N Ireland + hire car + credit card with forgotten PIN

skywalker1

Hi everyone, after doing a bit of searching on this forum and the web - it's been asked lots of times before - renting a car without a credit card can be a tricky affair.

What my situation is, me and my girlfriend are going to Northern Ireland on Friday, and will be hiring a car (not booked yet.)
She has a credit card OK, but has since realised she doesn't know the PIN number!
Going online for a PIN reset says could take 7 days --

Do we need the PIN for the company to take the details and money from it?
And if this is trouble, I don't mind using my Visa debit card instead for the whack of money being removed, assuming they're kind enough to return it afterwards of course!!

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

crazyguy

can you not rent it online and then you may not need the pin number or over the phone !

skywalker1

sounds like a good idea... was going to sort online anyway of course, but not sure if they then need to swipe it when im at the desk then, leaving the big deposit...

Bogtrotter

Can't say for all the rental companies but with Hertz they don't actually authorise using chip n PIN if you pre-book online... they only swipe the magnetic stripe ocassionally for some reason when you pick up the car.