Bloomsbury

I rent in the US quite a lot. If you're UK based then I highly recommend buying 'car hire insurance' if you rent cars for more than a few weeks a year.

I pay £129 a year, although that seems to have gone up to £139 now , minus £26 via quidco cashback.

Sounds a lot, but it means that I can decline all the insurance the rental company tries to package with the car. In Europe car rental has to be sold with a minimum level of cover included, but in the US and some other parts of the world, you pay extra for everything. So most of the time (unless there's an amazing offer), I'll book my US car hire on Avis.com in dollars, decline all the insurance and save quite a lot.

It's well worth it. You get a very high level of cover compared to what's normally offered, plus save money in the long run.

xenole

I've noticed the insurance differences when looking at the US sites.
They charge something like $129 for a 2 day rental and then you have to pay another $55 for LDW so in the end it more than doubles the all inclusive cost from a UK site.

pauldb

You get this cover with an Amex platinum, which is £300 with lots of other benefits and 42k miles for signing up. Much better value IMHO.

On the other hand, I often find US bookings from the UK including insurance are barely more, or occasionally cheaper, than ex-insurance bookings on the US sites. I don't know why that is, but it often happens, especially if you search the consolidators.

redsox1918

I would look at carhire3000.com if you are price driven.

larryflyer

What annoys me is that the U.S. sites, as soon as you say you are a non-U.S. resident, the rates quoted include manadatory LDW and ALI with no option to decline.

I have car rental insurances included as a benefit on my Platinum AMEX, so interested in any tips on how to 'decline' these insurances when renting a car in the U.S. as a UK resident, please!

T8191

US Insurances for UK travellers are a minefield. That's why I like using some of those consolidator who bundle everything into the rental. Then the 'guy at the desk' has noting to sell [on which he earns commission, which is why they push it].

@ redsox ... point taken, although you can end up web-searching other consolidators through them. I've never used them, I just find them a bit too "multi-link"

@ larryflyer ... bin the Amex Plat? Some aspects you win, and some you lose. My Amex Blue free card doesn't create that problem, and gives me the option to have all those insurances rolled up in a rental ... and I don't have to pay an annual Amex fee. It may work for you, but it doesn't for me

pinkcat

I use expedia because they include everything I need like insurance as a UK driver in the US, Price listed in £. I get a variety of companies, Alamo, Hertz crop up more than others, never had a problem since I started using Expedia, unlike BA stranded at midnight at JFK because of some mix up with the voucher, never got miles to credit, for any rental.
Conversely I have no idea if a hotel price is good or bad in £ have to do it in $

pinkcat

isnt there a box to tick?

Roger

One suggestion is to say you are a US resident. I've done this and never had a problem, even when using my (paper) UK licence. There may be an issue from the renter if a claim arises, even with the UK plat card cover. I don't do this any more.

Otherwise, use an agency which doesn't bundle in those unwanted extras. In the past, National have done this for me.There are significant differences with benefits from US and UK AmEx plat cards. The US card provides secondary cover AFAIK, while the UK card offers blanket cover on worldwide rentals, a far better prospect IMO.Typically no, once you have selected UK.

James S

I just wish there was a rental car company in the US that would offer a decent car with a manual gearbox. A nice 3 series BMW for example, available from most rental companies in Europe, and certainly sold retail in the US, would do.

James

cazoz

I'm doing my first Avis/BA rental in a few weeks, but it's only EDI.

Interestingly, the common theme above is car rental in the US, rather than Avis specifically - so maybe that is the real minefield?

500 miles isn't much but I like the idea of skipping the queue and there are some bonus miles with Avis Preferred - not many though I don't think.

xenole

Supposed to be double miles with Avis at present so 1000 instead of 500 (US only or all hiring?)

San Juan seems more difficult than Las Vegas to hire from.
Some of the comparison sites and suchlike don't deal with anything there, and places like Hertz only give the price in US$ with the option to pay locally only which means double the price with insurances that you have to add on.

Alamo seem to give inclusive prices in £ though. Not sure why you can hire a mid-sized car such as a Toyota Corrola for around £69 but if you upgrade to the gold package, the price drops by £20.

bernardd

It's not an important difference for most US residents because for most of us get our normal car insurance automatically extended to cover damage to the rental car. The secondary credit card insurance is relatively unimportant.

FWIW while I was still a UK resident I had annual travel insurance that included rental car damage and I didn't have any issue with the major rental car companies trying to force extra insurance on me, that can often cost as much as the basic rental.

bernardd

There are still plenty of cars with manual, right down to the Honda Civic I believe, however America kids aren't taught to drive them, and frankly they have no value given the style of roads, the efficiency of the modern boxes and the general competence of the drivers - how can you text / do your makeup / eat lunch while driving a stick anyway? For all those reasons I doubt rental car companies want them except in sports cars in their prestige / exotic fleets because they'd get back a handful of spare teeth in the bottom of the box from most US drivers.

Hannibal Lecter

not sure if I follow you, but you don't have to use the AvisBA site, use any AVIS site and your Wizard Number.
You usually get good prices with BA's AWDs in the UK, (eg N744100) but the price you get from AvisBa.com will almost always be higher than avis.com or avis.co.uk, the only advantage is an extra driver for free.

Might be worth knowing that Avis UK count a weekend as up to 4 days and ending Tuesday at noon, price won't be much lower if you keep it for 2 or 3 days only.