National Car Rental - Aeropuerto de Madrid-Barajas in Madrid

National at MAD- Madrid Int'l airport offered excellent customer service at both ends of my trip. Staff recommended I take a video to document pre-existing damage. Staff was courteous, knowledgeable, and attentive to my needs. The return process was seamless and very quick. Will certainly return!

I recently rented a car from National Car Rental at Madrid Airport and had an excellent experience, despite some initial concerns based on previous reviews. The staff were incredibly friendly and went above and beyond to ensure a smooth rental process. When I arrived to pick up my car, I discovered that it was in a different terminal. Here's a tip for future renters: make sure to enter your flight details when booking to have your car ready at the right terminal. The staff, especially Maria, were extremely helpful. Maria drove me all the way from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4 to get my car, which was a huge help and very much appreciated. Upon reaching Terminal 4, Franco assisted me with my car pickup. He was extremely courteous and even offered me a free upgrade. His professionalism and friendliness stood out and made the process much more enjoyable. Despite reading several negative reviews before my trip, my experience was overwhelmingly positive. The staff truly went out of their way to provide excellent service. When I returned the car, Andreas was also very friendly and efficient, making the return process smooth and hassle-free. It is important to note that the location can be quite busy, so a 10 to 15-minute wait might be expected, but the friendly and helpful service makes it worth it. There were no attempts to upsell additional services or suggest any damages upon return, which was a relief given some of the reviews I had read. Overall, I highly recommend renting from National Car Rental at Madrid Airport. Special thanks to Maria and Franco for making my rental experience so pleasant.

One of the worst car rental experience in my 6 years of being with National Emerald. After waiting for 2 hours to solve the problem with National, I went to Sixt and got an excellent service. National counter had 6 employees and none were able to help and they have a least service focused attitude. #notcustomerfocused #notcustomerfriendly

Emerald Club Executive member for years. Worst experience I've had at National globally. Lots of little things that don't inspire trust. - Tank was 1/2 full and they wrote 3/4 full on contract. Deceitful. Also difficult for customer to return at same level. Just FILL UP a the gas tank National! - Car parked in dark area making it hard to check for damages. But when you return the car the employees pull out their bright lights to inspect the vehicle thoroughly. Just inspect the vehicle before as well as you do after National! - Asked for way more paperwork than I've ever needed to give in addition to passport and drivers license (residency papers which I did not have). - Would suggest they tell customers how to find rental car area as it is not well indicated throughout the airport. Recommend they show customers what logo to look for as there is no "rental return" signs... u need to look for a logo of a car and key. Michelle upon return was helpful and nice but you (National) need to review your overall approach to make the process more customer friendly (quick and easy).

2nd worst experience as an Emerald Club Executive member. - Nearly 45min delay until a suitable car was available and I already had to hurry to an appointment. - Car had errors. I was lied to and told to ignore the errors but they didn't want to give me a written statement to ignore it. - Enterprise/National used my private credit without authorization so that I needed to block it and get a new one. - Tank was not full! They do this in general now to earn more money... But how should I know how much exactly I need to top up at the end? - They give you the car at the beginning only quickly checking. At the end they come with a special light and check also the underbody. Be careful! Luckily I took a lot of good pictures before. - They will even charge for you for stones that hit your windshield! This is out of your control and therefore not legal in Spain. But they try it and you need to claim it or go through court afterwards. Go somewhere else... I really really recommend to use other services like Hertz or Avis. I had better experiences there.

Although National/Enterprise Car Rental is an overall well run company, be very careful with this rental location. They try every possible way to overcharge. First they produced a rental agreement with much higher price than the quote and tried to trick me to sign it. Second, the tank was less than half full when I picked up the car. I was assured by the attendant at the time that she had already recorded it. However, they tried to charge me for returning the car without full tank even though the gasoline was more than the initial fuel level. Luckily I took a picture and documented the gasoline level when I rented the car. Also the rental location is in a paid parking lot and there is an adjacent paid lot that cannot drive through between them. There is no instruction how to get into the correct lot. I drove into the wrong lot and had to pay the parking before I can get out of it. Worst experience!!! I would give them less than one star if I could.

I was able to get a really good price on a rental car at National during our recent trip to Spain. We picked up and dropped the car off at the Madrid airport location. We had reserved a Cleo but we were upgraded. Usually that would be good but we would have preferred the smaller car due to tight parking in Europe. Regardless, we were happy with our car. It wasn't until we were happily driving in Spain when I read the reviews for this rental agency. There are a lot of bad reviews so I was very concerned when I dropped the car off as people were complaining of being over charged. In my case, we had a very small accident in which I very gently rubbed one of the bumpers on a metal pole. There was a small area of abrasion. In addition, the day before we were to return the car, someone opened their door into my driver's side front door and there was another little impact dent. I didn't purchase supplementary insurance as the insurance was covered by my high end credit card. However, it would have been a hassle to deal with the paper work and potentially have to pay upfront and then try to get reimbursed by my credit card company. I was upfront when I returned the car, showing the very small areas of damage and expecting the worse. However, this didn't happen. The two young men working the desk that day, Alvaro and Rodrigo, were very professional and spoke very good English. They explained that there is a formula used to determine if damage claim has to be submitted. This is based on the size of the damage. Alvaro diligently measured both areas of damage and reported that both were within the acceptable limits and there was no need to submit a claim. They could have easily charged me for this damage as I would not have known about the formula to determine if the damage is significant. Alvaro was aware of the previous bad reviews of this agency and explained that they were trying to be completely transparent with every rental. He also went to great lengths to go over the bill with me to make sure that everything was correct and appropriate. Thank you very much, Alvaro and Rodrigo. I was very pleased with my experience with National.

Make sure you take pictures of the car before you leave the facility. They have VERY aggressive standards of judging damage. Also the roadside assistance is pushed hard (they got me :( ), which is complete BS. It is their car and if it breaks down, they will charge you the service fee to pick up their own car that failed???!! Unless you are going long distances from the hotel, I would recommend taxis or uber