Picking up at Enterprise in ORD after hours

January 19, 2023 7:46 PM

One of my dearest friends is burying her dad tomorrow, and her husband and son are flying to Chicago tonight, then driving to join her for the funeral. They've run into a potential hiccup picking up their rental car due to a delayed flight, which is causing quite a bit of stress. I'm hoping you can help me put their minds at ease.

Her family's flight was delayed multiple times, and according the Enterprise the ORD location closes at 10 p.m. The flight will land about 11 p.m. They aren't sure whether this means the staffed desk closes only or if they will not be able to pick up their car until morning.

We have tried reaching someone at Enterprise, but the only working number we can find (general 800 number) isn't staffed with humans until morning. We are hoping to find a phone number or someone with recent travel experience who knows whether they will be able to rent tonight.

Thank you, MeFi!

posted by commander biscuit to Travel & Transportation (6 answers total)

While you're waiting for more answers, here is a list from Chris Elliott, who helps many people with travel issues. Are any of these numbers any good? https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/enterprise/

Good luck, it's hard situation on top of another hard and stressful situation,
posted by Rumi'sLeftSock at 7:52 PM on January 19, 2023

This recently happened to me at a much smaller airport (BUR), renting from Hertz, and it was claimed to us by the flight crew that typically rental car desks stay open until the last flight of the night has landed. However, our experience was that there was nobody at the desk, but the security guard took my husband's info and let us take the car, and said he'd hand that info off to the rental car company in the morning.

He did NOT hand off the info and my husband spent like an hour on the phone the next morning trying to legally rent the car already in his possession. He was eventually successful! But it wasn't straightforward to do and he got handed around between call centers a lot before he found someone who could fix the rental record.

So I guess my advice would be that they may well be able to drive off with a car but if they do and the rental doesn't happen in the usual way, they should definitely verify the next morning that the car is correctly rented.

That said - I do expect that major airport car rental locations have SOME contingency in place for people who rent cars after arriving on flights that come in after the desk is closed. This isn't an uncommon circumstance and hopefully it's dealt with gracefully. Best of luck and best wishes to your friend.
posted by potrzebie at 8:00 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

Here's what the Enterprise web site says:

Location will remain open for up to 2 hours after their posted closing time to accommodate delayed customers.

Then there's what potrzebie said.
Good luck.
posted by Rumi'sLeftSock at 8:06 PM on January 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

We were recently many hours delayed flying into Boston. Got in past 3 a.m. We were unable to call to let anyone know we'd be late until the customer service line was closed. We were very worried! When we got there: One person was in the airport rental car place serving all reservations for all rental car companies. As long as you had a reservation, you were fine. A dude walked in trying to rent a car without a reservation; he had no luck. At ORD I think you will be fine at any hour.
posted by shadygrove at 8:43 PM on January 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

Hope they got their car! Thinking of them this morning.
posted by potrzebie at 9:15 AM on January 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

For what it's worth, I worked at Enterprise car rental years ago at a tiny airport. Our policy was to wait until after the last flight had landed if we had anyone with a reservation on that flight. Hope everything worked out for them!
posted by Eddie Mars at 9:37 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]