May be a naive car rent question but...

[castlegazer]

To get even a halfway decent rate for renting a car for our trip in February (not vacation week by the way) I had to reserve for one day longer than I will actually be down there. Here is my question, will I be penalized or charged if I return the car one day early? This seems silly to me to even be asking, but I just don't know and there was such a gigantic difference between the day before return and the day after. I am renting from Naitonal and I am an Emerald Aisle member.

 

[castlegazer]

This seems like such a stupid question I figured someone would know right away whether or not I could do this..........

 

[safetymom]

Yes you can be charged a higher rate if you return it early. It depends on whether it changes it back to a daily rate.

 

[kda]

It's very common for rental companies to charge less for a weekly rate than the daily rate X 7. Often, 5 full days will kick you into the weekly rate, and the rate will be pretty close to the same whether you keep the car 5, 6, or 7 days. You definitely might be charged the daily rate if you return the car sooner. This deters or penalizes customers who try to get the cheaper rate.

Look carefully at the information National provides just below the cost ---- the terms of the agreement. It includes stuff like 'unlimited mileage', etc. Our last rental was for 8 days and it stated that we would be charged a minimul of 8 days. I was pretty surprised and didn't remember ever noticing anything like this before. I re-did the reservation multiple times, as cheaper rates came up and I tried changing dates, etc, and usually got the 'charged for minimum of 8 days'. A couple times it said 'charged a minimum of 5 days'.

 

[CarolA]

I wish I had bookmarked the post, but there was a post recently on this board where someone returned the car early and was switched to the daily rate. The rental car companies can and will change you to the higher daily rate. (Some folks have reported getting lucky, but I would not count on it!)

 

[bmr12]

I recently went through this with National on a business trip in California. I returned a few hours early (not a day--literally 2 or 3 hours) and reverted to a four day rate instead of a weekly rate. The irony was that the cost for four days was greater than an entire week. Only after multiple calls with customer service did I get them to charge me the weekly rate. I have done a fair amount of business with National over the years--so maybe they gave me a break; maybe not.

 

[castlegazer]

It seemed too easy. Thanks for the info. You would think they would want that car back early, especially in a rental location like MCO, but I get it.

I will continue to code hunt for better rates.

 

[AngelSugar]

Code hunting here too.

So far...found the best deal at Alamo with code MC

 

[safetymom]

Some lots are not prepared to handle cars that are returned early. They have it figured out so there is a short period of time that it sits on the lot before it is rented out again. I am sure that MCO has larger lots and that isn't the case.

But the car rental agencies have figured out the loophole of taking a weekly rental because the daily is more expensive.