Car Hire - Too Cheap

[chrisdk]

Bagged a great deal on European car hire (via holiday autos), less than half price than other offers.

Travel is in 10 days time (and I can cancel upto 48hrs beforehand) but I’ve just spotted that when I booked the site assumed I was based in the US (probably due to using my work laptop which is VPN’d).

Assume this means that they’re relying on me having SOME insurance cover via my credit card ? And that the £40 annual policy I have for excess insurance is going to leave me exposed ?

Suspect I know the answer and that I need to rebook and pay an extra £20 a day but wondered if there was any way round coverage so I can keep this deal ?

[untakenname]

You can take out insurance polices quite cheaply so it's worth doing rather than using the hire car company offering.
Worth having a credit card as well on hand as some European operators will charge you 300 euro's for having just a debit card.

[Chucklehead]

First step is to check the booking.. what do the T&Cs say?

Holidayautos (to my knowledge) doesn't actually have a US presence (being an Irish broker) and so they will display rates in USD and American English, but you'll probably still find they include CDW. Best to check, of course. If you found them via some meta link then I may be wrong.

Who is the rental with? what car rental company?

[brianmorrison]

Not sure if its the same but I fell foul of car insurance in Poland back in June. Booked via Easyjet and I took out their excess insurance as part of the booking.
Car hire company claimed damage (there wasn't any, just paintwork scratches that were there before.
Bank wouldn't help as I had technically authorised the payment by giving the credit card at time of car collection (standard practice).

Has taken 4 months to finally sort out and get my money back.

Make sure and film absolutely every part of the car on your phone before leaving.

Good luck!

[chrisdk]

Chucklehead said:

First step is to check the booking.. what do the T&Cs say?

Holidayautos (to my knowledge) doesn't actually have a US presence (being an Irish broker) and so they will display rates in USD and American English, but you'll probably still find they include CDW. Best to check, of course. If you found them via some meta link then I may be wrong.

Who is the rental with? what car rental company?

Thanks, helpful reply. Booking is with Sixt and it’s the language below on the rental voucher which has made me consider whether I’ve got cover ? Wouldn’t you normally get a (very limited) CDW on a standard rental (even if it has a £2k excess, for example) ?

Insurance coverageCosts vary
Your rental does not include Theft or Damage cover. This is a standard requirement when renting a vehicle, otherwise you can be held liable for the full value of the vehicle in case of damage or theft. Please obtain a letter of proof from your credit card provider that this cover is included on your card and extends to the country of rental. LDW cover can be purchased directly at the rental desk. Please note that you will be required to leave a deposit at the start of your rental.

[Chucklehead]

chrisdk said:

Chucklehead said:

First step is to check the booking.. what do the T&Cs say?

Holidayautos (to my knowledge) doesn't actually have a US presence (being an Irish broker) and so they will display rates in USD and American English, but you'll probably still find they include CDW. Best to check, of course. If you found them via some meta link then I may be wrong.

Who is the rental with? what car rental company?

Thanks, helpful reply. Booking is with Sixt and it’s the language below on the rental voucher which has made me consider whether I’ve got cover ? Wouldn’t you normally get a (very limited) CDW on a standard rental (even if it has a £2k excess, for example) ?

Insurance coverageCosts vary
Your rental does not include Theft or Damage cover. This is a standard requirement when renting a vehicle, otherwise you can be held liable for the full value of the vehicle in case of damage or theft. Please obtain a letter of proof from your credit card provider that this cover is included on your card and extends to the country of rental. LDW cover can be purchased directly at the rental desk. Please note that you will be required to leave a deposit at the start of your rental.

To be fair, it certainly does appear that you don't have any damage waiver - as you expected. You can hopefully log in to your booking here: https://www.sixt.co.uk/account/#/manage-my-booking... and see what it says there, as well as prices to add on additional coverage.

You might be better to cancel and rebook.

[Griffith4ever]

Bit odd all that. Essentially what we are saying here is that as the car hire company (EU) thinks you are in America, they price the car hire cheaper and remove theft and damage insurance, as that's what the American market does (even though they operate in the EU market).

Whereas in the EU market, car hire always includes theft insurance, and it also includes damage (crash) insurance with a hefty excess (an excess that your £40 policy covers).

Odd how they change their product based on who is buying? I thought LDW covered a replacement car in the event of a theft, not literally insuring the loss of the vehicle.

I've never hired a car not covered for theft! and I've hired cars in the EU with no extra insurance OR excess insurance many times (drive A-B, park, leave car for 1 week, return)

[Chucklehead]

It's not odd to adapt your prices based on what the market expects. The US market expects a product without CDW. CDW and LDW are terms that can be used interchangeably. Theft protection is usually included from Europe, but not always.

[Tigerj]

You’ve booked using an American site. They get cheaper car hire as the insurance is normally covered by their credit cards.

Used to work in car rental people would get caught out by this all the time.

[Tigerj]

You’ve booked using an American site. They get cheaper car hire as the insurance is normally covered by their credit cards.

Used to work in car rental people would get caught out by this all the time.

[chrisdk]

Thanks all, appreciate the confirmation. Looks like I’ve stumbled upon a (sort of) loophole for lower cost, higher risk car hire.

Seems a bit complicated and for the sake of £50 or so for a weekend rental I’m going to cancel and rebook something more “off the shelf” direct.

[chrisdk]

Mundane closure on this… cancelled the original and rebooked direct with Sixt.

Stumbled upon another peculiar price hack where if I returned it before 9am the next day it ended up being cheaper than returning it at 4pm the day before…. I’ve given up trying to understand this car hire game !

[PF62]

chrisdk said:

Stumbled upon another peculiar price hack where if I returned it before 9am the next day it ended up being cheaper than returning it at 4pm the day before…. I’ve given up trying to understand this car hire game !

But unless you actually return on the following day at 9am, then it might cost you a *lot* of money returning it early the previous day. This chap was charged a £670 by Hertz for returning a car two days early on top of the £617 he paid to hire it -

www.theguardian.com/money/2021/nov/13/i-returned-a...