On our trip to Italy we will be picking up our rental car on Friday around 10AM. We will be returning the car the following Friday, but with our plans the way they are now I will not be returning the car until mid-afternoon. I haven't rented the car yet, but when I put in the times on different rental company's websites to get pricing, they all seem to charge for an extra day. If I rent it telling them my return time will be 10AM and we return it a few hours later, will we really be charged for an extra day?

Hi LL - I'd be surprised if you weren't.

I think that's in the small print with most rental companies.

Steve

Rules are rules, even in Italy. And a few hours after 10AM means they cannot rent the car to another customer on this day.

I think there's a one hour grace period.

Yes, you will pay for an additional day. That is standard practice U.S. as well as EU.

Yes - as another poster said, some companies allow up to an hour grace period, but that's it.

Beware also - if you decide you'll have to pay for the extra day and think of giving a much later time for the return than you actually expect it to be, you may be charged extra for bringing it back too early. It's not happened to us but I've seen accounts on this board of it happening - not sure what the rationale is.

i thought the grace period was 15 minutes to 30 mins some places.

just pay the extra day or pick up later to compensate.. going somewhere on public transportation until later pick up time if it is important to you.

We kept our car for an extra day last year and were billed $235.00!!

Hi L,

IME, they give you up to an hour, not a second more.

Every location will follow their own rules as they wish. You <i>might</i> get an hour's grace period, or 15 minutes, or none.

But I don't think any rental agency will give you 4 or 5 hours free. You need to book the car for an extra day - or choose a different drop off point so you can return it earlier and take public transport after that.

We were dinged by Europcar for being
an hour late.

Well it looks like we will just pay for an extra day even though it will only be a few extra hours.

Outrageous - $235!!


They should prorate the extra hours, not charge a full day. Oh well, they know they gotcha.

Llamalady, I have two llamas! How many do you have?

Why should they prorate? They're counting on cleaning that car up and getting it into the hands of the next customer. They might be able to get that next customer to wait up to an hour to pick up the car, or that customer might be late in arriving, but it's a business, you know, and if you say you're going to get the car back by X hour, you should do that or pay whatever they charge.

I've been given a grace period of an hour, never more.

My plane landed early in Paris, at 7am vs. 8am. When I went to get my rental car, they said I had to pay extra to pick it up early or wait an hour. You would think that at 7am on a Sunday morning, when there were NO other customers, they would have just given me the darn thing. No such luck - I paid...

StCirq - I should have been more clear in my statement. I meant to say prorate if you tell them ahead of time you are keeping the vehicle for 4 hours over a 24 hour period. Instead of being charged for a whole 24 hours, the fair way would be to charge 24 x 7 + 4 hours. I fully agree it should not be prorated if you take it upon yourself to return it 4 hours later than you contracted for the vehicle.

There are no surprises when the vehicle is being returned.

No - cars, except in very unusual circumstances ( a few places in NYC and Boston) rent by the day - not the hour. so - if you use part of the day youpay for it.

That's like saying you want to pay the hotel less since you're arriving late (and they could let someone else stay longer and charge for a few hours. Unless it were you - when you would want it for free.)

It doesn't make business sense to expect them to prorate hours based on 24/7. Then it would just be an hourly rental, which it isn't. I think the problem is that returning a car 4-5 hours late really limits who they will be able to rent it to and get a whole day's rent out of it. A lot of people want cars in the morning, for example. It would probably be a little more likely to prorate things by dividing the daily rate by some mulitple less than 24, as hours in the middle of the night aren't really rentable hours.

I think some car companies do hve an hourly rate for returns past the time, but it works out to be the daily rate for anything more than maybe two hours or something. Parking lots are the same way.

I don't know about Europe, but in the US, the grace period is usually about 30 minutes in my experience. It has to be - if you returned the car right on the dot, there may be a delay in getting the return processed. Maybe a bunch of people are bringing their cars back. So, there has to be some grace in the return time to allow for the gap between arriving and processing the return. But, they usually only give about 30 minutes. After that, they start charging extra.

It depends on the location and the company how much, if any grace period is allowed after the scheduled return time before the high additional hourly rate or additional date is charged.

Please don't rely on individuals' expeiences with different companies in different locations even as a &quot;general rule.&quot;

One of the companies we use a lot states specifically on the website when I am booking that I am allowed a 1-hour grace period, but that may only be in the U.S. and may only be because I have joined their preferred customer club. I do not expect the same from other companies or even from this company if I rent outside the U.S.

My advice is to reserve the car for the later time and if you end up returning it early so be it. What you will save is grief. You will not have to worry about traffic slowing you, waking up late, getting lost, etc. You'' essentially have bought the right to return the car any time you want that last day. You'll be able to relax. Think of the extra fee, let's say $50? as though you just paid $7 a day more for the week.