Using credit card to rent a car

[Callandra]

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@Anonymous-own-fico wrote:

Even if a foreign tourist has a credit card, isn't there the issue of insurance, not to mention whether the company will accept the country's license?

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Might depend on the countries involved, but you can get an international license. 

I've had to use a credit card for a deposit a few times in the past year at Enterprise (my baby Honda got rear-ended so the other person's insurance paid for the rental but I still had to give them a CC) but they've never put any temporary authorization on it (I checked). Not sure if I was an isolated case but it was two different times at Enterprise. My memory is a bit fuzzy on it (it was early in the morning) but I think the guy said I could use a debit card too. 

[Pway]

I remember those days of not having a credit card and those high hotel, rental car, holds being placed.  It is much a convenience when you are using your credit card.

[takeshi74]

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@Callandra wrote:

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@Anonymous-own-fico wrote:

Even if a foreign tourist has a credit card, isn't there the issue of insurance, not to mention whether the company will accept the country's license?

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Might depend on the countries involved

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Definitely depends on the countries, the tourist's existing insurance and whatever insurance may be offered by the card.  It's impossible to provide one answer for all situations.

[Anonymous]

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@takeshi74 wrote:

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@Callandra wrote:

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@Anonymous-own-fico wrote:

Even if a foreign tourist has a credit card, isn't there the issue of insurance, not to mention whether the company will accept the country's license?

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Might depend on the countries involved

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Definitely depends on the countries, the tourist's existing insurance and whatever insurance may be offered by the card.  It's impossible to provide one answer for all situations.

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Every time i read your screen name .. my mind does this : "I don't take(no)shi74" haha.

[Callandra]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@takeshi74 wrote:

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@Callandra wrote:

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@Anonymous-own-fico wrote:

Even if a foreign tourist has a credit card, isn't there the issue of insurance, not to mention whether the company will accept the country's license?

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Might depend on the countries involved

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Definitely depends on the countries, the tourist's existing insurance and whatever insurance may be offered by the card.  It's impossible to provide one answer for all situations.

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Every time i read your screen name .. my mind does this : "I don't take(no)shi74" haha.

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lol, whattt? Whenever I see "takeshi" I have flashbacks to my years in Japan as I knew a bunch of Takeshis. 

[Existentialist]

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@Anonymous wrote:

i went to rent a car the other day and there were not one- but two people ahead of me, each of them having a hard time renting a car because they didn't have credit cards. I felt sorry for them. One was a foreign guy who kept saying, "I rented in (another state) and they never asked me these questions." The guy wanted a current utilities bill in his name that did not have a past due balance.

The other customer was a young lady, maybe a college student who wanted to know if she could rent with her mother's credit card but her mother wasn't with her.

The wave of compassion I had! That was me most of my life. I remember trying to find car rental companies that accepted debit cards and ones that didn't put a hold that were too big on my card. Or later on, getting to the rental counter with my secured card hoping the rental wouldn't be larger than my available balance. 

This time I could choose a rental car company based on the lowest price with no worry about my payment methods.  And I'm paying things off in full so I never have to worry about having enough room on my credit line. Such a relief!

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So long story short....

@Several years ago due to my frustration @ having to deal with the untennable credit holds (amounting to hundreds of dollars) on my cc's and ridiculously long lines I decided one day to start reviewing the card policies of all the major car rental agencies. And when I say review I mean dissecting the fine print that most of us usually try to avoid. The result of that rather exhaustive search led me to now using only one place as my primary rental agency. I now go thru Budget for 99% of my rentals - here's why...

First, Budget accepts bank debit cards. But beyond that is the fact that unlike renting with a cc, if U use your debit card to prepay your rental (which most of the time also includes a prepaid discount) they will only place a 100 dollar hold on your card (but I'll stipulate again thats its only on 'prepaid' rentals). Given the fact that most agencies dont accept debit cards or if they do its with multiple strings attached I found this to be fairly significant.

@Anonymous bcuz I almost always use a discount rental code whenever I rent I've been able to save a decent chunk of money most of which I write off @ years end anyway. All I can say with any certainty is that its worked out great for me. And bcuz the rentals are prepaid I'm not standing in some long line waiting to get to my car (although I did sign up for their fast break program which lets U bypass both counters and head straight to your car).

So the moral to this story....

Well I s'pose its whatever U want it to be.