Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt) - Alamo Pickup Timeframe and Dropoff Grace Period?

Unless I time it right, my 3-day rental with Alamo will incur an extra hour charge. So.....if I've reserved a car for 8 pm and I pick it up at say 8:30, does the clock start running at 8:30? And on dropoff, do I get a grace period that will extend the rental until, say, 8:59 3 days later? Or some other grace period, or none?

Thanks....I am a Quicksilver member and reserved through Alamo's website, if that makes a difference.

Clock starts when they start to write up your rental agreement. Don't know how long you have until you're considered a no-show. But 30 minutes is certainly acceptable. Grace period at the end is "29" or 30 minutes, but ask.

Unless I time it right, my 3-day rental with Alamo will incur an extra hour charge. So.....if I've reserved a car for 8 pm and I pick it up at say 8:30, does the clock start running at 8:30? And on dropoff, do I get a grace period that will extend the rental until, say, 8:59 3 days later? Or some other grace period, or none?

Thanks....I am a Quicksilver member and reserved through Alamo's website, if that makes a difference.
I don't have any experience with the Quicksilver program, so I don't know exactly what it entails, but pay special attention to your contract when you pick the vehicle up. If the Quicksilver program entails them preparing your rental contract ahead of time, they may prepare it with the "time out" stamp as your reserved time. They are probably supposed to change it when you actually arrive, but sometimes that step can be forgotten. So be sure to look at the "time out" stamp on your contract, and if it still says 8:00am, make sure they change it to your actual time out.

(Again, I don't know exactly how the Quicksilver program works, so this may not be an issue.)

As far as no-shows, I believe corporate National/Alamo policy is within 24 hours. Individual locations may differ, and some companies are as tight as two hours, so if your flight looks like it's going to be delayed more than that, I'd call before you take off--just in case.

Thanks...Alamo offered me the chance to "check in" ahead of time, which I declined when the phone agent suggested the reserved time would be the one printed on the rental agreement. Instead, I delayed the pickup as long as possible, and the actual time out was the one printed. Then, 3 days later, I delayed the return as long as possible, returning the car at 72 hours +27 minutes after checkout. No penalty. Alamo has a 29 or 30 minute grace, which I would interpret as 29 minutes to be on the safe side.

Thanks...Alamo offered me the chance to "check in" ahead of time, which I declined when the phone agent suggested the reserved time would be the one printed on the rental agreement.

I wonder if you could work this in your favor: reserve your car for 8:30pm, check in ahead of time, and then pick it up at 8:15. I wonder if they'd bother to change it.

Of course, if you did check-in ahead of time with an 8:00pm pick-up, I would certainly expect they could change the time-out to the actual time-out upon your request. Still, as you found out, better safe than sorry.

I wonder if you could work this in your favor: reserve your car for 8:30pm, check in ahead of time, and then pick it up at 8:15. I wonder if they'd bother to change it.

Of course, if you did check-in ahead of time with an 8:00pm pick-up, I would certainly expect they could change the time-out to the actual time-out upon your request. Still, as you found out, better safe than sorry.

A version of this has always been the huge advantage of Hertz #1 Gold at airports. You reserve the car for a certain time. The contract hanging on you rear view mirror has an "Out" time three hours after that, and that's the time that remains on it. Probably two reasons they do it: Competitive advantage, and the operations research principle that it's more efficient (cost effective) to avoid all the effort of sweating the small stuff viz airline delays etc.

A version of this has always been the huge advantage of Hertz #1 Gold at airports. You reserve the car for a certain time. The contract hanging on you rear view mirror has an "Out" time three hours after that, and that's the time that remains on it. Probably two reasons they do it: Competitive advantage, and the operations research principle that it's more efficient (cost effective) to avoid all the effort of sweating the small stuff viz airline delays etc.

Nice, I am #1 Club Gold, but go only with the lowest price firm or PL bid....but just out of interest, how many hours can you push a Hertz reservation, beyond your actual arrival?

Nice, I am #1 Club Gold, but go only with the lowest price firm or PL bid....but just out of interest, how many hours can you push a Hertz reservation, beyond your actual arrival?

To be honest, I'm not right up to date re Hertz's grace period policy -- for the reason you cite, and I haven't needed this feature for a while. But IME, it was the three hours plus the grace period.