metoo

I paid for my Avis Car rental through the website rentalcars.com using my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. It has Primary collision coverage only if I decline the collision coverage with Avis.

However, I am not able to decline the basic coverage with Avis. Should I be involved in a collision, will chase sapphire prefered ( or reserved) card cover this?

Ditto

That might be better posted in the Avis forum, but either way if Avis gives you that coverage, why would you need your CC to also cover you for it?

Happy

South Africa has MANDATORY CDW and Theft coverage hence you would not be able to decline it.

There is a very sizable deductible listed on the T&Cs - have you read that? It is 16,000 ZAR to be exact. That deductible is covered by the Visa.

However, Visa / Mastercard / AMEX all cover the DEDUCTIBLE should you have a damage on your car on a South Africa rental.

There is a rental car coverage thread in Chase forum. You can also call Chase and the rep would direct you to the rental car coverage entity where the rep would answer your questions.

I know when renting DIRECTLY with Avis, the deductible is clearly spelled out in the rental T&Cs.
Why would you rent thru a 3rd party site to begin with? With proper Avis AWDs found in Avis forum, the price would not be any higher than a 3rd party site. Avis also has prepaid and pay at the counter rate - the difference is about 10% on the rate portion only - the taxes and fees are the same, based on the pay at the counter rate.

You would get a very competitive rate thru AA portal because Avis is preferred partner of AA, the same way Hertz is for UA.

The Hilton HHonor code is a public code which also get you a very competitive rate at Avis on almost all international rental.

The only time you may get a better pricing is to call Europe Car and ask them to BEAT the Avis quote.

On the similar topic - Australia and New Zealand are in the same situation, in case you dont know about MANDATORY CDW in some countries around the world.

Renting in those countries you also can NOT decline CDW and Theft.

AMEX continues to NOT cover Australia and New Zealand because the company and the 2 countries governments could not reach an agreement on how to handle the mandatory thing.
Visa covers these 2 countries. IIRC MC also covers them.

Finally you need to be aware of the DCC when using Visa or MC.
Renting directly with Avis you can opt out DCC in your Preferred profile. No idea about renting thru a 3rd party.
AMEX network does not allow DCC.

When I rent thru Avis I always opted for local currency during the reservation process and make screen shots - because Avis ALWAYS changes it to your residency currency in this case USD, on the final page When I pick up the car at the counter - the contract is always in local currency - this way I can compare it with the print out f the screen shots to make sure the price on the contract is correct. We did find a meaningful discrepancy at JNB last year - after combing thru the items it was determined that the discrepancy was caused by Avis system not picking up the 14% taxes correctly, so we accepted the higher total shown on the contract at JNB.
I do not know how you could make sure the price on the contract at pick up matches with what you pay, thru the 3rd party site, in USD.
Prepaid is not always 100% prepaid just so you would not be caught by surprise at the counter.

Finally, booking Pay at the Counter rate allows you to monitor the price (at the cost of 10% over the Prepaid rate) - so you could cancel and rebook should the price drops meaningfully, without the hassle to wait for the refund to return to your CC.

Case in point, because of your post, that prompted me to check our rental - The rate (thru AA portal, with Wizard number and AA's Avis AWD) has fallen 15%. So I X'ed the existing reservation and rebooked with the now lower rate. Would continue to monitor it until our departure.

Sure you can cancel the prepaid and then rebook - but you would need to wait for the refund to your CC on the X'ed booking, that is one extra thing to follow up. Sometimes cancellation on prepaid rate incurs a fee, at least IIRC Avis charges a fee on the cancellation of Prepaid. For only 10% difference between the Prepaid and the Pay at the Counter to start with, I say forget about the prepaid!

Happy

There is a large deductible, 16,000 ZAR to be exact - on the coverage. That is the reason why you still need protection.

metoo

what is DCC?

Mwenenzi

Dynamic Currency Conversion (=Expensive)
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avis...in-2017-a.html

Ditto

Yes, of course there are deductibles (the actual amount varies by car group/model), and Avis and will be more than happy to sell SCDW to lower/cancel those deductibles.

Happy

That is where the Credit Card Coverage comes in.

The deductible is 16K ZAR so quite high. Pretty sure all 3 major credit cards cover that.

That is also the reason why you decline the non mandatory (is there such a word?) SCDW from the rental car companies. Else you lose the CC coverage on the Excess (deductible).