When booking a ticket for a flight, the lower cost fares tend to be either early in the morning or late at night. Flights also tend to be delayed for a variety of reasons — including mechanical problems, staffing issues, and weather as three of many examples. When booking a reservation for renting a vehicle at your destination, be sure to include the flight number on your rental vehicle reservation.
Include Flight Number On Your Rental Vehicle Reservation: Stupid Tip of the Day
The main reason why you should always include the flight number as part of your rental vehicle reservation is in case the flight is late, the personnel at the rental facility has the information needed to be updated as to the status of your flight.
Many customers of rental car companies do not realize that if a flight is delayed by an hour, they do not need to book a new reservation or modify an existing reservation to match the new arrival time. Employees of rental car companies deal with customers who either show up early or late all day long on a daily basis — especially at airports, where airplanes arrive ahead of schedule or are delayed on a regular basis as well.
Important to note is that the minimal rental charge is for one day and is based on a period of 24 hours — which means that whether the rental vehicle is needed for only one hour or for all 24 hours, the same rate of 24 hours would be charged regardless — and a corollary to that suggestion is if you plan on renting a vehicle for five days or six days, you will usually be charged a weekly rate at that point.
Keeping that in mind, if you arrive two hours later than the date and time your rental is scheduled to begin and the rental is for 24 hours — as an example — you are usually automatically permitted to return the vehicle two hours later as well…
…but if you arrive at the rental car facility two hours earlier than scheduled and you get a vehicle immediately, you must return the vehicle two hours earlier as well if your rental period is a full 24 hours — otherwise, you will be charged for keeping the vehicle for 26 hours; or two extra hours.
Although this is more of an exception than a rule, some employees of rental car facilities have been known to wait for customers after operating hours if they know that the customers will arrive shortly after the time when the facility is supposed to be closed.
If a customer unintentionally arrives after the rental car facility is scheduled to closed, sometimes the rental car company will carry over the reservation through to the following morning…
…but if a customer arrives at the rental car facility when it is still supposed to be open but has already been closed for some reason, the customer may have some recourse in being compensated for the inconvenience.
Final Boarding Call
Although including the flight number on your rental vehicle reservation will consume only a few extra seconds of your time, it could save you a lot more time — and hassle, and possibly even money — overall.
All photographs ©2019 and ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
