We needed to fly to Los Angeles for a wedding and ...

We needed to fly to Los Angeles for a wedding and obviously needed a car. We tried to offset the already expensive trip by trying to save money on a rental car. We booked through Hotwire because it was significantly cheaper to do so. Unfortunately for us, Hotwire doesn't tell you the rental company until *after* you rent the car. We had never rented from Dollar before so we really didn't know what to expect.

We were off the plane and at the shuttle stop at LAX by 12:30 am and had to wait about 20 minutes before the shuttle even showed up, which was the first sign that this wasn't going to be a great experience. Finally, the shuttle comes and takes us to the agency. We walk in the door at 1 am and there's a line of about 20 people waiting and only three agents taking care of them. After maybe 15 minutes, one of them just leaves, so now we're down to two. We didn't get in a car and off the lot until 2:30 in the morning.

When the time came to drop the car off, we had no problems. We were in the lot and out of the car in minutes. Then, we walked to the agency to hop on the shuttle to take us to the airport. Again, we had to play the waiting game. After 10 minutes, a shuttle shows up and drops people off and then proceeds to drive by us and park. There's already a huge line of people waiting to get on. People eventually started calling taxis to pick them up, and one woman missed her flight waiting. A shuttle showed up after another 15 minutes and got us to the airport with 15 minutes before boarding. We got to the agency an hour and a half before our plane was supposed to leave, thinking that would be more than enough time.

TL;DR - You get what you pay for. Don't book through Hotwire and *NEVER* book through Dollar. Spend the few extra bucks to rent from a reputable company like Hertz or Enterprise.