Locations - Plugixa Car Rental

A location is a place where customers pick up or return a car: an airport counter, a city office, a hotel desk. Every booking has a pickup location and a return location, and every time a customer chooses is checked against that location’s opening hours, in that location’s timezone.

Open Plugixa Car Rental, then Locations in the Configuration group of the app’s sidebar.

Locations are part of the core of the plugin and cannot be switched off in the App manager.

The list

Column	What it shows
Code	Your short code for the desk, such as LIS-APT.
Name	The name customers see on the booking form.
City	The city.
Details	A Pickups chip when cars can be collected there, a Returns chip when they can be brought back.
Phone	The desk’s phone number.
Status	A switch: on is Published, off is Unpublished.

The search box is labelled “Search locations…”. Filters narrows the list, Export CSV downloads it, and Active / Trash switches between live locations and trashed ones. Tick rows to change the status of several locations at once or move them to the trash.

Adding a location

Click Create. The form opens with Monday to Saturday set to 08:00-18:00 and Sunday closed, which you then change.

Name and address

Field	Notes
Name	Required. What customers choose from on the booking form, for example “Airport Terminal 2”.
Code	Optional. Letters, digits, dashes and underscores only, turned into capitals when saved. Two locations cannot share a code: “A location with the code “LIS-APT” already exists.”
Address	Several lines, for your records.
City	Shown in the list.
Country	For your records.

Pickups and returns

Switch	What it does
Pickups	On: customers can collect a car here. Off: the location is not offered as a pickup point.
Returns	On: customers can bring a car back here. Off: the location is not offered as a return point.

At least one of the two must be on: “A location must allow pickups, returns, or both.” A location that only takes returns is useful for a drop-off box at a hotel or a station.

A customer may return the car to a different location from the one they picked it up at, as long as that location allows returns. That is a one-way rental. The free plugin has no screen for one-way fees, so a one-way rental costs the same as a return to the same desk.

Opening hours

Each day of the week has its own row. Each row holds one or more ranges, each with an Opens and a Closes time.

Control	What it does
Add hours	Adds a range to that day. Two ranges make a lunch break, for example 08:00-12:00 and 13:00-18:00.
The cross beside a range	Remove these hours. Removing the last range leaves the day Closed.
Copy Monday to all weekdays	Copies Monday’s ranges to Tuesday through Friday.

The rules for a range:

• Times are written as HH:MM on a 24-hour clock. 24:00 is allowed as a closing time, so a desk can be open until midnight.
• Opening must be before closing. A shift past midnight is written as two ranges on two days: “Each opening time must be before its closing time. Write a shift past midnight as two days.”
• Two ranges on the same day cannot overlap.

A range includes its opening time and excludes its closing time. A desk that closes at 18:00 can hand a car over at 17:30, but not at 18:00. The booking form offers times every 30 minutes, so with those hours the last pickup time a customer can choose is 17:30.

Timezone and after-hours fee

Field	Notes
Timezone	A timezone name such as Europe/Lisbon. “Leave empty to use the site timezone.” A name the server does not know is refused: “That is not a timezone this server knows. Use a name such as Europe/Paris.”
After-hours fee	“Charged when a pickup or return falls outside opening hours. Leave at 0 to refuse those times instead.”

Times are the desk’s own clock. A pickup at 09:00 at a location in Europe/Lisbon means 09:00 in Lisbon, wherever the customer is booking from. A return is read in the return location’s timezone. Only set a timezone when a location is in a different timezone from the site.

The after-hours fee changes what the booking form offers.

After-hours fee	What happens outside opening hours
0	The time is refused. The booking form only offers times inside the opening hours, and a time outside them is refused with “Airport Terminal 2 is not open at that pickup time.” (or “return time”).
More than 0	Every time of day is offered. A pickup outside the hours adds a line “After-hours pickup” with the fee; a return outside the hours adds “After-hours return”. Both can apply to the same booking. The customer is told: “Your pickup or return is outside opening hours. An after-hours fee is included in the prices.”

The fee is a charge before any discount, so a coupon percentage applies to it too.

Contact and map

Field	Notes
Phone	Shown in the list.
Email	Must be a valid address if filled in: “That email address is not valid.”
Latitude	A number between -90 and 90.
Longitude	A number between -180 and 180.
Order	A whole number. Locations are listed by this number first, then by name, on the booking form.
Status	Published or Unpublished.

Latitude and Longitude place the desk on the Map PRO. A location without both is left off every map. The plugin does not look them up from the address: copy them from Google Maps (right-click the spot and click the numbers at the top of the menu), for example 38.7742 and -9.1342 for Lisbon airport. With Pro and Delivery and collection, the coordinates are also where a delivery distance is measured from.

What Published and Unpublished do

Only a Published location can be chosen on the booking form, and only a Published location can be used for a new booking at the desk. A request that names an unpublished location is refused with “Choose where to pick the car up.” or “Choose where to return the car.”

Unpublishing a location does not touch the bookings that already use it.

How a location is checked when a customer books

When a customer searches, the plugin checks the request in this order. The first check that fails is the message the customer sees, next to the field it is about.

Order	Check	Refused with
1	The pickup location exists, is Published and allows pickups	“Choose where to pick the car up.” or “Cars cannot be picked up at that location.”
2	The return location (the pickup one if none was chosen) exists, is Published and allows returns	“Choose where to return the car.” or “Cars cannot be returned to that location.”
3	A date and a time were given for both ends	“Choose a pickup date and time.”
4	The time exists at that location (not skipped by a spring clock change)	“That time does not exist at this location because of a clock change. Choose another.”
5	The return is after the pickup	“The return must be after the pickup.”
6	The booking rules: minimum notice and booking horizon	See that page.
7	Opening hours at the pickup, then at the return	“City Centre is not open at that pickup time.” unless an after-hours fee is set.
8	The booking rules: shortest and longest rental	See that page.

Cars based at a location

Each vehicle has a Home location. A car is only offered for rentals that start at its home location, or at any location if it has no home location. A one-way rental leaves the car at the return location; change its Home location when it is to stay there.

Rates per location

A rate can be limited to one location. The rate used for a booking is chosen by the pickup location.

Trash and restore

Deleting a location moves it to the trash. A location that is still in use is refused, with every reason listed:

• “2 vehicles are based at this location. Give them another home location first.”
• “1 upcoming or current booking uses it. Cancel or move it first.” This counts bookings that pick up or return there, have not ended yet and are Confirmed, Picked up, or Pending with a hold that has not run out.

Switch the list to Trash to restore a location. If another location has taken its code in the meantime, the restore is refused: “This location cannot be restored: another location is now using the code “LIS-APT”. Rename that one first.”