Originally Posted by Evan!

Newbie ?! Marathon Man... you and I go back to the 90s from another FF mile site and you're well known here on FT.

You might want to look at the Q2 thread as it is more up to date.

Q2 2011 Car Rental Bonus Promos!

At AMS I rented from Alamo and was not disappointed. Very reasonable AND a 1-way dropped of at a local office in Paris.

Check out the sticky Avis Discount Codes in the Avis forum. I recommend setting your preferences to the max number of posts per page and then start with the last page and work your way back so you can get the more recent info. Use your browser to search the page text for "AMS", "Schiphol", "Amsterdam", and "Netherlands". Search case-insensitive as so many here on FT haven't been introduce to the "shift" key.

This thread is more for mile/point promos but, since we go back a long ways, .....

My favorite Avis AWD codes are:
A074800 Citicorp Leisure Travel
A972200 Farmers? Deloitte? - EARNS NO MILES/POINTS
A756900 American Express
A415900 BJ's Wholesale
A108364 Costco
A686200 Priceline
B021615 Wal-Mart Shoppers

Budget BCD:
W852856 Costco Travel
S208200 American Express
W852800 Costco
W852849 Costco on-line promotion
W810100 Sam's Club
W810011 Wal-Mart Shoppers
U283300 From email from Budget to me

Also, although Sun Microsystems is no more... the Budget code lives on V791300

Also, there is a really hot Avis promo through AF/KL Flying Blue noted in the Q2 thread. VERY lucrative but requires multiple rentals and using the AF AWD code. Since this doesn't sound like a biz trip I am guessing that you will do better to use another AWD that gives a better rate than go for FF miles.


NEWBIE.... NEWBIE my a$$ !! :-:

[And, yes, I realize you meant "to rental cars overseas". I just couldn't resist.]

Originally Posted by sdsearch

Well, the first question is, do you have insurance that will work overseas ("umbrella" or whatever)? (Your normal US car insurance by itself almost certainly does not work overseas.) If not, does your Cap One card cover insurance completely? (Many credit cards pretend to, until you read the fine print.) And is declining all CDW (a necessity for any possible credit card coverage) even possible in Netherlands (I know it can be difficult to impossible in some countries overseas, while not a problem in another country next door). I have no experience renting in Netherlands myself.

If you need insurance coverage, that's not covered by most coupons, etc. So that may change things completely (if one company has a lower rate before insurance, but another company has a lower rate including insurance).

The last thing you want is to be stuck with a giant bill because of some damage to the car. That would be so enormous (compared to the actual rental cost), it's to be avoided at all costs. That's why, if you've never rented overseas before, I feel you need to figure this out first (or just bite the bullet and decide you'll get all the coverage, since it's only a very short rental anyway).

Also, I hope you know how to drive stick. In Europe, even if you can get an automatic, it's typically about twice as expensive as a stick shift from most rental car companies (because they know mostly only foreigners such as Americans will ask for it!).