Hertz - Declining CDW in Foreign Country Etc

I have a general car-rental question so I decided to post in the board with the most posts. I tried calling around but could not get an answer to this but it might be common knowledge to many of you. I will be in South Africa this summer. I want to rent a car. It seems to be less if I decline CDW and let my credit card policy handle it. However, I read that my credit card company will try to bill my insurance first and could mess up my driving record in the process. My insurance company (AAA) insures me that they won't pay for anything I do in South Africa, which is good, because I would rather my credit card pay. The main question is, if I did get in an accident, would my credit card try to bill my insurance company, fail, and in the the process let them know about the accident, causing them to raise my rates even though the accident was not in a place my insurance company cover me anyway? I called AAA, they didnt know, and they transfered me a few times until I got voicemail. Also, any other advice about using credit card car-rental insurance. Any cards have better terms? I dont have Diners Club. Does anyone have experience with the autoeurope.com car-rental site? Their rates were the lowest I found. Would a major company with some discount do better? Any good way to get an automatic closer to the price they have for these manual transmission vw citi golf things? I dont get how a car can be so cheap that a toyota corolla costs almost twice as much to rent, seems like the rental prices amplify the price differences of the cars and costs.

If you want answers, you need to give a lot more info.

No one knows what type of credit card coverage you have and what type of insurance policy you have without that info. from you.


If you didn't purchase CDW, they will always let your insurance company know from what I was told, or in the US, they always do. And, yes, your rates might be affected.

I have the following cards: Delta SM Biz Gold, UA Mileage Plus Visa Signature, bankone biz platinum, discover platinum, spg plat, mbna worldpoints, & citi div plat sel. I have only looked at the terms and conditions on the spg plat and it has exceptions for some countries but not for south africa, where i am going, so it should work there. It also has a weird term about the policy not applying to full time students who are personal, gold, or rewards gold cardmembers and receive student benefits from cardmembership. I am a full time grad student but will not be enrolled during summer and none of my cards are officially student cards so i dont think i am receiving student benefits. This cards is a platinum card but from the wording they could say they are talking about any card you have from them. So that is confusing. My auto insurance is AAA liability only. It would not actually cover anything I do out of the country.

And, which country are those cards issued from?


I just read my AMEX rules for rental cars the other day. It doesn't cover tires and is intended to be for secondary usage. I'm afraid it doesn't do squat if one doesn't have full coverage. Or, at least in the US, it seems the case.

Just glanced at the Discover Platinum US site. It mentions it's for secondary coverage. It doesn't mentions anything else but to refer to the plan administrator.

Just glanced at the MasterCard Platinum site. It seems to mention that if you're from the US and are outside of the US with no coverage, the coverage is primary, unless you rented certain types of vehicles.

IThe main question is, if I did get in an accident, would my credit card try to bill my insurance company, fail, and in the the process let them know about the accident, causing them to raise my rates even though the accident was not in a place my insurance company cover me anyway?

Generally your insurance premiums will only go up if your insurance company actually pays out a claim. I had a claim filed against my insurance (State Farm) last year; it turned out that someone else's insurance paid for it, so my premiums stayed the same.

As for credit cards, I believe Visa's car rental collision coverage is primary, up to $50,000, when you're using it for rentals outside the US; that means your own insurance won't be touched. When renting domestically, your credit card covers any damage costs up to the amount of the deductible on your own car's collision/comprehensive insurance. If you don't own a car, or don't have collision insurance on your personal car, then the credit card's collision insurance is also primary in the US.

Delete; duplicate info.