no choice

OK, I should have known better. That said -- here is the story.

We booked a package with Hapuna Prince Hotel that included car. I was given a special code to use when I booked the car rental with Avis. The package provided at credit for a specific sum of money towards the car. If we choose an intermediate sized car, we would end up only owing taxes and fees; if we wanted to upgrade we could choose to do so and simply pay balance. I booked the reservation online at Avis.com and entered the code. I got a confirmation with TOTAL costs [rental, fees etc]. No credit card was required at the time of making reservation.

We declined CDW when we picked up our car in Kona in October. We gave them our Mastercard when we picked up the car. WE used our Mastercard to pay the fees when we turned in the car.

In between picking up the car and returning it, we had a close encounter with what I believe is called a "lava toe" at VNP. DH was backing up to exit parking space at end of Chain of Craters road and scrapped the bumper.

When we got back to the Prince, we went to the Avis desk there and reported the damage and filled out a report.

When we turned in the car at Kona airport, we gave a copy of the report to Avis checkin person.

We were under the belief that Mastercard would pay for this damage under their MasterRental insurance program.

I submitted all the required paperwork and have now been notified by Mastercard that they are declining payment because we did not "use the card to initiate and pay for the entire rental agreement/contract {tax, gas, and airport fees are not considered rental charges] with your mastercard."

I have been protesting this denial for over 4 months now -- I keep sending MC more documents to show that I did use the card to reserve, and pay for car as part of the package, but I am sure I won't get anywhere. I even submitted paperwork from Hapuna Prince Hotel showing that the invoice to AVIS was paid [as MC requested} and the exact daily rate that we were paying.

So -- the lesson to be learned here -- if you get a car as part of a package deal, it appears your credit card will not cover damages should you decline CDW.

There are lots of other conditions that invalidate the insurance [like having car for more than 15 consecutive days; rental vehicles must have msrp of $50,000 or less etc etc.]Better check these out before you falsely believe that your credit card will protect you.

I know that I can report this to my car insurance [USAA] BUT we have a $500 deductible on our cars for collision and I really hate to report anything to them...for fear of them hiking our premiums. I just talked to them and they said that the rental is treated just like your personal car, so deductibles are same.

The scrapes were not all that bad, but by the time they included loss of use, administrative fees it totaled almost $700. I don't think it is worth having insurance pay the $200 above deductible and risk raising rates. This amount includes admin costs and loss of use costs.

I am thinking of following this line of reasoning with Mastercard. We did in fact use the same mastercard to pay for the package at the Hapuna Prince and will pursue that as argument that I did in fact use my card to pay for everything. I should have known that "free" benefits/coverage is "you get what you pay for" and that they will do everything possible not to pay out, but I will try to reason with them.

It appears that MC is doing everything NOT to pay; to deny and drag this out hoping I will just pay AVIS. I recently got a letter from AVIS saying that we owe this money as credit card company hasn't paid. To AVIS' credit, this is only the second bill from them; the first being the original one.

And as far as using MC when making car rental reservation [which is one of the requirements for their covering claim; as it was stated above... you do not need a card to make a reservation so that seems like it would be an automatic out for the CC company.

My interpretation of "initiate" would be that you must use the Mastercard at time of reservation or present the Mastercard at the time you picked up the car (or both). I believe they are trying to guard against the situation where someone might use one card at the begining of the rental, then switch to the one with better coverage after the damage has occurred.

By my understanding you complied with this requirement, the issue is really that you did not directly pay for the rental with the card because it was included in the hotel package.

Does your card offer primary coverage?

I don't know the details of your situation, but, years ago, someone I knew rented a car on a card without collision insurance included, then had a bad accident. Returned the car and paid with a card that had the insurance. Second card paid up with no problems. I suspect they just didn't notice.

If your car is not separately rented, MC or Visa wont cover it
 

Package deal, priceline bids (prepaid to Priceline, not to the rental car company), whatever, your credit card wont pick up the coverage - it is very clear in the T&C that you MUST rent the car and pay the ENTIRETY of the rental cost to rental car company with your CC (versus only the fee and taxes), otherwise you lose out on the coverage. The fine print is very clear in this regard. In your case, you paid Prince hotel for the cost of rental car as part of the package - then the balance of fee and extra you paid with your CC - that is NOT the entirety you paid for your rental car to the rental car company directly.

Your back and forth with MC will not go anywhere - simply waste your time.

Besides, what are you thinking? MC in this case is the SECONDARY coverage - they wont pay the full amount, they only pay what is left unpaid by your insurance company if you have comprehensive coverage. Obviously you do. I dont know if you need to file with your own insurance company first or not, I do know you need to submit your own car policy declaration page to MC as part of the paperworks required. MC paid the hailstorm damage on our rental for the full repair estimate of $2282 because our own car policy was liability only. So MC became primary. The loss of usage is very difficult to get approval eventhough MC said it covers it. It requires the Fleet Log and is subj to magnified glass examination. MC does NOT cover Admin charge. Visa does.

OT: Paid the entirety with the card is extreme important in any benefits provided by CC - in the case of purchase protection or extended warranty - dont ever pay a portion of it by giftcard or coupon for an expensive item that you want coverage - store discount is ok but using coupon or giftcard to reduce the purchase cost is NOT.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry7130e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

As of a couple of years ago, some credit card companies were representing that they would cover Priceline rentals. If anyone is interested in exploring this, I would recommend asking the credit card company for a letter or Email, as opposed to an oral, response.

As far as charging the entire rental to a credit card, MasterCard specifically allows one to take advantage of a rental company discount or promotion (coupon) as long as at least one full day of the rental is charged to the card.

I doubt that a credit card company would exclude coverage based on a reservation that did not include a credit card. Both Visa and MasterCard talk about initiating a rental "transaction" or "agreement/contract." I don't think that a reservation counts, especially since one can sometimes rent a car by walking up to a rental counter without a reservation. (A prepaid/non-refundable reservation might be a different story.)

interesting, i didn't realize that i might not be covered through a priceline.com purchase...

It is my contention that since I DID use the MC to reserve the entire package, which included the car rental as well as room AND I used the MC to pay the final hotel bill and all charges with rental car that the MC was used for every aspect of this car rental transaction.

I am pretty sure it won't get me anywhere, but I figure some letters, phones etc might be worth the effort if I get any money from MC.

I just wanted people to be aware of this "out" that MC seems to have. Especially troublesome is MC's contention that you must use MC to reserve the car when NO CARD IS REQUIRED to reserve a car.

Debi

Nothing in your posts (so far) indicates that MasterCard is requiring that one use the card to reserve the rental car (especially if the car-rental company does not even take credit-card information when a reservation is made).

You might want to ask MasterCard whether they extend the loss/collision coverage to car rentals obtained through Priceline or Hotwire, if a MasterCard is used. If their answer is yes, then I would ask them how your situation is different. I believe that the car-rental companies treat Priceline/Hotwire reservations as prepaids, and, in any event, the customer is making a credit-card payment directly to Priceline/Hotwire, and not to the car-rental company.

The denial letter from them said, " Your MasterCard was not used to reserve and pay for the entire cost of the rental."

It then goes on to say:

"To get coverage:
initiate and pay for the entire rental agreement/contract {tax, gas, and airport fees are not considered rental charges] with your mastercard."

There are many hidden noncoverd expenses that may arise on a rental car claim that will not be paid by your own personal insurance policy. One should give strong consideration to accepting the rental car insurance.
As indicated it is not easy to make and validate a claim.
William S Cook
Public Adjuster

I honestly believe, the word "reserve" is not that important here - the crux is, you do not pay the entire rental cost to the rental car company DIRECTLY with your MC, if I understand correctly.

As for discount and coupon promo with rental car company - it does not affect the coverage. In the case of our claim, there was a 20% discount code being used and MC did not blipped. In fact, once the paperwork was in place, the adjuster wanted to pay the repair estimate right away, before the rental car company submitted the Fleet Log for the Loss of Usage claim. I was naive enough to ask him to wait, and tried my best to get the Fleet Log. The Fleet Log was shot down for reason of "not enough detailed information". We ended up paying the combo of Loss of Usage and Admin Fee for a total of $320 after bargaining it down from $450 with rental car company's insurance agent (It was a Franchaisee and its insurance matter was handled by a 3rd party).

This is something I haven't tried yet but will do so! Thanks for the suggestion.
Debi

Dood to know- I never ran into this since my alternate is visa

I agree that the real issue is whether "you pay for the entire rental transaction with your eligible MasterCard card." See:

http://www.mastercard.com/us/persona...y/index.html#9

Of course those aren't the full disclosures, so who knows what the language is in the actual T&Cs. But I've always been under the impression that unless the charge on your card (for the full amount) comes directly from the rental agency or common carrier (airline, train company, etc.), your credit card CDW and travel/lost luggage/cancelation benefits do NOT apply. This is why I don't reserve cars with Priceline unless they're MUCH cheaper than renting directly from the rental agencies, and why I try to use vouchers I get all-at-once rather than spread out over various car rentals/tickets.