Airport Car Hire or Downtown?
The Pick Up Options
When picking up your rental car you may have to go to the airport location due to the constraints of downtown opening hours. Automatic car hire looks at the options you have and gives you the tips tojust make your rental car pick up a bit easier.
The scenario is this, you are already at your destination city and want to pick a car up for few days use. Maybe just to escape the hustle and bustle of the city for a tour of the surrounding countryside or hamlets. You quickly scope the downtown locations and look to pick it up on a time or day to suit you (a weekend or maybe after 5pm) – the search returns no cars from our suppliers. Why I hear you ask?
Downtown locations (ports, rail stations and city) are restrictive in their opening hours. They may only open when trains or ferries are landing or work office hours in the city. The reason behind this is that traditionally in car hire 95% of pick ups are at airports. The majority of demand for rental cars is transportation and use from and to the airport. Downtown locations are more traditionally places even serving the airports or as stated waiting for a large ferry or train to land and will only open for such circumstances. This is not something to annoy you but simply a cost effective exercise where having city locations open 24 hours – 7 days a week would have the company finance division running for the hills.
So how do you pick up at a time that suits you?
Our recommendation is to try and make it to the airport. Doesn’t have to be the one you flew into but the larger the airport the better. The reason behind this is the smaller airports with fewer flights may have desks that again only serve inbound flights. If you see “Must have flight info” on our engine then the airport you have chosen is served by a downtown location or opened only for flights. If this is the case try other suppliers and if not look for the closest larger airport and repeat the exercise.
The other benefits are that airport locations as used more will have a larger selection of vehicles especially for last minute bookings. With enough advance booking time though suppliers will be happy to move vehicles around to serve downtown locations.
This brings me on to my next point – give yourself plenty time to book and plan your trip. See which one ways would suit you and see what costs are involved. See what times and days the downtown location is open and plan around it. If you must go to the airport to pick up look at the cost of picking up the car when you arrive (incorporating the additional days cost) and put that against the cost of traveling away and returning to the airport. With our low costs you may find it cheaper just to hire the car for few extra days picking up from the airport.
If you are dropping off the car when the office is closed you will find most locations especially airports will have drop boxes to return the keys. The only downside to this is that you can’t have the vehicle checked and signed off before leaving. Carefully check the vehicle yourself and maybe take a few pictures of the exterior.
If you have chosen our additional insurances through Insurance4carhire.com you shouldn’t have any worries. Still it is always advisable to take a few shots of the car for piece of mind should there be no representative to sign in the car.
Once a representative has signed the sheet to show the car was returned in the order it left and given you a copy the car rental company can not put any further charges to you.