Lucky Rentals NZ

Where do I start? Worst customer experience in ANY field, not just rentals, I have had. - Meant to pick up our campervan at 8am, wasn’t ready until 4pm (previous customer was still using until 12pm, then central locking needed fixing- which then didn’t work for the whole trip). - Terrible customer service, staff ignoring us when we came back to pick up the van, not shown around and if my partner hadn’t checked the cooker (it wasn’t working and needed replacing) we would’ve left with no way to cook. - Van was dirty and extremely old (570k’s!). Sticker on the inside of the windscreen tells you you’re liable if you overheat the engine and to stop every two hours. This happened to us driving much less and taking care of the vehicle. - We advised Lucky from the very start we would be returning the van outside of office hours due to an early flight. When we arrived the gates were locked and the key drop was on the inside of a barbed wire fence. Ended up leaving the vehicle outside and were later told you are not allowed to drop vans off outside of hours!! - $2500 bond is held for THIRTY days on your card. Whilst this is in the T&C’s it is a ridiculously long time. When you ask about this you are immediately referred to your bank. - To top it all off we had to pay an extra $160 when we returned the van because it was diesel (never mentioned to us at any stage prior). What a great way to finish the trip! Would go nowhere near this company again and would not advise anyone to rent a vehicle from them.

Good campervan, that doesn't look too flashy... but it took us out there and back. A bit long to pick up the vehicle... otherwise, good experience. Dominic

Booked a car and like everyone else had to wait over an hour before getting it only after complaining. No one has any idea what's going on and there is zero accountability as they continue to deliver the worst experience to anyone UNlucky to use them. Where are the regulators here.. how do these cowboys get away with it on the back of the worst reviews ever.

We are a family of 4 (2 kids < 3y) and booked a 23 day trip in a 4 berth camper van with “lucky” rentals. We arrived at Auckland after an exhausting 30h journey from Germany and received this Email on a Friday afternoon at 4pm the day before the pickup (11am) of the camper van: “Hi Benjamin, Unfortunately, due to a large number of on road incidents we will be unable to offer you the camper van you have booked with us, and due to the time of the year are unable to offer any alternatives ourselves. This means we have had to cancel your booking with us we will of course refund the deposit in full. We have managed to source an alternative camper van from Rental Car Village, at a rate of $62.12 per day which whilst not quite as big does offer 240v electricity, double stove and the usual amenities. This is only an option however, and you can choose any provider you would like to, please have a look at the website and see if the vehicle is suitable. As such when you arrive in Auckland please go to Rental car village and ask for Grant. Their address is ‪12 Pavilion Drive, Mangere, Auckland.‬ Kind Regards, Connor Moss Operations Manager at Lucky Rentals” No apologies, support or help was offered at all. The alternative he mentions was a 2 berth or afterwards two 2 berth. Both options are absolutely unacceptable for a family of 4 and one driver. I would rather call this a joke than an alternative! I got no replies on emails I did send to lucky rentals after that. So we had to book another camper which is only available for 2 weeks and about 1500 Dollar more expensive plus a hotel for the missing 1,5 weeks. In total this was not only a financial disaster due to unplanned extra expenses of multiple thousands of Dollars but also our whole holly days got messed up. And all caused by “lucky” rentals and their very friendly and competent staff. Of course unforeseen things can happen but then an appropriate compensation and help should be offered. Absolutely NON of that was the case with “lucky” rentals!! After first denying him self on the phone, the author of the Email above said we should think twice before trying to claim our money because of the terms and conditions (which by the way are not attached to the booking confirmation Email!). That was the was the perfect example of a “I don’t give a f*** about you and your family” attitude paired with a “you better be careful what you do” warning. That is nothing I would expect from an Operations Manager. In general a situation like this has to be covered by the rental company and their own insurance and it must not be the responsibility of the customer. Thank you lucky rentals and to be continued...

There are a lot of negative reviews on here about Lucky Rentals, but all things considered, we actually had a really positive experience with them. They are by far the cheapest option that we found, and you have to realize that you get what you pay for. There are obviously more luxurious campervan options out there, but as backpackers, we really wanted the most bang for our buck, and that's what we got. We rented the Lucky Rover, and it was perfectly suitable for 3 people. The kitchen was equipped with everything we needed, we had sufficient storage space, and everything was in good working order. The van initially was not ready for us on the day we had requested. Luckily for us, we were not on a super tight schedule, so this didn't impact us too much. Lucky did a good job in making up for this inconvenience as well. They gave us a free rental car to use in the interim period, and when we actually picked up our van, they threw in a few freebies - extra pillows and blankets, a GPS, and an aux cord. We had no mechanical issues with our van in the entire 50 days we had it. It got decent gas mileage, and we only had to fill up our propane tank for cooking one time (and we cooked almost every night). If you are looking for the best campervan option on a budget, Lucky is definitely the way to go.

This was the worst ever experience!!! The only Lucky thing is that we are still alive! We rented a roadie for a month driving from North to South. 6 month ago when we booked the trip, we had so much to plan, so we didn’t even bother reading reviews about the company. We were more paying attention to the type of camper, the route, etc. As a matter of fact I was bragging how great a deal I got us for less than 90NZD/day for a camper when others were 140+NZD...as I thought that NZ as a developed country has standards and regulations in place that protect consumers and ensure that all vehicles are safe to drive around. A week before we left, I started reading the reviews by pure chance....That’s when I started to have a bad feeling about this. It was ahrd enough for us to get such a long vacation and the entire trip was expensive. Unfortunately, all other agencies were sold out and only a super huge 350NZD/day camper was available, so our hands were tied. At pick up in the Auckland office we had a super great guy. He told us to get the full insurance package (25NZD/day), because at drop off they will find something to charge us the excess; even though the van was already totally beat up after 15years and 450.000 km. Ok, we expected it to be old, but it was: Super dirty! we spend 2hours cleaning it in a parking lot and managed to get it to a state where we didn’t have to though up. Spiders nets all over the place, dust, rust and stain that I can’t really describe Broken: Steering wheel was pointing right when driving straight Suspension completely beaten up; huge safety risk on the often wet and curvy NZ roads No airbags Chips all over the windshields (they probably charged them to many non-full-insurance rents multiple times before us) Seat belts…lets just say I was happy we didn’t have to rely on them Torn seats Super loud engine, also because the insulations was completely worn out…BTW this made it super cold in the van at night; a tent would have kept us wormer! Fractures all over the van, so on top of the engine sound also creaking sounds right loud speaker in car lights rear window heater disconnected (visible) leak in drivers cabin, so when driving through rain, it got a bit wet inside doors were creaky, so we bought WD40 to fix it, because when one need to go to the toilet at night the other or rather entire camp site was woken up. 2 keys, because the on lock was changed; so always confusion there Funny thing the camper didn’t even start at the beginning; so I insisted on getting a new battery. This was probably the reason why the engine started every morning. At drop off, there were huge lines, took us 45mins to return it; There were three couples swopping to other vehicles; no idea why, but must have been some bigger issues. Never ever again!