Hiring a car without a CC. Use pre-pay CC?

zagfles

Mr_F_Dorsetty wrote: »

My experiences of hiring cars and motorbikes in foreign countries, whether I've been living there or have been visiting, is that it is a wise person who takes ALL the insurance they have to offer when hiring.

Yes, it costs you more but it's nothing like the likely huge financial pain if something even minor happens to that hire vehicle.

In Spain for example I was living up in the Coin Triangle and my own car was in for repair, so I hired a car in Torremolinos. Then later that day some local lunatic up in the Sexmo (great name eh!) area decided he wanted the road space I was on - I had to evade him and ending up off the road, head first in a ditch.

It was no problem because no one was hurt and I was fully covered. No matter what insurance they offer, I take it all.

Because, the horror stories you hear when you live in Spain about tourists getting their hire car hit or stolen or broken into (a regular thing) and then being faced will bills for thousands of €'s are frankly both true and scary.

People can do what they like obviously but for an extra €30, €50 or even €75 myself I'd never take the chance, just in case.

Yes but you don't need to buy it off the car hire company. Typically CDW is included in the hire price but with a massive excess (maybe £500-1000), and the car hire company will try to flog you an excess waiver for some rip-off price like £200 and even that usually had a long list of exclusions (tyres, windows, roof, keys etc).

Better to get a third party excess insurance off the likes of insurance4carhire for a fraction of the cost without the usual exclusions.

mumzcuddles

I've finally managed to speak to someone at the Airport car hire and with the knowledge supplied on here from Heng Leng was informed that if it's got the Visa symbol and it's linked to a 'check account' then I just hire in the normal way and the use of the debit card is fine.

Can't thank you all enough for taking the time to respond. Thank you.

redpete

mumzcuddles wrote: »

lets be honest, they will have their own insurance to cover car thefts/write offs so I don't really understand the necessity for a credit card.

Theft & write-off will be a very small proportion compared with more minor damage that can be repaired.

Any insurance they carry will almost certainly have large excess charges amd exclusions - so they want to recover the cost of damage from the hirer or from the hirer's insurance.

Aquamania

mumzcuddles wrote: »

I've finally managed to speak to someone at the Airport car hire and with the knowledge supplied on here from Heng Leng was informed that if it's got the Visa symbol and it's linked to a 'check account' then I just hire in the normal way and the use of the debit card is fine.

Can't thank you all enough for taking the time to respond. Thank you.

Make sure you have lots of money in that 'checking account'

As I said, expect them to take £10k (or equivalent) as a deposit. They will return the remainder once they have the car back and produced the final bill.

Unless you are prepared to wait at the counter on return whilst they check the car and produce the final bill (that's assuming someone is actually there when you return the car) then that final bill may take 2-3 months to arrive.

SnooksNJ

MisterBaxter wrote: »

In Tenerife I managed to hire a car with just a debit card but they insisted I had the most expensive insurance package they had, it could have been a 'try on' but for 3 days the costs weren't massive.

In the US it was a straight out No to car hire without a CC, I tried booking before I left and at the airport but didn't get anywhere with it.

Suggest you check with the car hire company before you leave, particularly if you were hoping to pick the car up on arrival as you may need to make alternative travel arrangements.

I'm not sure if they still do but a few years ago I used a debit card with Alamo in Florida. At that time they were the only company that did accept a debit card.