the place to check if someone was coming, but got routed to a national number with a robot touch menu. But once you hop off the shuttle all I had to do was literally go pick out a car and then drive to the gate to show my license and then I was on my way. Very easy process and the car selection was very good.
When returning my car it took barely no time at all, they had several people ready to check your car the second you pulled in. When on the shuttle I asked the driver how long he planned to wait but when he asked for my flight time he took us right away, knowing that I was in danger of missing my flight.
I realized because of my rush I left my iPhone cable in the car when I returned it. Oh well I guess, $ 15 down the drain… better than missing my flight.
Yesterday I received an e-​mail from National saying they found my cable in the car and could ship it back to me if I paid for the shipping. I thought there’s no way in the world I’d ever get that cord back. Not only did they realize I left my cord, they took the steps to determine what e-​mail was associated with that car and reached out to me to have the cord returned — all without me even inquiring about it. Pretty incredible in a world where customer service is going extinct.
I would definitely give them 5 stars as they went above and beyond but the initial shuttle right tested my patience.

This was a seamless rental. Pickup at yerminal was fast, Emerald Aisle was full of nice cars and SUVs. Return was quick and easy.
I had rented through Avis at LAX and it was a horrible experience with over an hour wait to get my car. National seems to always be a simple process.

Prompt shuttle service at the airport. Convenient location to pickup my car which was clean and ready to go. Only issue was POOR selection of cars in the Executive Level area… Impala…Genesis…Captiva…was hoping for a larger SUV for 5 people!
Shuttle driver Eric was simply outstanding! Great attitude and very motivated to provide excellent customer service! He is a credit to the company!

Rented a Prius, great car
Rims: 3 Silver, 1 Black — it was a bit unprofessional of National.
Smell: The car smelled like Smoke, it was a little smoky at first but we figured it would go away. It only got worse when you turned on the AC and when the car heated up while parked.
Gas: I rent cars frequently and it is generally easy to find a gas station near the airport. Here, you exit the highway and it leads right into the Airport, no easy opportunity for gas, heavy negative. I wish National had suggested some local places ahead of time given the situation.