Pick up of car rental at ATH after 11pm

[2CoolCanucks]

We are flying into Athens a few days before our cruise and want to reserve a car online. However, we can not seem to get any answers as to whether the rental kiosks are open to service us a car that late in the evening. 

We have been burnt before by ordering a car online (in Florida) and when we arrived to pick up the car at 6:02 pm, there was a sign at the desk which said, “attendant will be back at 8am tomorrow morning. “ No calls or emails to let us know what happened. 

They did give us an upgrade the next day for the inconvenience (had to stay in a nearby hotel overnight) but no explanation as to why we could not get the car on the previous day or at the time for which it was booked. 

I am hoping to avoid this from happening again and want to know for sure before booking.

(I don’t trust a phone call at this point because I don’t speak Greek and how do you prove anything ‘from a phone call’ when you stand at a kiosk with no one there... ) 

 

Our accommodations are about an hour away from the airport. 

Anyone know? 

 

 

 

 

[Hlitner]

Good questions but we will let you do your own homework :).  It is usually pretty easy to find out about the hours by simply looking at each rental companies own web site.  For example, if you simply go onto Hertz's site and pull up the Ath location and then hit "More Location Details" it will tell you that the normal hours end at 10pm but you can arrange for a later pick-up by paying an extra fee of 28.52 Euros.   That is pretty typical of European rental car offices (especially at airports) where you pay an extra fee for out of hours pick-ups.

 

Hank

P.S.  Hint:  Budget is open 24 hours 🙂

[2CoolCanucks]

Thank you Hank.
This is what I have done but sadly, I do not ‘trust’ when they give their hours. 

24 hours in Canada or 24 hours elsewhere may not always mean the same thing....

At least that has been our experience on a number of occasions. 

 

We have decided to get a place really close to the airport for that night only ( shuttle will pick us up) and then get the car rental the next morning during normal hours of business. 

 

Hopefully that will work out with no glitches and we can get a decent sleep. 🙂

Thanks again.