pinniped

The problem is that rental cars have become like pizza: does anybody EVER book one without coupons anymore? The car rental industry has set it up this way: they quote a high base rate and then expect you to fiddle with an alphabet soup of CDP/PC/RQ/promo/discount/etc. codes to get to the "real" rate. Or *your* real rate, depending on your knowledge and/or willingness to play the game.

The one time I *don't* use anything at all in the coupon field is when I use my corporate rate. But then insurance is not a question, as the corp rate specifically includes it as part of our contract.

So, if credit cards are backing out of the business of offering a legitimate rental car insurance benefit, they should just clearly state that. Or just allow us to easily sign individual rentals up for a $25 add-on. Be transparent and honest, one way or the other. If a card wants to take this benefit away, I'll decide whether it's important enough to warrant dropping the card.

Of course, we don't really have an example where a credit card is balking at coverage because the renter used the ubiquitous "20% off", "double miles", or "3rd day free" codes. We think some cards may put full free-voucher or award rentals in another category. But yeah, I don't want to be the guinea pig...


I know. I just asked banks to be transparent and honest. You probably all want a hit of whatever I'm smoking, don't you?

lexi

Citibank Aadvantage MasterCard provides free coverage if coupons are used to pay for part of the rental. A quote from their benefits booklet:

For reference, here is a link to the complete travel protection benefits booklet: https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/~/...F_0816(1).ashx

teddybear99

As someone who doesn't rent a car so often, I don't understand why you would not use your regular car insurance to cover? Most people's car insurance would cover a rental with the same coverages as your own car. If you get into an accident, you would still pay the same deductibles as if your own car was involved in the accident. It would be the same as if I borrowed someone's car and got into an accident.

sethweinstein

A lot of us don't own cars and thus have no "regular" car insurance.

Seth

rove312

Also (although I don't fully understand all the considerations here) we might have an old car and dropped the collision coverage, so our responsibility for damage to a current-year rental car would be different.

lexi

My regular car insurance doesn't cover rentals outside the US. The coverage provided by my credit card does.

StartinSanDiego

Moderator Note: Please follow the thread as it moves to the Car Rental forum.

pinniped

Double-check that before you rent: most credit cards have a list of excluded countries. And the lists aren't always identical or predictable across all of your cards.

As you read the list, it'll mostly be places where you think "no Westerner in their right mind would rent a car there to begin with." But then you'll see something like Ireland or Italy and think "WTH?" The Ireland one surprised me...I forget which card it was, but I couldn't use it as insurance for an Irish car rental.

Ireland is a downright pleasant place to drive, for what it's worth.

lexi

Luckily the terms and conditions on my credit card have no exclusions for the countries where coverage is provided. It is worldwide coverage - period.

pinniped

Just curious: what card is that? I'm interested.

lexi

See post #17 .

mmff

Lufthansa Miles & More World Business Credit Card (by DKB) is such a card. Insurance is provided worldwide (no exceptions) by AXA.

pinniped

Cool. I was sure that Citi used to have a list of excluded countries, but I just logged in to my Citi card and found the same language as in Lexi's post 17. I went digging for a few minutes looking for exclusions and could not find any geographic restrictions. Just the usual "don't go offroading", "don't use the car as an Uber", and "bring it back before 31 days".

So this one appears to be a winner. My version is a Thank You card, and it expresses permits TYP bookings as covered by the insurance. (Not that I've ever redeemed TYP on a car before...) A real worldwide benefit. Makes me want to rent a car and spend the day motoring about Cairo or Lima. (Not really. )

SixAlpha

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/natio...over-cert.html

You may want to take a look at this thread from the National forum. Slightly different situation since in this case the coupon was issued by Discover, but still Chase seems to argue that free day coupons count as a payment method.

pinniped

That one I understand: $40 essentially went on the Discover card (of which the user really only paid $20), the rest on Chase. Whether it's fair or not is kind of another topic, but this is somewhat different than just using the rental agency's own CDP/PC codes to alter the total cost of the rental, and then paying that total cost with one credit card.