Budget charged us for insurance!

[mbb]

The Fastbreak guy, Joseph, was a little clumsy when we checked in...he kept telling me that he "wasn't suposed to work today, anyway"...

When we returned the van - which was as easy as could be - they printed out our receipt, and there was a charge for $221 under ins.

So we toddled on down to the Budget desk to "check our paperwork", and the agent informed us that liability insurance was on our Fastbreak profile.....



and that it is "part of the Fastbreak program to carry liability insurance"...


Huh?
I'm a good consumer, I checked with my cccompany to make sure that we were covered, and yep, I even read the fine print.

My parents, and brother's car rentals were also through Fastbreak, and they weren't automatically charged.

That all being said...My concern is that Joseph hit us with the charge, in all his confusion with who was paying what for which car. He was the only attendant in the booth, and asked if we were all together. He asked for all our cards, and passed out keys, but couldn't get our file to "go through".

He had "had to process it step by step...and man, I wasn't even supposed to work today.."

LOL!! Sorry for the long post...any suggestions on what to do next??

Everything else with Budget was great! We were booked with a full size, but none were left, so we got a minivan. It wouldn't start one morning(battery problem?), and we called, they had a new van at the house in 35 minutes.

 

[joanb]

can't help.but is there some sort of advantage to being a fast break member?

 

[mbb]

you can "skip" the long lines at the desk, go straight to the garage, hand over you FB card - which has all you pertinent info on your profile already, and off you go.

As well, we received a comp 2 car class u/g (if you booked mid-size or higher) as first timers with Budget. I don't know if they still have the coupon u/g program available. We had originally booked a full size, and got a "confirmed u/g " to a lovely Grand Marquis. When we got to the kiosk, all they had left were mini-vans and convertibles, and the SUV for my DB &DSIL. (This was at 11pm) So we got a Town&Country van. Lovely

I would encourage you to register for it...I can see where it would be a time saver in peak seasons.

HTH!!

 

[seashoreCM]

Just before you take the car out, is thre anything in the paperwork that tells about insurance selections or tells about the total cost?

That was the time to verify that all the information is correct and stay with the agent until everything is made right.

Rental hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/carrent.htm

>>> part of the Fastbreak program to carry insurance.
Wrong, dead wrong.

 

[manning]

If you initialed you were taking insurance you are legally stuck.

Call customer service and in a very nice way explain what happened and they might eliminate it. It would help if you had a number of previous rentals without insurance you could bring up.

This almost happened to me once and now it is automatic, I check out that contract before I leave.

One thing that may help is when you make the reservation get the estimated final cost. When you sign the contract compare the price to what you where quoted. You'll notice the difference.

Good luck