St. Maaten Payless car

Do not rent from the Payless Car Rental in St Maarten! We walked around the car with the employee and neither of us saw a small rip in the bumper. We drove straight to the motel and when we were parked at a different angle we saw it right away. It was late at night so we emailed the company within the hour and told them we would stop by in the morning to show them. It had even been painted over before!!! They said we caused the damage and would have to pay. We asked them to look at their videos and they refused. They knew it was there and we feel this is how they make extra money. We even went as high as the corporate office and they told us we were not telling the truth!!!

Thank you for posting this! We are looking to rent a car on St. Martin and will be sure not to use them.

We just rented with Hertz. Walked all around the car and the hertz guy pointed out all the damage. I videotaped it with my phone. We drop it on Saturday at the cruise terminal. I will report back how things turn out.

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Kathy2016 - Thanks for the heads up. I don't think we have ever actually used Payless before, but sounds like we don't want to either.

Ski Mom 2 - How did the picking the car up at the airport and dropping it off at the cruise terminal work out for you. Does Windstar use the same cruise terminal that the larger ships use?

Of course the employee is not going to be looking for existing damage as carefully as the renter. I regularly rent from Avis on land visits to SXM --- and have often had to insist that their guy had to add to the list "minor" scuffs - which he tried to insist wouldn't matter.

The problem is - once you have checked for damage, any damage noted upon return which was not noted on check-out is tough to object to. Take the time to be really sharp-eyed.

Dropping off the car at the cruise terminal was a breeze. First we had to go and check in for our Wind Star cruise. They had tents set up and we dropped our luggage and got a yellow sticky note with our "numbers" on it. (Very high tech!)

We then drove the car to the rental drop off. (Basically around the corner.) There were folks that worked there that told us what to do since there wasn't anyone at the car rental drop off. We filled in the mileage and fuel log from our original paperwork and dropped it in the box. I videotaped while I walked around the car again and took a photo of the contract. We then walked to the bathrooms and by the time we came out they had picked up the car the workers said. I received an email from Hertz with my final bill which was exactly what I was quoted.

We were now located by the shops at the pier and showed our sticky note with our numbers to the person on duty who checked the Wind Star sheet with passenger names and let us through to walk to the ship to board.

It cost us $25 to drop the car at the pier instead of the airport which we figured was a good deal. We couldn't believe the whole sticky note thing but hey it worked for us.

Dropping off the car at the cruise terminal was a breeze. First we had to go and check in for our Wind Star cruise. They had tents set up and we dropped our luggage and got a yellow sticky note with our "numbers" on it. (Very high tech!)

 

We then drove the car to the rental drop off. (Basically around the corner.) There were folks that worked there that told us what to do since there wasn't anyone at the car rental drop off. We filled in the mileage and fuel log from our original paperwork and dropped it in the box. I videotaped while I walked around the car again and took a photo of the contract. We then walked to the bathrooms and by the time we came out they had picked up the car the workers said. I received an email from Hertz with my final bill which was exactly what I was quoted.

 

We were now located by the shops at the pier and showed our sticky note with our numbers to the person on duty who checked the Wind Star sheet with passenger names and let us through to walk to the ship to board.

 

It cost us $25 to drop the car at the pier instead of the airport which we figured was a good deal. We couldn't believe the whole sticky note thing but hey it worked for us.

Thank you so much for the very detailed report. That is exactly what I needed. We will be doing this in two more weeks, so scrambling for all the last minute details I can find. You did well. Thanks again.

Happy to help! Wish I could go back!!