Rental Car Return Timing

[nlenguyen]

Hello, For my trip at the end of next month, I had said on the reservation to return car at 7am (original time was 430pm on arrival date to 7am departure date), but this morning flight was changed to 1035am so I would not need to get to the airport until after 7am. Has anyone had the same experience? I am debating to change the rental time to the end of the day in the case that our flights get changed again (...southwest...). But the rental car would be more money. Has anyone returned the car after the time and not been charged for an extra day?

 

[_19disnA]

I think you would be safer to extend the return time and arrive early. It is possible flights may change again. Sometimes, where there is a shortage of vehicles, the turnaround is rather quick and they may already plan to rent your car out to someone else. I always put down a return time that is a few hours LATER then I know I will actually return and never had any issues. If you return it early, my experience has been they will adjust the charge to reflect the actual time in/out vs what you originally reserved. I do the same when first picking up the car to insure it will be there waiting for me and never had any issues doing that either.

 

[OKW Lover]

It really depends on the car rental company's policy. Some of them have a "grace period" of an hour or two. Check you reservation.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

Look at your booking confirmation. With a 4:30 pm pickup and a 7:00 am return, you may already be paying for a full last day that could extend until 4:30 pm, even though you’re returning the car fairly early in the morning. Many of the car rental agencies price rentals where a daily rate is charged once you go beyond something like 2 to 4 hours (agency dependent) past the pickup time, treating each 24-hour period as one rental day. In such a case, there might not be an extra time charge if the return still falls within the same 24-hour rental day as your booking. However, if you try to rebook the rental with a later return time, the base daily rental rate might be higher even for the same number of rental days.

 

[nlenguyen]

I had called Budget, they said because it was an outside travel portal they could not change the time, but because my reservation starts at 4:30pm, I have until 4:30pm on return day. I am rolling with that. Hopefully it does not make an issue

 

[EACarlson]

I had called Budget, they said because it was an outside travel portal they could not change the time, but because my reservation starts at 4:30pm, I have until 4:30pm on return day. I am rolling with that. Hopefully it does not make an issue

This is how most of the large companies operate. Also, your reservation time doesn't matter, it's what time you actually drive out of the lot that matters. If you book at 4:30 but don't pick up until 5, you have until 5 to return without additional charges.