arfaczar

Anyone know of or experienced picking up a rental after the official closing time of an airport location?
At major US airports, after-hours drop-off is common, but pick-up is typically limited to operating hours of the counter at those airports. I have a couple of upcoming trips where my flights are arriving after 10pm and I have made reservations for an 11pm (latest available) pickup.
Called the Emerald Elite line and was assured that if I had my arriving flight number associated with those rental reservations, then I would be able to pickup up to 2 hours after the location's official closing time. I didn't know that this was possible and was looking for other FTers' experiences (good or bad) and advice with after hours pickup at National airport locations.

Qwkynuf

I would *not* count on anything that you were told over the phone.

I have had the National people wait for me when my flight was delayed (all pre-covid), and I have arrived to find a closed-up shop (pre and post covid).

When I am in your situation, I plan for them to not stay - and hope to be pleasantly surprised when they do.

storewanderer

Many locations are service oriented and stay open late for late arriving flights. This has been a fairly common custom in the car rental business for decades.

Unfortunately it does not always happen... I have heard reports of all rental car companies closing at their normally scheduled closing time instead of waiting for the late flight to arrive, at random locations, at random points in time. Best bet is to call the local location the day you are traveling (if you can find a phone number someone actually answers) and speak directly to someone at the location. Otherwise you basically hope that some rental agency decided to stay open for the late flight, and do a walk up rental.

arfaczar

Thanks for the responses. I was just surprised that the National location at a majot airport like JFK shuts at 11pm, while the Hertz & Avis at JFK are open 24/7.