Penalty for Returning a rental early

[meka15]

Hi

Does anyone know if there is a penelty for Dollar or any other car place for returning a car early. Cause we are going for 11 days but it is chepaer to rent for 2 weeks instead of 1 week and the other days.

thanks

 

[DebbieB]

They will refigure the rate based on the actual time you rented.

 

[CarolA]

There is not a penalty, but... what they can and probably will do is charge you the daily rate for all days over the first week. So your 2 week rate will be one week and 4 extra days. Plus they can charge the "walk up " rate for those four days. It can easily turn out to be much more expensive then if you had just booked accurately on the front end.

 

[wee-haggis]

I can't understand why a rental company would charge you for bringing back a vehicle early (does'nt it give them an extra vehicle in the inventory that they can rent to someone else?)

 

[philaround]

I can't understand why a rental company would charge you for bringing back a vehicle early (does'nt it give them an extra vehicle in the inventory that they can rent to someone else?)

That's not the way it works, unfortunately. The car you are returning 3 days early has been listed in the computer as unavailable for those last 3 days. If they leave your rental contract at 2 weeks the car will remain unavailable until your contract expires. The only way to get it back into inventory is to change your contract and the computer will price the contract accordingly.

 

[markey]

They can and will, just happened to us. When I rented a car our flight times were not set so I rented a car for the time frame. Well the flights I got had us picking up a car before noon but returning after 4. The price for the extra hours was actually more the keeping the original rental and with Florida August thumder storms out of Tampa I decided to keep the original rental in case of delays. When I returned the car I was charged an additional $80, which I flipped over plus wanted to charge for gas after we filled up, and yes had a slip. I did get the gas charged removed, but the counter girl would not remove the charge of the rental, reason was because we returned early. After we returned I e-mailed my complaint (never received a reply), and also called but they would not budge. So I would be careful of renting for an extra day, I will not, also will never use this rental agency. Not because of the charges but because of the poor customer responce I received. Also the girl at the counter was very rude.

 

[frannn]

I reserved a car based on our vacation dates, but do not have flights picked out. How early, in terms of hours, can you return the car without penalty, and how late? I booked my rental for pick up at 10:30 AM (we usually take the morning flight) and returning 11 days later at 3 pm (we usually take a 4 pm flight home). It is possible that our flights will end up being different times but not significantly diifferent.

 

[seashoreCM]

The "penalties" for returning a car early vary from company to compa y but the most common reason is that what would have been a weekly rental got refigured to be a daily rental. Also common is not keeping the car over a Saturday night when you originally reserved the car that way and the company had that rule.

The rules were designed with a tendency to make business travelers pay more. The typical business trip is: arrive on Monday (or later) and leave on Friday (or sooner), so the weekly rental must usually be slightly longer than that.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[DebbieB]

I can't understand why a rental company would charge you for bringing back a vehicle early (does'nt it give them an extra vehicle in the inventory that they can rent to someone else?)

The bottom line is you are going to pay the same if you make a reservation for 11 days and if you make a reservation for 2 weeks and return it after 11 days. Either way you had the car for 11 days (which is treated as 1 week + 4 days). You can't get around paying the proper rate by intentionally returning it early.

 

[ohiomom28]

I just saw this on Alamo's website.

Early Return Policy

An Early Return fee is charged at a rate of $15 per rental when a vehicle is returned at least one calendar day early and total daily/weekly charges is less than the initial charged amount.

 

[Lewisc]

I just saw this on Alamo's website.

Early Return Policy

An Early Return fee is charged at a rate of $15 per rental when a vehicle is returned at least one calendar day early and total daily/weekly charges is less than the initial charged amount.

So this is saying you'll be paying the greater of $15 or the difference between the price you were quoted and the actual rates for the time you have your car.

 

[NotUrsula]

In some cases, the details matter for calculating the penalty, in terms of what day of the week and what time of the day, for both the pickup and the return.

For instance, weekend rates *usually* do not kick in until noon on Thursday, require return by midnight on Monday, but are void if the vehicle is returned before midnight on Saturday. If you tried to use a weekend rate to pick up a car at 1 pm on Thursday to be returned on Friday, you would be penalized. Lots of businesspeople would otherwise try to reduce their ~$60 daily rate by using those weekend rates that can sometimes be <$20/day. Weekly rentals have similar conditions.

In situations where you return the car less than 24 hours early, it usually will not incur a penalty unless you are dealing with the sort of special-period rate restriction that I just described.