Picking up Rental Car before reservation time?

[stacieps]

I have a car reserved through Budget for our trip 1/22-1/29. I booked the car at a good rate ($102/$139w/taxes) prior to having my flights booked. I made the car reservations for noon - now with my flights I will pickup and drop off closer to 9:30 a.m. I went to change my reservation and the rates have gone up, so it indicates my rate will change to the higher rate if I change the times!

Would you change it or are the agencies flexible with pick up times as long as you have a reservation that day? I plan to keep watching the rates and will rebook with correct times if rates come back down but don't want to pay more than I have to.

Thanks for any info/advice.

 

[CarnotaurDad]

If the price difference is that good, you definitely don't want to cancel your existing reservation.

As long as a car is available in the category you booked when you arrive, they will let you start the rental early and the rate you booked it with is the one that counts.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[DebbieB]

I did that once. I figured we would be on the flight that arrives around 11:30-12:00, so I made the reservation for noon. Turns out we could not get that flight and ended up flying in the night before and stayed at an airport hotel. We picked the car up at National around 8:00am with no problem. I've also returned cars earlier than the time I reserved, I even paid a little less one time because it turned out it was counted as 1 less day.

 

[Northwoods]

I was just wondering this also. We are going to try flying stand-by on an earlier flight in December. I rebooked our rental car for the earliest time we could possibly get there - since the rates were the same as what I had.

So the opposite question applies here - if we show up 4-5 hours after our pick up time we are still guaranteed a our car right?

 

[CarnotaurDad]

Northwoods,

Yep, the opposite would apply as well. However, to be on the safe (and courteous) side, I would call the rental car place if you know you will be late.

That way, just in case, they can make sure the car is there for you.

 

[Bosjoe]

On weekly rentals this will not matter. If you were renting weekend rates then it would matter. I think weekend rates start after 12pm on thursdays.

Joe

 

[safetymom]

Also sometimes they will change the pick up time on your reservation. If you need the later return time be careful. It could add another day of charges or late fees.

 

[sammi]

This same problem just happened to me a couple of weeks ago. We've rented from Budget at MCO for our upcoming trip and our flight times have been changed (twice ) so since I booked the car online I went in and changed the times for pick up (we're actually needing the car a few hours later than the previous time)

Well when I looked at the res. they was going to charge me a lot more so I didn't accept and called the 1 800 # and told them what happened and that the price increase was not acceptable to me and he went and returned the ressie to the previous rate. So try calling them. Hope this helps.