How does anyone afford Car Hire excess??

huntsman123

Hi all!

I have car club and hire car excess cover but the club is not available in a city I'm visiting next week so it's on to moneymaxim to find a hire car to get into rural Shropshire for the day.

However I still need to leave a deposit and am a bit flabbergasted to think that everyone who hires a car has £750+ free on a credit card- or is it just the standard to pay the hire company excess which in my case almost triples the cost of hiring the car?

My partner has hired before and thinks I'm being silly as she had no problems and doesn't even own a credit card...

What's going on here?

motorguy

You only pay the excess if you damage it?

SleeplessinScandinavia

Thats true, and I usually take out 'excess cover' with www.insurance4carhire.com to protect myself - much cheaper than the insurance most car hire companies offer.

InsideInsurance

It is fairly common for them to want an authorisation for the full excess amount which is the disadvantage of taking third party CDW insurance as if you take the hire car companies and reduce the excess to £0 then you only have to give them authorisation for £0

Not everyone does have it and so some are forced into the more expensive hire car company CDW as the way to avoid the authorisation requirement. Similarly some have a higher requirement, a chap in the office did a supercar day thing and he had to give authorisation for a £3,000 excess or so unless he bought their CDW.

Your partner may have just ticked all the boxes to get the CDW and all the other optional insurances they try to flog you hence not having to do the authorisation. Alternatively they perhaps did it on their debit car, which most will accept

facade

You pay "collision damage waiver " or "excess insurance" when you hire the car.

If you do, no problem.

If you don't, make certain you inspect every millimetre of that car when you pick it up, and get every scratch & blemish recorded, because when it goes back they will "find" lots of dents, scratches and kerb marks that you must have caused, and have to pay for out of that £750, and guess how much they cost- £750

huntsman123

Sorry, the issue is that the excess is blocked on the card, which is a roundabout way of electronically paying a deposit. My £200 limit isn't really going to cut it to do that. It looks like the punishment for having poor credit is paying the CDW and Excess Cover and being double covered. **** Might just blooming walk!

InsideInsurance

huntsman123 wrote: »

Sorry, the issue is that the excess is blocked on the card, which is a roundabout way of electronically paying a deposit. My £200 limit isn't really going to cut it to do that. It looks like the punishment for having poor credit is paying the CDW and Excess Cover and being double covered. **** Might just blooming walk!

Basically yes... they arent willing to give you credit/ accept you're good enough for the excess because of your poor credit.

The fact you have bought a third party policy is your own choice and not really that relevant to them. Their options to you is to buy their CDW or find a way to sort the £750 for the 2 weeks or so required.

agrinnall

What hire company is it that takes £750 for the excess? Most of the ones I use don't take anything, the only one that does is Enterprise, who take £200.

I realise even that might be a problem for you if your CC limit is only £200, but I think you'll find that most people will have a considerably higher limit than that, it's hardly the hire company's fault that you're considered a poor credit risk.

macman

If your credit card limit is just £200, then that's barely going to cover a few day's rental fee, let alone any excess.

catwoman73

The comments about checking the condition carefully (take photos before and after hiring) and thinking about your own excess insurance are important points, but to answer your original question, there are plenty of people that have much more generous limits on their CCs so that is how they pay the deposits.

I have two credit cards, both with limits of about £3-4k. I only use one overseas and the other is a cash back card that I use for all possible monthly spending, which is usually about £1k but as it is paid off every month, I would easily be able to pay a £750 deposit. I would still worry about the honesty of the company in refunding it, but I would be prepared to follow the complaints procedure, involve my credit card and the relevant ombudsman to get back any deposit that I felt had been unfairly withheld anyway.

worried_jim

macman wrote: »

If your credit card limit is just £200, then that's barely going to cover a few day's rental fee, let alone any excess.

Paid for actual rental with cash or debit card perhaps?