Dollar Rent A Car

Dollar Rent A Car was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1965 by Henry J. Caruso. It was purchased by The Chrysler Corporation for an undisclosed amount on August 15, 1990, and joined Chrysler's Pentastar Transportation Group in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This acquisition merged Dollar Rent A Car with Thrifty Car Rental – forming Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group in 1997. Dollar's focus remained on company-owned rental locations at major airports to service both tourists and leisure rental markets.

Both Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental formed an agreement in 1997 with The SABRE Group, Inc., a leader in electronic distribution systems within the travel industry, to manage the subsidiaries’ routine information processing, system engineering, and reservation management functions in a secure underground facility.

Operating under Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Dollar earned US$617.53 million in 1997, with company-owned stores generating 91 percent of revenue, compared to $499.17 million in 1996. By this time, the car rental provider employed a staff of 5,400 as of September 1997. Dollar maintained an average fleet of 61,336 vehicles in 872 locations in 1997, compared to 1995's fleet of 52,571.

In the coming years, the combined fleets and US locations of both Dollar and Thrifty grew in the following numbers:

2001 – 78,600 cars, 268 US locations

2004 – A fleet of 78,900 cars, 245 US locations

2006 – 85,000 cars and 407 US corporate locations

2009 – 106,245 cars and 600 US locations

By 1997, Dollar Rent A Car was known to serve value-oriented travelers, including travel for leisure, small business, and tourism. In the late 1990s, rental locations in Florida, California, Hawaii, and Nevada were held responsible for 80% of Dollar's 1996 fiscal revenue, and 76% in 1997. By 2011, international areas served include Australia, Canada, Caribbean Islands, Latin America, with a concentration on local markets and airport locations.

Along with car, truck, and crossover rental services, Dollar Rent A Car provides ski racks, child safety seats, navigation, and operational support to renters. As of February 2017, Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental maintained 1,500 franchised branches, 840 of which are in the United States and Canada.

In recent years, Dollar has expanded their fleet to offer more upscale rental vehicles, which include vehicles such as the BMW X1, BMW X3, Cadillac Escalade, Infiniti QX60, Mercedes-Benz CLA, Mercedes-Benz C Class, and Mercedes-Benz E Class AMG.

Controversies

Dollar Rent A Car charged $15 "administrative fees" each time when a customer passed through a cashless toll. In August 2018, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi filed suit against Dollar and Thrifty rental car companies for allegedly deceiving motorists and charging "grossly inflated" fees. In January 2019, Florida Attorney General has settled the lawsuit against the Dollar and Thrifty rental car companies over misleading toll fees. Customers who rented a car from Dollar or Thrifty between Jan. 1, 2011 and Jan. 7, 2019, and were misled about the fees can file a claim with the Attorney General's Office for a full or partial refund.