Car Hire

[DizneyDaze]

Having been tied in with holiday packages before we are considering going it alone. Can anyone point me in the right direction. We usually upgrade to a 7seater or 4wheel drive, would we be better off doing this in the UK at time of booking or waiting - also have a great price for annual Travel Insurance including CDW and personal liability with Amex costing only £284.95 to cover a family of four - can anyone better this?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you

 

[allie5]

Be careful purchasing your CDW from an "external" scource. I have heard of several people who have tried to use this cover with Dollar/Alamo etc and it has not been accepted. Nat West famously do a £75 policy which covers CDW/PLI and this also can encounter problems. The bottom line is, the rental companies make their money from these "add ons" not from the car rental at all, so are particularly loathe to accept (or even admit to accepting) a third party policy. Make sure you check, double check, check again, get it in writing that your policy WILL be OK. I think Watchdog did something on this a few years ago, but not sure if anything ever came of it.

Of course having your own policy, still means you are covered even if the rental company refuse to "accept" your policy. It will mean you will have to leave a $1500 deposit though. You would probably be better off buying a whole package (car & insurances) rather than the insurances first, then the car, if you get my drift.

Good luck....I would be interested to hear how you get on!

Allie.

PS. If you have a Nat West Gold Credit card and you pay the balance of your holiday with it, then you get FREE travel insurance. CDW/PLI is £75 per week as I mentioned before.

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

We've had this disussion once or twice before

There is a misunderstanding about whether hire companies 'accept' external insurance or not. This is not an issue: you either buy your insurance from the hire company, or you buy it from elsewhere. If you buy your insurance from elsewhere the hire company will require a deposit from you in case you damage their car. This deposit is taken by way of a credit card imprint for $1,500 (although I have not always been asked to do this). There is nothing in law which compels you to buy the (IMHO overpriced) insurance offered by the hire companies, and if any travel or hire company tries to imply this they are being "economical with the actualité". Therefore it is not up to the car hire company to 'accept' or 'not accept' whatever cover you decide to take out. Technically you do not need to buy any insurance at all (the car hire comes with the legal minimum) but this would be foolish given potential costs of healthcare or legal action.

I've used the Amex policy for the last five or six years without any problems, using Dollar, Alamo, Hertz and Budget car hire. On each occasion I have said that I am declining the insurance they are offering, and this has never caused an issue.

There were a number of examples a few years of tourists being given the hard sell by hire or travel companies to buy insurance, but I think this practice has largely stopped (upgrading your car is another story!). I have never been given the hard sell when collecting a car, at Orlando or anywhere else in the US. Recently, however, a Travel City Direct rep tried to give me a story about Dollar "not accepting" my insurance. I politely told her she was talking rubbish, that I had declined Dollar's insurance on a number of occasions and if she continued to tell me that I "needed" to buy this insurance I would phone my local Trading Standards office. She backed down.

As far as I know there is no other travel insurance policy which also includes car hire. Alternatives include the Natwest scheme (if you use a Natwest card to pay for the car hire) and there is an insurance company which offers car hire cover in the US as a seperate premium. For us, the Amex policy has saved many thousands of dollars over the years. We normally take the 'free' car hire that comes with flydrives, and that has worked out to be the cheapest option for us. Other people have reported here that they have found it cheaper to buy lower priced insurance and take out all-inclusive car hire seperate from their flight arrangements. As ever, do the calculations and go for whichever option works best for you...

Regards

Rob

 

[disneydolphin2]

We have just returned and the best price we found was a Dollar rental with all the insurance etc through Airline Network

http://www.airline-network.co.uk/Homepage/Homepage.asp

We paid by credit card when they had a special offer on and recieved a rental voucher by email,which we produced at the Dollar desk.
I was a bit worried at first(our first rental) but everything went extremely smoothly.

 

[DizneyDaze]

Food for thought - thank you.

I'm going to take your advise Rob and do all of the calculations and go with the most suitable. At present it's the Amex cover with free car hire with the flight but I need to check on the upgrade costs.

We like the height of the 4 wheel drive or 7 seater as we do like to travel around a lot and you get a better view of things - it's our little luxury - well one of them!

I'll check out Airline Network as well thanks for the link DisneyDolphin 2.

Thanks again - I'll post back with the outcome