Years ago, I had a one day rental from a local edition station in the SF Bay Area, with return at SFO. I basically wanted to self-drive to the airport instead of relying on cabs or the then ubiquitous but unreliable blue Supershuttles. It was before Uber was thing.

I don’t recall all the details, but I think I returned the car on the same day I picked it up (basically, picked it up in the morning and returned it at SFO late afternoon). The return agent gave me the receipt and it didn’t match the expected rate, so I went to the Hertz counter where they told me I had to returned the car too early. Again, I don’t recall all the details of the discussion, but presumably I had picked a return date 24 hrs after pickup, and they wanted me to return the car on that next day for the rate I had gotten. After a bit of arguing I said “fine, then I guess I will keep the car ‘til tomorrow” (I believe I had dropped my wife off at the terminal with our bags, so I didn’t necessarily look like someone about to get on the plane). Well, he said, we probably can’t give you that car back since it’s being processed for the next renter now. I think after a bit more discussion about how ridiculous the situation was I ultimately received an adjustment back to the original rate, but this story has stuck in my mind every time I end up returning a vehicle early.

Probably not a good data point for what Hertz will do for a prepaid rental today.