Good morning!
First time actually posting something on this forum, even though I have been reading it for a while now. My name is Thomas, I'm 24 years old (will be 25 by the time of the rental we will be discussing below) and French. I am hoping someone could help me by bringing their experience!
We are planning a roadtrip of more than 3000 miles with 13 people total during summer 2020. Starting in Los Angeles (then Morro Bay, San Francisco, Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas, Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonsland, Monument Valley, Page, Grand Canyon, Laughlin, and back to Los Angeles), we are going to need a few cars. Our plan is to rent one Chevy Suburban and two cars from the Adrenaline Collection (one U4 and one V4, if my memory is correct), as we are petrolheads, we just need V8s!
As you may know, renting a car from the Adrenaline Collection requires to have two CREDIT cards at the name of the main driver, and debit cards are not accepted for this category. At first, what was exactly accepted by Hertz as a "valid credit card" was quite ambiguous for us, so I've sent them a message via their website live chat, and they gave me this answer :
"a credit card is a VISA, AMEX, Mastercard.. That is not attached to a bank account", at least now it's clear.
So this is something we don't usually have here in France, as we mostly have what they are calling "debit cards", which are linked to our bank account, so we only spend the money that we have in bank. Our cards are still VISA and Mastercards with embossed numbers, but yet they don't fall into their definition, as they are linked to our accounts and not to a renewable credit...
But wait, I know what you are thinking! "once again, a tourist asking what is a credit card or not", but this is not my point yet.
Basically, we are going to subscribe to two credit cards at the name of the main driver just so they can be happy and we can be sure to get the cars we'd like. We are fine with this and we are gonna comply to those requirements. But what was nearly shocking to us, was when the Hertz agent told us that every single one of the additional drivers of the Adrenaline Collection cars have to comply to the exact same requirements as the main driver, so they also need to have two credit cards at their name and show them in order to be able to drive the car. That means that everyone from our group who would like to drive the V8s (most likely the main driver + 6 additional drivers split between the two Adrenaline cars, as they have 4 seats each) will have to subscribe not to one, but two credit cards just to show them to an agent who will look at them during one second. This is going to be a huuuuge pain in the *** for us! Also, some of us just don't even want to subscribe to credits in the "normal life", so doing so just to show someone credit cards only for identification purposes (as the rental costs will be paid by the main driver), is very very very unpleasant.
In comparison, for the more standard cars (including the Suburban), it is said on the website that the main driver and additional drivers can show a debit card to identify themselves, along with a plane ticket showing they will be leaving after the rental ends.
So here we come to my questions..
1) Is this really serious? As it is only for identification purposes and not for paiements, wouldn't our actual debit cards suffice for being a additional driver on those Adrenaline Collection cars? We are understanding that they are asking for two credit cards from the main driver in order to pay and make a deposit, but asking this from every single additional driver just to take a glance at them is just a joke, and not a funny one...
2) Being a Gold Plus Rewards member (not yet, but at this time I will be), can we still skip the counter if there are additional drivers added to the rental agreement? And is it possible to send additional drivers informations on the website before the pickup date, so they can be identified with their driving license and actual debit cards? So we only have to get two credit cards for the main driver and that's all...
3) Is asking additional drivers for credit cards even legal? I've seen someone say on a forum (maybe this one, I don't remember) that some states do not allow this. Does California allows this?
4) What are your experiences when renting cars from the Adrenaline Collection cars in general? And when adding additional drivers?
Thank you very much for your help!
