Rental Car Rate Periods

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Rental Car Returns and Rate Periods

A rental car rate period is either by the day, week or month. A 3 hour rental is the same rate as a 24 hour rental rate when renting a car.

Daily Rate
Car rentals work on a 24 hour basis for a daily rate. So if you pick up at 10am on Monday and return at 3pm on Tuesday, you will be charged for a 2 day rental.

Weekly Rate
For the weekly rate, sometimes car companies may show five times the daily rate, plus taxes and fees only on the 6th and 7th day, making the difference between a 5 day rental rate and a 7 day rental rate only 2 extra days of fees and taxes. This isn’t always the case, but it is a bonus when it does happen.

Monthly Rate
Monthly rental rate can vary depending on the car company. With some, the monthly rental rate kicks in after 28 days and with others, they actually count all days in that month.

Most car rentals in Hawaii include unlimited mileage. No toll roads are currently on the Hawaiian Islands.

Pickups and Returns

Late Pickups
Some companies will hold the rental and rate for 24 hours from time booked. Other companies will only hold rental and rate until the end of the business day.

Early Returns
If you return your Hawaiian car rental more than 24 hours early, you may be charged an early restocking fee. This fee can be approximately $30.00 plus tax extra. Most companies will then charge you for time used, but that must be first confirmed with the car rental company directly.

Late Returns
Overtime will be charged for late returns. Some companies offer a grace period before they charge another day, which could be 29 minutes long. Other companies charge a third of the daily rate for every hour late, therefore after 3 hours, you are paying for an additional day.

Special Cases

Long term rentals
Some customers need to split up a long rental for insurance purposes, as coverage only covers up to a certain amount of days.

Others like to split up long rentals if their pick up date falls in a high season period, it may be cost effective to make two bookings. In that case the car rental will have to be returned to the car rental location and a new contact signed to take out the next vehicle.

Extending rentals
Once a rental vehicle has been picked up, it is out of our hands, but we can help you contact the car company to ask them to extend at the same rate. As well if rates have dropped, we can look at a new rate if you’re willing to return to the car rental office to open a new contract.

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