Rental car pick up and drop off time

[wcduke]

Hi. I have a National reservation (and I just became an Emerald Club member) for a mid-size SUV for 5 people from 8/22 - 8/27 at Orlando airport. I have a Southwest Airlines flight booked, due to arrive at MCO at 3:15PM on 8/22. I have NEVER rented a car before. I have two questions:

1. My SUV rental reservation begins at 3:30PM. My flight is due to arrive at 3:15PM. Is this a good time for me to begin the reservation? What if I am a little bit late because of the flight/retrieving bags/etc? Should I move the time?

2. My dropoff time at the airport per the rental reservation is 10AM on 8/27. I am not actually flying that day, just dropping off the rental, so dropoff time can be flexible, so I chose 10AM. What if I am early for this dropoff time? Or late? What happens?

Again, I am a first time car renter, so these may be dumb questions. But I am a newbie at it!

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Thumper_Man]

I've never rented from National, so I don't know their complete policies; but most rental places have the same.

They will not penalize you for picking up a car late. Most often they will penalize you for being a no show. If you're a little late, you'll be fine. Since there are 5 of you going, would the other 4 people be able to retrieve the luggage while you go and check-in for the rental car? This will help save some time. At MCO, some of the lines for the rental counters can get quite long. Being an Emerald Club Member, you may just be able to bypass the check-in counter and go straight to the rental car. You may want to check on this. I think you will be fine keeping the reservation time at 3:30pm.

Some rental car companies even have a place to enter your flight information when you make your reservation. This helps notify them of any possible delays and they won't think you're a no show if you happen to have a flight delay. Its always handy to program their number in your phone for just in case.

As far as dropping off the rental car, most rental car companies don't charge you for dropping off a car early. If you are late, then there could be some extra charges involved depending on how late you are. Most usually won't penalize you if you're a few minutes late. Start getting into being hours late and they may pro-rate your existing rate and charge you for additional time. I'm always a little worried about being late, so I try to be there early. I was about 30 minutes late returning a car on our recent WDW trip and I wasn't penalized. Always best to error on the side of caution.

Hope this helps.

 

[Thumper_Man]

Went to the National site and found a few answers for you.

Grace Period

Will there be an additional charge if I am late returning the rental vehicle?

The Grace Period for National is as follows:
You will not be charged for the first 29 minutes that you are late.
You will be charged for one hour if you are 30-89 minutes late.
You will be charged for two hours if you are 90-149 minutes late.
An additional day is charged if you are 2 1/2 hours or more late.
Additional fees are based on the daily rental rate.


Emerald Club Benefits
Choose your car. Choose whatever rental car you'd like from the Aisle and only pay the reserved Midsize rate.
Peace of Mind. EmeraldAlertsSM provide you with essential rental information at your fingertips.
Faster rentals. Bypass the counter. (This is the one I was wondering about.)
Faster returns. With E-receipts, there's no need to wait for an agent to give you a receipt. Then with Drop & Go℠ service you can drop off the car and be on your way
Reward choices. Select from Free Rental Days, frequent-flyer miles or hotel rewards.
Fast online renting. Make online reservations with just a few clicks at nationalcar.com.
No second-driver fees.Never pay extra when family members and business associates do the driving.
Special offers. Receive exclusive members-only discounts and offers through our periodic emails.

 

[bumbershoot]

My experience:


I make the pickup time about half an hour after landing time.

We've never had a problem being a bit late to pickup.

We've never had a problem being early or late to drop off, as long as it's still within the 24 hour period of the stated ending rental time. OK that requires more words. Say I pick up at noon on the 1st. I plan to drop off at 10am on the 7th. Instead, I drop off at 9. No problems. Or instead I drop off at noon exactly. Both are in that day of rental. If I get there at 5 minutes after noon I'm in the grace period, and much later I'm in the next day, and that's where I would have problems.

One time I picked up ahead of time, and the printout of the anticipated charges were much higher than expected. That's because they were calculating my rental period including that extra time at the end, which would have put me over the # of days I expected. We were flexible, and we returned it hours earlier than originally expected, which put us back into the right number of days, and the price charged was exactly what was originally stated. It fixed itself automatically.

Since this is your first EC use, fill out as much info as you can. We actually never had to go to the counter even for our first rental, because we'd given them all the info they needed ahead of time.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

You need to call your rental company and let them know if you will be dropping off later than the contract time. I have had to do this, and I was charged extra. Just last week I rented from Avis and had to drop off my car 3 hours later than planned. I was charged about $40 extra.