Rental Guides
Collecting a Hire Car at the Airport
Collecting at a terminal is convenient and it is also the moment you are least equipped to read anything carefully. This guide covers what to settle before you fly, how the desk conversation usually goes, and how to inspect a car properly in a dim car park after a long flight.
Updated 26 September 2026
Settle everything you can before you fly
Three things should be agreed in writing before you leave home: the total price including all compulsory charges, the deposit figure, and the excess. Airport rates carry a location surcharge that is entirely normal and sometimes substantial, so the quotation you compare online should be the one that includes it. Print the confirmation or keep it offline on your phone, because terminal connectivity is unreliable exactly when you need it.
Check the driving licence question too, and check it early. Requirements differ for residents and for visitors, and some hire companies additionally require a licence to have been held for a minimum period or the driver to be above a certain age. These conditions are easy to satisfy and impossible to fix at a counter. A five-minute telephone call in advance is worth more than any amount of firmness on arrival.
The desk conversation, and the upgrade that is not one
The conversation at the desk follows a familiar pattern, and there is nothing sinister in it. You will be offered a larger car, additional cover, prepaid fuel and sometimes a toll package. Each has a use and none is compulsory. The offer worth genuine thought is the excess reduction, because the number behind it is large. The offer worth declining almost always is prepaid fuel, because unused fuel is not refunded.
An upgrade is sometimes offered free because the booked category is unavailable, and it is sometimes offered at a price. The two sound similar when spoken quickly across a counter. Ask plainly whether it changes the daily rate, the deposit or the excess, since a larger car carries a larger excess even when the rate is unchanged. If the answer is not clear, keep the car you booked. A free upgrade is pleasant and no upgrade is a problem.
Documents, cards and the second driver
Bring the driving licence in its physical form, the passport, the card that will carry the deposit in the main driver's name, and the booking confirmation. A digital licence is accepted in some places and not in others, and a terminal at midnight is the wrong moment to discover which. If the card is in a different name from the driver, expect to be refused, because that condition is applied without exception at almost every desk.
If anyone else will drive, add them at the counter and have them present with their own licence. Adding a second driver usually costs a small daily amount and occasionally nothing. Adding one afterwards by telephone is unreliable, and driving without being named voids the cover entirely. This is the exclusion that catches couples most often, usually on the day one of them is tired and the other offers to take over.
Inspecting a car in a poorly lit car park
Terminal car parks are dim, and the condition report you are handed will already have a few marks on it. Do not accept it without looking. Use the torch on your phone and walk the car slowly in one direction, then the other, because a dent that is invisible from one angle is obvious from the next. Look along each panel rather than at it, which is how light reveals what a straight-on glance hides.
Photograph all four corners, both bumpers, every wheel rim, the windscreen, the roof, the boot floor and the interior, and take a short video walking around the whole car. Time-stamped images settle any later question in seconds. Note anything not already marked on the report and have it added and initialled before you leave the bay. Ten minutes here has prevented more disputes than every clause in the agreement combined.
The first twenty minutes of driving
Before pulling away, set the driving position properly, find the headlight control, the wipers, the hazard switch and the fuel filler release, and adjust the mirrors. It sounds obvious and it is routinely skipped by people who then hunt for the wiper stalk in traffic. Set the air conditioning to full and give the cabin a minute with the windows briefly open if the car has been standing; a dark interior takes a surprising while to become bearable.
Then drive the first stretch gently. A tired driver in an unfamiliar car on unfamiliar roads should not be joining fast traffic in the first minute. Most terminals have a slower route out, and taking it costs a few minutes. Check the fuel level and the odometer against the paperwork before you leave the car park, photograph both, and only then set the destination. That order matters more at the end of a long flight than at any other time.
What to take away
- Agree the total price, the deposit and the excess in writing before you fly.
- Add any second driver at the counter, in person, with their own licence.
- Photograph and film the car under torchlight before leaving the collection bay.
Read it before you sign
Read the contract before the queue does it for you
If there is a hire agreement in front of you, or a monthly quotation you are unsure about, a short conversation beforehand usually settles it. Nothing is sold here, no vehicle is booked on your behalf, and no hire company hears your name.