I just got socked with a $48 cancellation fee for cancelling a car a few minutes after the reservation period began.

I am cancelling my Zipcar membership in response to this.

Zipcar is clearly uninterested in serving its "members" any longer.

Guess it's time to go buy a car.

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2003

Answers

I'm sorry I missed the first posting on this thread. We do have a 30 minute grace period which applies, any reservation may be cancelled within 30 minutes of first making it with no charge.

The reservation that started this thread was made at 12:23PM for 5- 8PM and was cancelled at 5:07PM.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2004

I really do feel that the penalties that are assessed for cancelling a reservation are fair. I can't imagine a zipcar setup without this fee, people would be reserving cars non-stop and then cancelling at the last minute. I have just become a little more aware of time management, and is that really a bad thing? In my mind, zipcar rules and I'm not buying a car anytime soon.

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2003

me too. zipcar has been more than fair, too easy actually, with the penalties for cancellations, empty tanks, quarter-tanks, and so on.

anyone who cancels after a reservation has begun should pay for the entire rental period or at least two or three hours after the cancellation has been received. after all, someone could have used the car had it not been reserved, especially on weekends. I usually reserve a car some time in advance and would be annoyed at someone who reserved a car just in case, and then cancelled at the last minute, or afterward, when he realized he didn't need it.

I've often reserved cars and had them on "standby" in case the job I was working on went bad and I needed to make a run for supplies, but I always paid for the car whether I needed it or not, or accepted the penalties. It's what it costs to get the job done.

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2003

Never sign up for a program that you are unwilling to abide by. ZipCar cost me a total of about $300 per year, or less than I was paying just for insurance. To rent a car the old way would have cost me at least $500 per year. As they say, without substantial penalties, the system would fall to pieces. It is not time to go buy a car, unless you are unwilling to be responsible for your reservations.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2003

I sincerely hope the answers provided here do not represent the official policy of Zipcar. It is not unreasonsable to expect some customers to make innocent mistakes; be it poor judgment or a pet hopping on your keyboard and pressing "reserve" for you. The sensible thing to do here is grant Zipcar members, for example, a 3 minute grace period after any reservation is made whereby cancellation will not be subject to penalty. A further limit on the total number of cancellations per day/week/month can then be implemented to prevent abuse.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2004

If I understand Riks initial posting, he cancelled after his reserved time period had begun, when he "owned" the car - not 3 minutes after he placed his reservation, which may have been weeks, days, hours, ( minutes ? ) before he wanted the car.

http://www.zipcar.com/apply/penalties

says ( and there's more there )

" 1.2 Charges for canceled or shortened reservations: a. There is no charge for a reservation canceled or shortened up to 3 hours before it begins. b. For reservations canceled or shortened less than 3 hours before they begin, you will be charged the full hourly rate from the start of the reservation until 3 hours from the time you cancel, plus half of the hourly rate from 3 hours from the time you cancel until the end of the reservation. The maximum charge on any canceled or shortened hours is 1 maximum daily rate. "

So you're out on a limb for quite a bit IF you don't cancel at least 3 hours in advance. Which doesn't give much time for someone else to make use of your surrendered time. Pretty lenient in terms of lost opportunity.

On the other end, it's real easy to phone in and extend your current 'rental' if you're going to be late getting back ,or want to do another errand or two. _IF_ no one else has it reserved right away.

I was getting a used computer, plus more, plus instruction, plus go home to unload it; kicked my reservation along 4 time, half an hour per call. (could have done longer on one call if I wanted.)

Dan O'Connell, Boston member.

-- Anonymous, May 27, 2004