Rental car return grace period?

[artesian]

I am renting a car with Alamo coming up and was curious to know if there is a grace period on returning late? I shouldn't be much more than an hour or so but was trying to avoid getting another day charged. If I am late how do they calculate an additional day based off your current rental rate or something else?

 

[bastraker]

Just posted this in another thread.

We just did this with Alamo. Picked up the car a couple hours early because of the early flight.

Yes, they do charge you another day if the times of your pick up and drop off are not the same. The print out automatically charged me for an extra day(I did this at the kiosk). However, I went to the counter and spoke to the agent, he said that as long as I return the car before the 24 hour time period, I would not be charged for the extra day. I did have to return the car much earlier so I wouldn't go over the 24 hours and I was not charged for the extra day.

 

[DebbieB]

They charge based on the actual time used. So if you go into another 24 hour period, depending on when you picked it up, you may be charged. One thing to look at is I believe a weekly rate is 5 to 7 days. So if you are in between there, it would still be the weekly rate. There is also an hourly rate if you just go over the 24 hour mark.

I threw in some dates into National's website and it gave me these figures on a 4 day plus 1 hour rental:

4 days @ $44.82
1 hour @ $22.41

Once I went over 5 whole days, it went to the weekly rate.

What are the dates and times on your reservation?

 

[sam_gordon]

I *THINK* you have 30 minutes (maybe 29) "grace" period. So if you pick up a car at 12:10p on Wednesday, you'd have until 12:40p on Thursday without paying anything extra. If you return at 12:41, they'd either charge you for an extra hour (probable) or the entire day (possible). I don't know if the clock "starts" when you leave the garage or the counter. I'm guessing the garage.

 

[artesian]

ty!!

 

[Ladygoldenhair]

I was able to rent it for the extra hour. Last trip I was delayed to Sanford because of an accident about a half hr and was charged a full day.

 

[maciec]

I think with Alamo ours was 30 minutes when we booked directly with Alamo. When we booked with Priceline we were told by Alamo that since it was pre paid we didn't have to worry about the grace period. We ended up bringing back the car an hour late and weren't charged more