9Benua

I have a budget reservation booked through Priceline. It's 9 days reservation, pick up time 10.00am. The drop off time 8.00am, however, I'm able to adjust the flight and now my flight left at 6.00am which meant I need to return it around 4.00am. It should still be 9 days reservation. Will they re-calculate my rate and charge me additional fee?

AutoSlash

No, you should be fine. Returning a few hours early on a 9-day reservation will not change the rate plan.

9Benua

Thanks, I will update this later when my trip is done.

9Benua

Update: I was able to return the car at 4.00am without additional charge.

Gig103

There is a cutoff, though, right? I always figured I was safe with a 1/2 day, even though after about 3 hours my rate goes from "3 days, 3 hours", to "4 days".

AutoSlash

The OP was talking about returning early. It sounds like you may be talking about returning late. Generally, you'll pay one-third of the daily rate for the first hour, two-thirds of the daily rate for the second hour, and after 3 hours, you'll pay for an additional day when returning late.

Gig103

Ugh, my example was unclear. If I make a booking over 3d, 3h, it shows as 4d. I was trying to ask if, for Avis anyway, that means a really early return (like 20 hours early) is safe. I've never tried more than 12hr early.

AutoSlash

The answer is, it depends. If you have say, a a rental for 3d, 3h (i.e. a 4-day rental) and you return 20 hours early, you now have a 2 day, 7 hour rental, so effectively a 3-day rental, and thus you would be returning a day early. It's possible you might have a coupon that was applied that gets invalidated by the early return, so that could increase the rate. It's also possible that you get charged a day less for the rental so that could decrease the rate. Sometimes it's hard to know how the rental company's system will handle it, so it's often a YMMV situation.

In other cases, if you're straddling a boundary between say a daily vs weekend rental or a weekend vs. a weekly rental, it could completely change the rate plan your on. Again, this could have a positive or negative impact on the rate. It's often hard to predict ahead of time.