NCLSEA123

The main landing page of the premium rental car coverage webpage seems to have changed recently. It now says 42 consecutive days of coverage, except in Washington State, which is 30 days.

Also, quick question for those with a bit more insight on the terms and conditions. I have an upcoming 30 day rental for work, but I might use the car a few days for personal use in between and towards the end of the rental. It turns out the monthly rate is cheaper than 3 weeks, so I just plan to charge the rental to my card and submit for reimbursement. Would a joint personal/business purpose rental be handled any differently coverage wise?

mysterym

it probably depends on your company's agreement/contract. if your company is allowing the rental, see if it needs to go on your corporate card for their insurances to be valid (it probably at the very least needs to be booked through their travel booking company and they may say decline all additional insurances - read closely). when i used to travel extensively for work, they had no problem with personal use on top of the normal business use when i was traveling on business. however, they may take issue if you are keeping the car beyond your business travel dates.

easiest example is... if you fly out to a client on jan 1 and fly home on jan 30, your rental car for the month of business while you are in the client location usually can be used for normal personal purposes between jan 1 and jan 30.

mster

It's always been a 42 day max for me. For longer rental periods I close out my contract and start fresh with a new contract / vehicle after 42 days. My rentals are almost all in the same geographic region and from the same provider.

NCLSEA123

I've noticed lately that Premium Car Rental Coverage isn't posting for small $ amount rentals (i.e. < $15) that I take through National using free days. One of the best benefits of this feature has been that I was covered, even when using free days. Does anyone know the $$$ amount threshold for the charge to occur? I just added 3 days of XM radio to get a free rental total amount > $30.

Traveling Salesman

I just used 4 free days on a National rental and the only charge I had was tax for 27.77 and amex charged me for the premium coverage. Good thing that they did I was notified of damages National found after I returned the car. Lets hope the premium insurance works!

lwildernorva

It appears that the secondary insurance offered with the Platinum card will start offering coverage in Ireland, Israel, and Jamaica beginning September 1, 2017. I just reviewed the Premium Car T&Cs and unlike the secondary insurance, there is no indication that this coverage has been extended to those three countries--with the secondary insurance there are now two sets of T&Cs on the website, one good currently, one beginning September 1, 2017.

Anybody with insight on whether AMEX intends to extend the Premium Car Rental Protection to other countries? I travel fairly frequently to Ireland and wouldn't mind using this coverage there to save some money on rentals, especially as I've had uniformly excellent experiences with Premium service.

mia

Why would you prefer to use the Premium product, rather than the standard version, when out of the USA?

lwildernorva

Ireland is a difficult rental market. I've always waived coverages everywhere I've rented--except Ireland. Narrow roads, odd constructs--last year, I thought I had left plenty of room as I turned a corner only to hear a sickening scraping sound on the driver's side of the car which turned out to be something that looked just like a rock outcropping extending a couple of feet from what should have been the edge of the curb--makes paying for what is called "super cover" over there worthwhile.

Super cover, however, more than doubles the price of a rental. Many rental car companies in Ireland will not rent to you if your CC insurance coverage is secondary. And even if primary, rental car companies generally want a letter from the CC company dated within a week or so of your trip that confirms the extent of your coverage.

Add in that the rental car company has the home court advantage while you've returned to the US. I'm willing to pay $24.95 for ​the primary coverage. Otherwise, it really is easier to accept the super cover in Ireland despite its cost. I generally decline coverage anywhere else in the world. Outside Ireland, I haven't caused damage to a car in decades. Turning a $225 expense into $95 with the peace of mind AMEX provides is appealing to me.

guv1976

I think that you're missing the point: "Secondary" coverage is secondary only when you have other, collectable insurance. Most personal auto policies issued in the U.S. do not provide any coverage outside the U.S. and Canada. So Amex's free, "secondary" coverage would most likely be primary coverage for you in Ireland.

lwildernorva

I understand. But car rental in Ireland can be a dicey business as reflected in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/u-k-i...ghlight=rental. The chance of damage to a rental car in Ireland is high because of the old streets and roads--much higher than in Northern Ireland and Scotland, for instance, where I've driven extensively without problems. In addition, dealing with rental car agents at the Dublin airport calls to mind Obi-Wan Kenobi's description of Mos Eisley. And I've dealt with some pretty dicey agents in plenty of tourist trap airports.

The chances are decent that a rental car agent at Dublin would not necessarily accept the written representation that the regular AMEX Plat coverage is primary for Ireland. As the cited thread shows, it's imperative to have confirmation in writing of the primary coverage afforded by your CC company. I've had uniformly excellent experiences with the add-on Plat coverage--most recently two years ago when another driver rear-ended my rental vehicle in Napa; once I provided sufficient information over the phone to the AMEX CSR, I never heard from them again other than to receive confirmation that the claim was cleared.

Since I don't have that level of confidence in other CC insurance handling, I've been using an agency that rents Hertz vehicles with complete super cover included at a price lower than Hertz charges. I've returned vehicles with damage with only a few minutes spending completing paperwork regarding the damage but with assurances that since I'd purchased the super cover, "everything will be taken care of." And it was, just like my AMEX experiences. Using another coverage, whether the regular Plat or the add-on, could easily result in a savings of a couple of hundred dollars per rental.

I'm willing to pay $24.95 for the extra piece of mind for the AMEX add-on coverage because I think it's easy to prove the primary coverage. I really don't want to argue with an agent at the beginning of my rental period, fresh off a TATL flight and a bit groggy, that the AMEX Plat included coverage is unquestionably primary now in Ireland.

Traveling Salesman

Just wanted to update that amex premium insurance paid the claim from National with in a few day's of receiving all of the paperwork. I am very pleased with how everything was handled. ^

danspartan

Going through a big hassle for a car I had for less than a day. There was some paint transfer on the passenger rear quarter (I'm guess at hotel parking as nothing happened while I was in the car).

I used a free day which I learned is a loophole that the standard AMEX insurance uses. So looks I'll be on the hook for my deductible.

So looking at the premium--how easy is this to turn on/off? Seems like if I use a free day then I'd want to use the premium. Otherwise no.

Travelling on Wednesday using a free day.

Thanks.

mysterym

why would you go through your insurance? even if its $1-2k in re-painting, long-term it makes sense to just pay cash for the damage..

danspartan

Well, I though the AMEX was going to cover my deductible, so I would have made a different decision. No clue if I'm going to get dinged on my insurance rate.

Biggie Fries

This is a bad glitch with this program that I and others have discussed upstream. The advice I got -- which seems to have worked -- was to generate a small charge, in my case by bringing in the tank $8 low or so. That triggered the Amex insurance charge.

This said, all this has made me (a) stop chasing "free" days; and (b) book rentals with Chase Ritz-Carlton Visa, which seems to have primary coverage for free.