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Car pick-up at Birmingham Airport (BHX) -- deplaning passengers only?

Posted by on

Houston, we (may) have a problem ....

The plan: fly to London and three days later (May 6) take the train or bus to BHX to pickup a rental car midday from Enterprise (booked an automatic economy car through Costco at a fabulous rate). Then meander through mid and south Wales for a week, returning the car to BHX.

The problem: today I looked at the Enterprise-BHX website to see the vehicle pick-up location and possible routings towward Abergavenny. And then I saw "The counter is located in the baggage claim area of the main terminal. Vehicles are within walking distance. This location services deplaning customers only. " My heart sank and I called the Costco/Enterprise number where the amiable young (American) assured me arriving by bus or train would not pose a problem picking up the car. Not reassured, I have also tried several times to phone the Enterprise-BHX number to ask, but I just get the robot/menu.

How else can I determine whether or not I will be able to pick up a car at BHX if I am not a "deplaning customer?" Ideas? Thank you!

Posted by
11948 posts

It appears ERAC has several locations in town. Had to scroll down the list on the Costco site to find them.

If you can re-book at an in own location at the same or better price, do that and then cancel the res. for the airport pickup.

If that does not work I would call Costco and see if they can change the pick up location, and not incur a rate increase.

Posted by
9 posts

I've just searched several locations via Costco travel. All want north of 600 GBP for a week, not the 295GBP that I have booked.

I like the idea of the airport for pick up -- easy to get to by public transportation and easy onto an A road towards Wales. I haven't driven in the UK in about 10 years so I am trying to avoid a downtown pickup, as I will be solo -- just Garmin as my companion.

Can I use the Costco corporate code directly on the Enterprise site to search/book? If so, how do I find that code?

Or I suppose the other work-around would be to fly to Dublin rather than London to recover from jet-lag, and then three days later fly AerLingus DUB-BHX for $59 ....

EDITED TO ADD: I have just sent my first Tweet, ever. And it worked! David at ERAC-UK assured me that I can indeed be a non-deplaning customer, per the policy he is seeing on his end. I pointed him to the confusing statement at the Enterprise-BHX website, and he said he will pass that along to the technical team to get it rectified. I have copied the Twitter exchange to my email ....

That said, I am now thinking of flying to Dublin or Edinburgh for my "get over jetlag" few days rather than London, which I have visited at length many times. Hmmmm.

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