National - Two Rentals at Once??

Here's one for you...

A co-worker backed into my car in the parking lot.

So, I have a National rental I'm driving while my car is in the body shop.

But... I need to travel on business a few days. Flying to west coast, and will need a car there when I land.

But I'll have another reservation already open back home.... will they let me have two reservations open on two separate cars in two separate cities?

I've gotten a different answer for 3 different agents....

Some on here have stated that it is possible, but I had problems with this the other day. I was dropping a one-way Florida drive out at Charlotte Airport and picking another rental up at Charlotte Ritz Carlton Uptown. However, given the traffic, time constraints, and direction of travel, it worked easiest for myself and my family to pick the new rental up first and then drop off the open rental. The agent initially said I would have to return the open contract car first and then come back to pick up the second rental as I could not have two contracts open at once, but after a little sweet talking and pressing the issue of time (the local location would be closing) and traffic, he agreed to let the car out only on the basis that my mother was already driving the one way back to the airport.

I just did this in Florida last weekend and I had no trouble whatsoever, In fact I took one rental out Friday - Monday and another Saturday-Tuesday.

I rent 2 cars (one with auth. driver) for a weekend at least once a month from JFK. No problems so far.

I did a Mon-Wed, and Tues-Thurs in two different cities without problem this week.

I know my credit card insurance only covers the first car I rent, if I rent more than one at the same time - so just a heads up given your luck with automobiles :eek:

I've done it before, usually when one of them is a one-way starting or concluding and I need to switch contents between vehicles. I've never had a problem at all. Usually the checkout agent will ask, and I just explain why I'm picking up a second vehicle. The most recent example was a month ago, when I had a Victoria-YVR rental still out when I selected my YVR rental car off the aisle. I just told him I would be returning the other car shortly and he let me go.

I don't know of any stipulation in my insurance regarding multiple vehicles. The only regulation that comes close is the maximum 48 day rental period for "the same vehicle or other vehicles from the same or other agencies". So I guess it's worded to prevent just closing and re-opening an agreement without some sort of gap in the middle. I imagine this gap could be accomplished by doing a one day rental with the agency's LDW and paying for it on another card or debit.

If you're travelling a long distance too I doubt you'd get any flack, since it's logical that Car A is replacing a personal vehicle at home while Car B is the originally scheduled rental in a city that's a flight away from home.

This is from the TD Canada Visa Certificate of Insurance:

"Coverage is limited to one rental vehicle at a time, i.e. if during the same period there is more than one vehicle rented by the Cardholder, only the first rental will be eligible for these benefits."

http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/document/PDF/tdvisa/tdct-tdvisa-fctravel.pdf

It may be that other banks do it differently, or that it's different in the U.S. - but you should probably double-check to make sure. I also know, that my ordinary car insurance covers one car as long as my car back home is parked. So presumably that would cover multiple rental cars, so long as only one is being driven at a time.

But just wanted to give you a heads up.

I did it in March when I had to use up my 12free certificates. Had an overlap. No issues. One rental from SAN the other from LAX.

This is from the TD Canada Visa Certificate of Insurance:

"Coverage is limited to one rental vehicle at a time, i.e. if during the same period there is more than one vehicle rented by the Cardholder, only the first rental will be eligible for these benefits."

http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/document/PDF/tdvisa/tdct-tdvisa-fctravel.pdf

It may be that other banks do it differently, or that it's different in the U.S. - but you should probably double-check to make sure. I also know, that my ordinary car insurance covers one car as long as my car back home is parked. So presumably that would cover multiple rental cars, so long as only one is being driven at a time.

But just wanted to give you a heads up.

Boy am I glad you posted sir...

http://www.bmo.com/pdf/BMO_Opt_Trv_Prot_EN.pdf

4.1 CAR RENTAL BENEFITS
Coverage Eligibility
The Car Rental Benefits apply when You enter into a non-renewable Rental Car Agreement for a four-wheel passenger vehicle, where the total rental period does not exceed forty-eight (48) days, subject to exclusions
and limitations (as outlined in Section 4.1.4) and the following requirements:

...

4. You must not rent more than one vehicle at a time during a rental period;

...

The total rental period must not exceed forty-eight (48) consecutive days. In order to break the consecutive day cycle, a full calendar day must exist between rental periods.

I had no idea about this until now. However, in this particular agreement, it doesn't appear to say anything about only covering the first rental car. It just seems to suggest there'd be no coverage for either car during the period of overlap. Good thing I didn't go on any rental runs until now!

But using the same credit card for 2 different vehicles with 2 different drivers seems to work. Many others have posted here saying something like, for a family gathering, they rented an SUV, and their spouse rented a minivan on the same day, etc.

I think it would only become a problem if something happened to both vehicles in the same period, then the insurer would know. I suppose if they saw two rental charges post close together they could ask to see the corresponding rental agreements to match the amounts charged and check for overlap.

I ended up returning the rental back home, just so there weren't any issues.

I ended up returning the rental back home, just so there weren't any issues.

This is what I've done before. If you're flying out anyway, it's probably more convenient to return the car at home to the airport and pick up a new one on return. Then you also don't have to pay for parking when you're gone.