dcchi

Probably not a lot of people here rent from it, but the Enterprise London Marble Arch location (which I booked through the National site) places a 500 GBP (!) charge on top of your rental (my rental was about 115 GBP, so I was charged, at the beginning of the rental something like 615 GBP). Mind you, this was NOT a "pending" hold/temporary authorization. This was an actual charge. The 500 GBP portion was, happily, reversed when I returned the car in good condition.

BugsyPal

Usually these days if you qualify for a credit line increase the issuer will let you know by subtle hints or otherwise. Tip off is that they won't do a hard credit report inquiry which most always happens when you seek to increase credit line and or apply for new.

Hard credit inquiries IIRC cause your score to take a hit. More so if there are many of them in a short period of time. In fact doing the latter may backfire and cause current issuers to review and perhaps decrease current credit lines. This is because such actions usually warn of someone in desperate financial situations.

BugsyPal

From what one has been hearing this new hold policy is National's way of dealing with a huge increase in fraud, especially those who rent for "X" amount of days but keep the vehicle longer. Apparently when National goes back to charge for the additional days often (at least often enough to warrant changes) it comes back declined from card issuer. At least by placing an additional hold above the days rented allows National a cushion.

Here in NYC weekday rate is about $92/day. An additional $250 will cover about two days including taxes and fees.

For the record National (at least from what one has seen in NYC) long has had problems with people gaming their system. That is keeping a vehicle for longer than the contract rental period.

To combat this several years ago National began charging current daily rate for "late" returns instead of whatever rate the vehicle went out at; but guess that wasn't enough.

DonCarpenter

And that fraud is almost always local renters, hence this policy being applied to them.

Cargojon

Europe is a whole different planet when it comes to credit card holds.

Eurocar hit me for an additional Euro 600 authorization for a 2 or 3 day rental. The hotels in Europe are worse - they will authorize the price of your stay (let's say it's $400 for 3 nights) - then when you check out they charge you $400 without removing the first authorization, so it double hits your credit limit for several days.

dtremit

As a datapoint, just rented from a local National (Boston downtown) and they only authorized the rental amount.

Worst authorization surprise I ever got was from Hertz -- I was redeeming a reward that was expiring, and ended up renting a luxury car. They authorized $1,100 for a 3-day rental that ended up costing me $24.

Closingracer

I rented at LGA and got only authorized for the rental amount as a local renter. Got a hold over $200 for a $142 rental on a rental in Boston logan international

matrixca7

I can confirm there is no hold on rentals at YYZ

oftech

I rented in ATL this weekend and BDL today. Both times they only authorized the rental total. I asked the check out agent at BDL what the deposit would be (because I redeemed a free day) and he said just taxes.

NDDomer86

I picked up at CLT tonight and my US based driver's license shows an address about 30 min north of the airport (in the middle of nowhere). My card was only authorized for the estimated cost of the rental, so either this location has discontinued the practice, or only authorizes an additional hold for Charlotte and known adjacent towns/cities...

manohman

Hope this odesn't make it's way to Canada. I stopped renting at Enterprise because of the $200-300 credit card deposits. I now exclusively use National and primarily at the airport.

KDS777

NCLSEA123

I think EHI gives agents discretion to charge a deposit sometimes. I once rented at an Enterprise and the couple in front of me was charged a $250 deposit, while I had a $0 deposit. It might be because they saw my National EE Status in the computer, but YMMV. I even had a SUV, while I think they had a mid-size, so who knows.

bigpoppa09

I rented at MEM in OCT no additional holds.

NDDomer86

Well it appears that this is a YMMV situation for CLT. Picked up another car there tonight and the $200 hold was placed in addition to the rental cost. I was told that this had been the policy for all NC and SC licensed drivers for over a year.