On 8/8/2012 4:39 PM, wrote:
I was scammed by Hotwire and Budget. I purchased 8 days of rental from Hotwire, returned the rental car within that 8 day period. Later discovered that Budget goes strictly by the times that you put into the pickup and drop-off times you put into the Hotwire rental request, not a 24 hour period for the amount of days you have paid for through Hotwire, so since I was off by a few hours in my estimated pick-up and drop-off, they charged me an additional day of use at the full rate of $50.39 (Mind you my Hotwire rate was 20$ a day) Now Budget and Hotwire customer service will do nothing for me. Oh and I purchased a mid-size and got a compact. (Hotwire did give me a credit for this at least!) This is a complete scam by Budget! DO NOT USE BUDGET!!!!!

Moral of the story, if you are going to use Hotwire (or other online travel agencies) to book a car rental, make sure that you put the return time as late as possible without incurring an additional days charge, otherwise the rental agency can take you to town if there are any changes to your drop-off time

I have always put the latest time possible while staying within the 24
hour window. But I always thought that it didn't really matter, that
they based the return time on the pickup time. Never used Hotwire though.