Car rental outside working hours

pep.fermi
pep.fermi Posts: 388
in The cake stop

Maybe someone has plenty of experience on car rental here...

Travelling to a place (Bolzano, Italy, getting there via train from Hamburg Germany). I'd like to rent a car over there. But my arrival is expected at 6pm after their office closed (even worse in case of delays, of course)

They say in their website the rental is still possible, but no further explanation.

I emailed them but no reply yet.

Anyone has experience on this?

Thanks

Comments

  • monkimark
    monkimark Posts: 1,950

    The office hours are not always the same as the hours that the car park booth operates.

    I have dropped off early on a Sunday and the office was closed but there was a guy in the car park collecting cars, I guess collection may be the same if you have it pre booked.

  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    https://forum.bikeradar.com/discussion/13130534/car-rental-outside-working-hours

    You can call the office to ask yourself, as it varies from office to office.

    _
  • pep.fermi
    pep.fermi Posts: 388

    I managed to speak with the rental office.

    They say if my specified arrival time is after their closing time of 1730, they can stay open until 19:00 latest (for extra 30€/day). But if I arrive even later I'm cooked.

    Sounds too risky. I was secretly hoping they have a 24/7 robot or something...

    BTW curious that the "late arrival premium" scales with the rental duration instead of being a one off.

  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,587

    Can you get a train to the nearest airport? Their operations tend to have much more extended hours if not 24/7 I think

  • Danyradar
    Danyradar Posts: 21

    Hi @pep.fermi, that extra fee for staying open later seems steep, especially since it's per day. Have you found any good solutions yet? I'd be really interested to hear how you end up handling it. It might help me plan my own trip to Italy later this year. While looking at public transport options as suggested by @Pross, I stumbled upon this article for Florence https://gowithguide.com/blog/tourism-in-florence-statistics-2023-the-ultimate-guide-5219 which includes private car tours equipped with a private driver option in addition to the usual public transport.

  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,480
    https://forum.bikeradar.com/discussion/comment/21100732#Comment_21100732

    In my experience "per day" starts and finishes at collection time so if you drop off 1 hour later than collected then that is an additional day.

    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.

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