In June my wife and I will be picking up a car at Philadelphia airport and returning it to Pittsburgh 12 days later.

Due to a screw up on my part I booked the return one day too soon, it should be on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

I made the reservation through Thrifty's website, but it was handled via a "company registered in Dublin, Ireland and it will appear on your credit card statement as Online Car hire." I called Thrifty yesterday (Saturday) to change the reservation, but was told I need to call back on Monday when the main office is open for this type of reservation.

The reservation is fully refundable up to 48 hours before. But now the price for this rental has gone up over $100 since I booked.

Question: would it be better to change the reservation in advance, or might they hit me with the new rate? Or, would it be better to get the car, then, after we have been on the road for a few days, notify them that we will return it one day later.

Better to ask for permission or forgiveness? I think I have done the latter once when we decided to keep a car longer than planned, with no problem.

Could you be in Pittsburgh on Tuesday and walk over to Hertz, Avis or Enterprise and pick up another car for one day?
I would keep shopping for a better deal up until June 1 and if I found one, cancel Thrifty.

Thanks for the suggestion Tom. No we won't be in PIT on Tuesday. We are driving from West Virginia on the day of our Wednesday flight, heading directly to the airport.

Don't worry about it. From the Thrifty website . . .

>>If you return 24 hours or more after your scheduled return date and time, a Return Change Fee of $15.99 per day will apply ($79.95 max.),

oops -- >>pay basically another . . .

Second OOPS. I mixed you up w/ Nelsonian (the reason for the overseas visitor comment).

Since you are from the States, the info from the website should apply. But again - just read the fine print . . .

Thanks Janis, I'm inclined to not worry about it.

I looked through my entire contract, but didn't see anything regarding a date change. But I'll find and print out that item you found on the Thrifty website.

I thought it was weird that the reservation showed up from an Ireland billing office.

BTW, if I try to modify the reservation online they require me to send a written form request, rather than simply change the date. Also, the phone number on my contract connected me to Dollar not Thrifty. They are all under the Hertz umbrella now, and the woman transferred me to Thrifty.

I think this is the first time I've booked a one-way car rental in the States.

"Return Change Fee of $15.99 per day will apply ($79.95 max.)"

I "think" that may an additional fee to an extra days' rental fee. Whether you get the same rate or not is unsure.

Do you belong to Costco? We find that their car rentals are often the best around.

Since you can still cancel, I would perhaps wait to see if a better rate appears between now and then and cancel then book the correct dates.

I went through my car rental voucher fine print again and found this:

Additional fees:
"You could be charged additional fees for cars returned at a different time or date from the original reservation."

The additional fees are unspecified.
Here is the full text of what janis found on the Thrifty site:

If you return 24 hours or more after your scheduled return date and time, a Return Change Fee of $15.99 per day will apply ($79.95 max.), in addition to any other rental charges..

Underline emphasis added. Again the additional fees are unspecified, so they are (intentionally?) keeping it a bit vague.

I may call tomorrow and see if it goes smoothly. In any case I'll keep my eye out for a better deal periodically. I was surprised how much the one-way drop off added to the cost. This was new to me. The only time we've done a one-way car rental was in Scotland and I don't think it mattered.

DebitNM, we are not Costco members. We considered joining last week when we were buying a Vitamix, but we decided to purchase a model not available at Costco from our local kitchen store.

Costco has some really good travel deals, just FYI.

Thanks DebitNM. I'll look into their travel deals next time we happen to go in there.

To wrap this up:

I decided to call Thrifty. They said, since I've partially prepaid, the date change can only be made when we pick up the car. At that time they will just add on the extra day, no increase in rate.

Meanwhile I'll keep an eye out for a better deal, but am satisfied with what we have.

Sounds good!

>>They said, since I've partially prepaid, the date change can only be made when we pick up the car. At that time they will just add on the extra day, no increase in rate.

Nelson:

Over time I have found the car rental portion of a trip to become the most time consuming and fraught with pitfalls.

I agree with janisj that I would need in writing "at that time they will just add on the extra day, no increase in rate" - verbal promises mean zilch.

Here is a link to complaints on Thrifty car rentals http://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/thrifty.html

Please report back on how this works out.

Sandy

Thanks guys. I didn't get it in writing but made note of the name of the agent and time of my call, which isn't worth much, but maybe better than nothing.

SandyBrit, I had seen similar comments about Thrifty and was a bit concerned. Will hope for the best. But yes, car rentals can be a hassle.

I once had an issue with Hertz on a Boston business trip. I dropped the car off, signed off on the slip and headed for my flight. It wasn't until I was on the plane that I looked closely at the receipt and saw they charged me for failing to fill the tank. The tank was 3/4 full when I returned but only 1/2 full when I took the car, so I only needed to bring it back 1/2 full, which was stated in my contract.

I had to send in a receipt of the last gas purchase I made, near the airport, which proved I fulfilled my end of the bargain before I received a refund.

(They gave me a Mustang on that trip, maybe that was supposed to keep me happy).

I'll report back how this played out when the trip is over, second half of June.

I don't see any way to "prepay" on thrifty.com, so I'm really confused.

Confusing indeed clarkgriswold! I just tried entering my dates in again and sure enough the "Pay Now" option is gone.

I had saved a screenshot from when I was making my booking (I'll sometimes do that just before I hit a submit button). The "Pay Now" column is clear as day in the image.

Being an ex-software nerd I had to figure this out, so after a couple other things I tried entering dates at the end of July, and the "Pay Now" column magically returned. It must depend on how far out you are making the reservation(?).

The "Pay Now" is about 5% cheaper than "Pay Later".

And, you don't pay everything now. For my $436 rate they only took out $156. The balance is "Payable at Counter".

Follow up:

Yesterday I decided to check the Thrifty site and was able to book a new reservation with the correct dates for $100 less than the existing one, which I then cancelled.

Go figure.

Not sure about Thrifty but with Avis there is a $25 penalty if you cancel a "prepaid" reservation. However you can modify same reservation and not pay the penalty...they just issue you a refund for the overpaid amount.

You are correct clarkgriswold.

In this case they didn't let me modify except by sending a request to that "CarTrawler" company based in Dublin. I couldn't just modify my existing reservation, even though this was all on a Thrifty page.

I decided best to just book a new one and then cancel the old. In Thrifty's case the penalty is $27 but I still come out ahead and now have the correct dates. Did not have to prepay the new reservation.