Originally Posted by
Bago'peanuts
Any thoughts on how strict the rental companies are with their pick-up times before they cancel a reservation? I'm attempting to make car reservations a couple of months ahead of time and at this point I can make a decent estimate of the pickup times, but it's a bit of a challenge to pinpoint the exact time to the nearest half hour. These are not pre-paid reservations, and it seems like in the US the companies I deal with will typically hold your car an hour before cancellation. If I'm running late I could ask my hotel or ryokan to give them a call and ask for an extension, but it would be great to know if others have had any first-hand knowledge. Thanks in advance!
I don't have firsthand knowledge, but I've sort of assumed it's similar to US. That is... if I'm going to be more than 30-60min late, I call the rental car agency and give them a heads-up. Or if my flight's delayed but I'm picking up at an airport location and the car booking has my flight info, then I don't worry too much. The only difference btwn the two countries may be that in Jpn they may try to hold you accountable for cancellation penalty in case a no-show or late arrival results in cancellation, whereas in US you're generally not going to be charged anything as long as it was a non-prepaid / no-deposit booking (at least that's been the case with Hertz and National).
I just googled to look up a few rental agencies' policies on this. Nippon, Orix and Times all say being >60min may result in cancellation unless you call.
https://rental.timescar.jp/faq/reservation/179.html
https://www.nipponrentacar.co.jp/faq/faq2.htm#03
https://car.orix.co.jp/userguide/faq_departure.html