A week away is almost always eight days of parking, and sometimes nine. The car is there from the moment you arrive until the moment you collect it, which is not the same as the length of your holiday.
Counting this wrong is the most expensive error available on a parking booking, because overstay charges are usually higher than the equivalent booked day and they are applied on exit.
Why is a week eight days?
Because both ends count. You arrive on Saturday morning and come back the following Saturday evening — that is eight calendar days in which the car occupied a bay.
People book seven because the holiday was sold as a week. The car park is not measuring your holiday; it is measuring how long the space was unavailable to anyone else.
Booking systems usually calculate this correctly once you enter the dates. The error comes from entering the wrong return date in the first place.
Count the nights the car sleeps there, then add the day you arrive. That number is what you are buying.
How does a red-eye add a day?
A flight departing at 11pm and landing at 1am arrives on the next calendar day. This is the single commonest version of the mistake.
You remember the flight as a Sunday night return. The car leaves the car park on Monday morning, which is a different booking entirely.
The same applies to long-haul returns landing in the early hours, and to any flight delayed past midnight. If your return is anywhere near midnight, book the later date.
What about the collection time?
It is the time you drive out, not the time you land. Immigration, baggage reclaim and the shuttle back can add well over an hour.
A flight landing at 11pm can easily mean leaving the car park after 1am. If the booking ends at midnight, that is an overstay on a technicality.
Build an hour and a half between your landing time and the end of your booking, more at a large airport or if you are checking bags.
What does an overstay actually cost?
Usually more per day than the rate you booked, sometimes considerably. A few operators charge hourly for overstays, which is worse again for a short overrun.
That is not unreasonable from their side — a bay held past its booking may have been promised to somebody else. But it means a one-hour mistake can cost more than a whole extra booked day would have.
Is it worth booking extra days deliberately?
Only when the return is genuinely uncertain. For a fixed flight, book the actual dates.
The daily rate falls as a trip lengthens, so padding a fortnight to sixteen days is cheap but still unnecessary. Where it makes sense is an open-ended trip, a cruise with a flexible return, or a business trip that might extend.
Returning early costs you nothing beyond the unused days. Returning late costs an overstay charge. The asymmetry means erring long is the safer error.
What if the flight is delayed on the way home?
Ring the operator, and do it before the booking expires rather than after. Genuine delays are normally handled sympathetically; silence followed by a late collection is not.
Giving the operator your inbound flight number at the point of booking is the better protection. Most meet and greet firms track arrivals automatically, which means a delay sorts itself out while you are still in the air.
For self-park sites the car is simply waiting, so a delay only matters if it pushes you past midnight into another charged day.
Does the departure time matter too?
Less, but it catches people on very early flights. A 6am departure means arriving at the car park around 3:30am.
If you booked from the departure date, that is correct. If you are driving down the night before and arriving at 11pm, the booking needs to start on the previous day — and some operators will not admit you before your booked day at all.
How should I count it?
Write down the date and time you will arrive at the car park
Write down the date and time you will drive out, not the landing time
Add 90 minutes between landing and driving out
Check whether the return flight crosses midnight
Count the days between those two points, inclusive
Two minutes, and it removes the costliest booking error there is.
Does it differ between car park types?
The counting is identical; the tolerance is not. Self-park sites simply charge for the extra time on exit.
With meet and greet a driver has to bring the car to the terminal, so a significant overrun means telling them rather than just paying more. Ring from the airport if your return has slipped.
Compare totals for the correct dates at Manchester, Birmingham or Stansted — the daily rate is low enough that one extra day costs far less than getting it wrong.
