What Is Classed As ‘A Day’ In Car Rental?
When renting a car, the prices quoted and charged work on a 24-hour basis – this means that when you rent a car for the day, you have it for the full 24 hours. This is quite straight forward if you are collecting a car at a set time and returning the same time the next day, however if your collection and return times are different it may seem a little more complicated!
Quite simply, anything above a 24-hour period will be charged as an extra day. So if you collect a car on a Monday at 12:00 and return it on Tuesday at 12:00, this would be a 1 day hire – however if you were to collect the car at 12:00 on the Monday and keep it a little longer until 14:00 on the Tuesday, you would be charged for two days. This is why when providing a quote we always recommend keeping the collection and return times the same where possible, so that we can get you the best possible price for your rental, and avoid you being charged a full extra day’s rental cost for the sake of an hour.
This isn’t to say that if you’re running a little bit late to return your vehicle then you will immediately be charged extra – suppliers will have a grace period of how long after your scheduled return time you can bring back the vehicle without being charged, as we all know that things don’t always go to plan! This grace period is usually either 29 minutes or 59 minutes – it’s always worth checking this with your rental supplier on arrival what their grace period is so you know just in case, as anything past their grace period would be charged as an extra day.
