Car hire: credit limit on credit card is pants

Cottage_Economy

We're going to Pisa, Italy in June and have just started investigating deals for car hire. Just checked out the first five and we've hit a snag.

My husband has one credit card and he keeps his credit limit low (£500) as he uses it for ebay transactions and is paranoid about fraud. The car hire firms want to block £1500 off the named driver's credit card, and only credit cards are accepted. Obviously they can't do that with his card as the credit limit is too low.

I have credit cards with much higher limits, but don't drive or have a licence so can't hire the car in my name.

All we want to do is hire the car, him drive and me pay for it but every T&C document we read states that the named driver has to hire the car and pay for it using a card in the driver's name.

Are there any car hire firms that don't do this? We have no problem with the £1500 blocked off the card, but it has to be my card!

The only thing I can suggest for him is to contact his credit card provider and get his limit increased, but at the moment he's refusing saying it will cause more problems by asking. Apparently he rang them to ask some years ago when he thought he might need the extra for 'cover' for when he was doing a month road trip in the US and they declined and told him to go to the bank for a 'financial review' if he was having financial troubles.

CG19a

Ask your credit card for an additional card in your husbands name. It's your account, your liability, but another card that looks like your husbands. I've done it before with barclaycard and nationwide.

claire16c

Ive rung up my credit card provider before and asked them to temporarily increase the limit, they asked why, and then agreed to do it. I think they brought the limit back down after 2 months. So I don't see why your husband cant try asking again, what has he got to lose? Im not sure what problems he is thinking of.

Cottage_Economy

Claire 16c - I have no idea what the problem is, but he's very wary when it comes to anything financial or banks and lenders. He tries to have as little to do with them as possible. I think it's one of those irrational things that logic just can't get past, so I call it one of his lovable little foibles and leave it at that. And then grumble a bit when things like this happen.

CG19a - that is a great idea! Thank you. It would make sense for him to have it anyway, as we've been talking of making our finances a little more joint than they currently are. I'm with Barclaycard so hopefully they'll sort that out for me if I ring them tomorrow.