On 4 occasions in the past 2 years I have rented (or attempted to rent) vehicles from Thrifty car rental in Panama. The first time I reserved a full-sized SUV at the David airport several weeks in advance of my trip, to be sure they would have what I needed. When I flew in there with my wife, our granddaughter, and 3 suitcases and a couple smaller bags, all they had was a little tiny RAV4 for me. We barely fit into the thing with our luggage. Upon our flight back to the Albrook/Gelabert airport a few days later, they didn't have ANY vehicle for us for about 2 hours (it's a 50 minute flight), and then they didn't have what I had reserved.

To give them the benefit of trying to make it right, I reserved 3 vehicles a month later when I brought a group of 15 people to Panama. I double checked with them to be sure they had the full-sized SUV's I needed. We flew up to David and they only had 2 of the 3 vehicles I had reserved, and both of them were NOT what I had reserved. Thank goodness for National Car Rental providing me with the vehicles I needed at the last minute.

The last time I once again double-checked to be sure they had the full-sized SUV's I had reserved. When I got to the Tocumen airport at 9pm after flying all day, they say they don't have any full-sized SUV's available. I made the reservations over a month in advance. Once again I went to National Car Rental, and they got 2 full-sized SUV's DELIVERED TO MY HOTEL, without advanced reservations!  GUESS WHO I'M RENTING VEHICLES FROM FOR MY FUTURE TRIPS TO PANAMA?

I guess if you need to get just any vehicle, they will do just fine, but they have 3 strikes with me and I WILL NOT EVER rent from them again. My advice is to avoid them unless there's nothing else available.