Returning Budget car 12 hrs early???

[ADisneyQueen]

Do you think it would be ok? I'm picking it up at 10 PM the week before but I would be returning it at 10AM 7 days later. I kinda wanted to put the return time as 10 PM in case our flight is changed or delayed that day so we don't have to go to the airport and sit all day. Southwest changed our flight on us before, although they gave us that info 2 weeks before the flight. I hope Budget wouldn't penalize me.

 

[Grankm21]

I rent cars for work quite often. I’ve never been charged for returning a car early. You would be charged if you return the car late, but you should be fine dropping it off early.

 

[lorimt]

We rented from National the summer of 2021 and checked for months to get a 5 day rental and nothing was available. Availability came up when I looked for a weekly rental so I booked that and returned the car 2 days early. Not only did they not charge me, they refunded a small amount. We were on a corporate discount so I’m not sure if that made a difference.

 

[EACarlson]

The only time it would be an issue is if returning it that early changed the duration. Most rental contracts have an hourly, daily and weekly price. And set time periods where they kick in. If you changed your rental to 3 days instead of a week, it might reprice. 12 hours on a weekly rental is not going to be a problem. I just returned a rental Sunday 5 hours early as Delta changed my flight a couple months ago.

 

[Akck]

We rented a car to get from our son’s house to the airport. Then hurricane Ian happened. We ended up having to change our Thursday arrival to Saturday. We had no need to drive to the airport so I called the rental agency location and was able to return it there a day early instead of at the airport. No additional cost and no refund which didn’t bother us.