gravyboat

I've seen quite a few posts from people recommending Tricolor Car Rental, and we did use them when we were in Costa Rica in April. Initially, we were very pleased with the flexible and friendly service. However, on the last day of our contract, Tricolor failed to pick up the car from the agreed upon location and in turn, charged us for an additional day. The most frustrating aspect of our incident is that the gentleman at Tricolor told us we had lied about our arrangement for pick-up and that there were no other options but to pay for the additional day.
To this day, we are still trying to reclaim the charge.

sean420

You rental car contract specifies where the car was to be dropped off. You got a copy of it when you rented the car.

I've rented from Tricolor several time now and have had nothing less than a fantastic experience. When they came to pick up my car last week it was so caked with mud and dirt he couldn;t check to see if I had scratched or dented it. He said that he trusted me and tore up the credit card imprint. They also didn;t charge me for an extra day when we called to have the car picked up 5 hours late

shillmac

Same here. . .have rented from them a about 10 times. ALWAYS a positive experience. They cut me some slack this past summer on an encounter I had with a low rock wall. I've not dealt with any of the staff except the airport office crew, but it would take a LOT to convince me to use a different company. They've allowed us extra hours before as well.

gravyboat

Yes, you are correct that the car rental contract indicates the location for drop-off. Our situation was that we were staying at Orquideas Inn (very nice place) and our agreement was to drop off the car at the Alajuela office (we picked it up in San Jose). We were asking for directions to the Rental Office at the hotel front desk when the staff said that Tricolor very often picks up cars from their hotel. So she called and asked them if they would pick it up the next day (when our contract ended). They agreed. So the next morning we left to do some Pacuare River Rafting (Amazing!), and when we returned that night we were shocked to find that the car had not been picked up. We called the next morning to find out what happened and they insisted that no phone call had been made, and denied any arrangement for pick-up. Well this was extremely upsetting – as we know that the arrangement WAS made. They asked for permission to charge our credit card for the extra day, and we repeatedly said “no, you do not have permission, this is not our error”. But they proceeded to charge our card anyway.
Anyway, yes, we were very pleased with their service up until this incident. We most certainly will NOT use them again, and we urge others to exercise caution if making any verbal agreements with them.

Jeff_Costa_Rica

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. (I like Tricolor too and have always had good luck with them.) I think the lesson here is that I wouldn't rely on an intermediary to make the call for me, and I would return the car myself to the agency just to be sure that everything was taken care of properly, and as you mention, I would not rely on a verbal statement that is different than what the contract states.

shillmac

The point that Jeff makes is indeed valid. Under these circumstances, the same might have happened with any other agency. So when you switch to another company, I would still make a point of following his advice. It is too bad that your trip ended on this note.

fitzpowell

Sorry to hear of a bad experience with this company. I am hoping to use them this year. Do they do business from the Liberia airport though?

Legally, the written contract always controls and cannot be modified by prior or subsequent verbal agreements. Of course, that's American contract law. Good customer relations may dictate deviation from the black letter law where appropriate. Understandably, language barriers may require reliance on an intermediary but this case demonstrates the potential pitfalls of third party communications.

Jeff_Costa_Rica

Tricolor has an office very near Liberia airport, between the city and the airport.

www.tricolorcarrental.com/

sean420

Tricolor has english speaking people at all of their locations as well as their 1-800 number available from the USA

septic

actually i have had a terrible experience with tricolor too. once we got to the airport office we were encouraged to upgrade to a 4x4 which is fine. we had a drop off in liberia for $50 more on the previous package. the man offerred a price that included everything we had previously had, insurance and drop off...

once it was time to drop it off, they wanted an extra $50 for the drop off. we pulled out the contract that did not have this extra amount written and explained that we were told it was included in the price set by the contract signed. they said i had to talk to the san jose office about it (i was in liberia) i was then told that i would just have to pay the extra amount or they were going to charge my credit card anyways whether i like it or not, they then told me they had not superviser and hung up on me. upon calling back they just let the phone ring, and then after a while hung up on me when they realized i was the caller. we left after 2 hours of discussing the issue with my fluent spanish and got our card charged the moment we walked out. i do not recommend tricolor.

GregandNanette

My experience with Tricolor was awesome. By the way, so was my experience with Sansa Airline employees...
What happened was when I tried to drop off the rental at the Tamarindo airport (HA! It's just an airstrip in the middle of nowhere!), I ended up giving my car keys to a Sansa representative whom I trusted to give to the Tricolor rep who was on the way there, but not before the plane left. I had no qualms doing this, and the result was that there was no problem whatesoever, no additional charges - no nothing. So, I'm definitely using Tricolor on my next trip to CR in November, and highly recommend them.

petite1

I've also used Tricolor twice and have been very pleased. We rented in San Jose and drove to Playa Grande. We got a flat tire just a short distance away from our hotel (Las Tortugas) My husband put on the spare & called Tricolor. They promised to have the Liberia office deliver a new tire in the morning & much to our surprise by 10:00 the next morning we had a new tire. They were great!