Quanta Cars · 5 min read
A flight delay is the most common reason a car collection plan falls apart. It can usually be sorted out with one phone call, as long as you call early enough. Below we explain what to do when you are running a few dozen minutes late, when you land after 22:00 and when your plane lands in a completely different city.
Call as soon as you know
Do not wait until you land. If the airline's app shows a delay before take-off, that is the moment to call. The sooner we know, the easier it is to rearrange the driver's schedule.
There is one number: +48 539 888 555, open every day from 8:00 to 22:00. Have your booking number and the new expected landing time ready, and the call takes a minute.
Flying with a connection? Follow the status of the last leg, not the first. A delayed first flight often ends with rebooking onto a later connection, and that new arrival time is the one we need to know.
If you find out about the delay at night or early in the morning, call just after 8:00. For an afternoon arrival that is still early enough to rearrange everything.
What the rental terms say about being late
The rental terms require you to tell us about any delay against the time in your booking. Without any notice, we tolerate a delay of up to one hour from the planned collection time. That hour is a margin for situations where there was no way to call, not an invitation to plan your collection loosely at the driver's expense.
After that hour, if we have not heard from you, we have the right to refuse to carry out the order. In practice this means the driver does not wait indefinitely, and a new delivery has to be arranged from scratch. One phone call turns this into a simple change of time.
Moving the time within 8:00-22:00
If the new time falls between 8:00 and 22:00, we deliver the car later, to the same terminal, at no extra charge.
The rental day counts from the time of handover. When you move the collection, agree the return time in the same call, so the agreement shows the correct one and you do not end up returning the car earlier than planned.
Example: a three-day booking with collection at 15:00, and the plane lands at 18:30. You call before departure, the driver arrives at 19:00, and we confirm the return time straight away on the phone.
Landing after 22:00
Handover outside working hours is possible for an extra fee. It must, however, be arranged in advance rather than requested after landing, because by then it is usually impossible to get a driver out.
If your scheduled landing is just before 22:00, ask about out-of-hours handover when you book. Half an hour's delay is enough to push collection past closing time, and arranging it in advance saves stress at the airport.
An alternative that often works out cheaper: collect the car the next morning. With a night landing you go straight to your hotel anyway, and the rental day counts from handover, so you do not pay for a night when the car would just be parked outside the hotel.
From the airports you can then reach the city by public transport: the train from Balice to Kraków Główny station takes about 17 minutes, Gdańsk has the metropolitan railway, and bus line 106 runs from Wrocław airport to the city centre. We will deliver the car to your hotel in the morning.
Cancelled or diverted flight
Sometimes a plane lands at a different airport than scheduled. Call us straight away: changing the collection place has to be agreed with us and cannot always be done the same day. We serve four airports, Chopin, Kraków-Balice, Gdańsk and Wrocław, and in other cities we can deliver the car to an address.
If your flight is cancelled and you arrive a day later, give us the new collection date by phone. If you cancel the rental altogether, the cancellation rules in the rental terms apply: we refund 80% of the charges if you cancel at least 30 days before the rental starts, and 50% if you cancel at least 7 days before.
The most costly mistakes
Booking delivery for exactly your landing time. Getting off the plane, passport control and baggage reclaim can take longer than a sizeable flight delay. It is better to give a time with some margin.
A phone that is switched off or has no roaming. Our staff member calls when they arrive, and in the event of a delay this is the only way we can reach you. The number in your booking must work after you land.
Assuming that because the car is paid for, it will wait. A paid booking does not release you from the obligation to tell us you are running late.
More detail: Airport pick-up
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