Credit cards and car hire

trets77

any advice on the following credit card problem

i will be renting a car in Toronto in November with Alamo.

i,m not about get caught with a host of nasty insurance add ons when i get there, so i,m taking out a seperate all inclusive car hire policy for £120

http://insurance4carhire.com/

this will prove good value as i will use it again when i go to New england next October.

however Alamo are one of the companys that refuse to acceot this insurance upfront and insist on credit card of least £1500 limit be put aside with funds authorised to them. look at FAQ below from above insurance company

For example, both Dollar and Alamo will accept our insurance but will withdraw or block US$ 1,500 from your credit card for the duration of the rental when you do a fly-drive through them, using our insurance

I don,t trust them as far as could throw the rental to be honset as it,s like leaving them with a blank cheque

my question is if i use a credit card with the correct limit would i be able to cancel it and / or report it lost or stolen when i,m happily in my rental five miles down the road , to stop them taking any money they see fit before or after i return it.??? the card will have no outstanding balance on it before i go ! or once i give them authoristation on that card is it impossible to cancel the card till alamo have removed there license to charge ??

i have a deep mistrust of car hire companys read this to find out why

http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18409-2166250_1,00.html


any adivce much appericated

jojo1978_3

You could cancel the card or report it as lost/stolen, but because you have given the hire company your details, they are still authorised to take the funds, so the transactions will just get transferred to the new account that gets set up.
The only thing you can really do, is dispute any transactions the car hire company put on, after you have returned the car, thats if they take the funds for no reason.

King_Of_Fools

Car hire companies ask for your credit card even if you buy their insurance! So there is no real way of getting round this.

As jojo1978 said, cancelling the card will not achive anything as you will have already authorised the car company to take money if it needs to.

trets77

but surley if i close the entire account. not just the card they won,t be able to take funds from a closed account ????

i grinds me that they can take the money loads of money and make me run around trying to get it back if it is disputed. i have loads of cards without any balances so i don,t mind using one i,m planing to cancel anyway to improve my credit score for the job.

maybe i,ve read to many horror stories and everything will more than likely go without a hitch but if this could be done i have ZERO problem with doing it. i am not planning on causing any damage or anything but i don,t like nasty suprises on my credit card.

trets77

I have checked out insurance4carhire.com. Although it seems like a good deal, I phoned Dollar rent-a-car in Sanford and asked what would happen if I were to take out a seperate LDW/CDW policy. The woman said we would have to put down $1500 deposit and if the car was damaged at all, the bills would have to be paid by us.

Then we would have to claim from insurance4hire. At the worse case scenerio this could leave us with $30,000 (write off) to pay upfront! I wouldn't fancy that!

surley they couldn,t do this but i don,t know any tips

inmypocketnottheirs

I travel extensively on business and frequently hire cars. My experience is that when you turn up and sign the paperwork, they will charge your card immediately for the cost of the hire. They will then do a pre-authorisation for the deposit amount on your card. That means they will swipe you card for the deposit amount, say £1000, but it will not get charged to your card unless there are problems when the car is returned. You will not get charged interest by your credit card company, as the funds have not left your account. But it will 'block' the amount of your deposit from being used.

Therefore, you need to make sure that you have enough available limit on your card that you will be using for the deposit and payment.

A final note, in my extensive experience I have never had a car rental company take an unauthorised charge, whether they be a major international company or a small local firm.

HTH

King_Of_Fools

trets77 wrote:

but surley if i close the entire account. not just the card they won,t be able to take funds from a closed account ????

Unfortunately, yes they can take the funds as you had authorised them to do so before the account was closed.

Closing a credit card account merely prevents you from making any new authorisations. Any outstaning ones (including any CPAs) can still be taken from your account for many years to come.

trets77

many thanks for the info

travelbag sent my tickets and vouchers today and all insurance (except supercdw) is included very surprised so guess i will not need that extra policy now. least i know for the future