Texas - IAH rental cars... times/location/etc?

Been through IAH a million times, but never actually stopped there... that's about to change.

Couple of logistics questions about rental cars, etc... is there a big combined rental car center, or are all the companies in separate locations? How often do the buses (or whatever) run?

On my way back, I probably have a relatively tight window for time, so I'm trying to figure out how early I need to be at the airport to turn in a rental car, check one bag (as a Star Alliance gold member flying CO), and get to my flight (a CO mainline 737 going to RDU)...

The flight back is at 7pm on sunday night, if that matters. I'm trying to figure out if I can show up at IAH at 5:45pm and still have a reasonably good chance of catching my flight... rental car return time, time to get to the terminal, time to get through security, etc...

any help is greatly appreciated.

I just flew out of IAH a couple weeks ago on Delta.

It has a separate/central rental car facility. They have buses to take you there. When you're catching the ride back for your departing flight, they have two sets of buses. Four terminals and two terminals per bus. The facility is within the airport grounds so it's not a long bus ride. There seemed to be a good amount of buses with one pulling up to pick up people right after one leaves.

To get to the facility from JFK Blvd North, take a right on Rankin Road, then I think it's your first left, then the facility/garage is on your right.

I think if you got to the rental car facility at 5:45, you would have no problem getting to the ticket counter by 6:15. Maybe even closer to 6 if all goes well. You should check and see what the cutoff time for checking bags is.

BTW, if you have to get gas, the main exit from the beltway should be JFK Blvd. I saw a couple gas stations between the beltway and the airport.