Not checking the contract almost cost an extra day
 

We had an interesting issue. We had an Avis car booked for 2 days for $141. We went to the Avis counter, were handed the contract and keys, and went on our way. Later in the day, we looked at the contract and found a $210 rate. My husband spent the better part of two hours getting thru to someone at Avis. It turned out that the contract was printed at 3:15pm instead of 5:15pm when we arrived. This was a rare instance where we were actually keeping the car a full 48 hours. The two hours extra pushed it to a 3 day rental. Was it our mistake to not check the contract when handed to us? Absolutely. I suspect that a bored employee looked to see whom he had coming in and ran off the contracts. There was only one other for who he was waiting. It likely never occurred to him there would be a financial consequence.

Anyway, words to the wise: check your contract price against your reservation. While it seems we do have this sorted, it cost us 2 hours of phone time mostly on hold with Avis to do so.

I think you may have wasted two hours on the phone. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but Avis would automatically adjust based on the time you returned, so as long as you returned by 3:15 two days later, you would have been charged for only two days.

Yes, and no. Theoretically, the time the vehicle was actually checked out should have been recorded (especially at an airport location with an exit booth), and in that case you would be correct--the price would have been adjusted automatically. It's possible though that the time was recorded incorrectly and the contract did reflect the early pickup time and would have priced higher at the return, but even in that case, there probably wasn't any need to spend two hours on the phone as it would have been a quick adjustment at vehicle return (at least that's the way we would have handled it).

Except we don't plan to return by 3:15 today. We should have it in by 5pm. This is a rare instance where we expect to run almost up to the 48 hours.

Happen to me with Budget, they preprinted the contract hours before my pickup time for whatever their rapid pickup program is. And upon return it was repriced for 3 days, had to go to the counter to get it changed even though they had the time the car left the lot they went my the contract printed time.

Sorry, 5:15 is what I meant. In my experience, the actual checkout time governs, not the reservation time.

Yes, but at many off-airport locations, the agent will pre-prepare the contracts for the loyalty members and when you arrive, they just hand you the keys and you go. They don't always go into the system to update the time you actually arrived. Sometimes it doesn't matter, but it can add additional hours up to an additional day depending on the timing.

Exactly the case here though it was airport and not off-airport. It was a small airport. We were handed the contract and the keys and off we went. There was no checkout from the lot. When we turned in the car yesterday, the agent had to look and see what remarks corporate customer service added. That worked, and we were charged for actual time used.

Check the app, as often the printed paper will be wrong but the app will be right.

kinda-sorta-related ... discovered that my profile has an eddress that I quit using probably 10 years ago, which certainly explains why I never got an email receipt

this was a company-booked rental to be followed by a day of personal rental; wanted to keep the same car, so I took advantage of free 30-min parking in the terminal garage and walked up to the counter ... I stupidly left the printed receipt in the car when I actually returned it, and when poking around the Budget website discovered that email link to Customer Care just went back to the previous page rather than opening an email ... sent in an online complaint and got an auto-reply with, among other info, this:
guess what? the linked page ** doesn't have a field to enter last name ** so I wound up spending about 90 min on hold for a CS rep

smh