'Student' credit card and car rental

InsideInsurance

Billy_G wrote: »

Unfortunately I got my maths wrong. It's a £750 deposit. May have to get that credit card yet...

You;ll need to check with your bank what limit they give students, often its a fairly basic £500 in which case this wont help you. It is sometimes more, especially if you work, I think mine was around £3,000 but that was more years ago than I care to admit to now.

JordyC

I found it useful too, just putting everyday expenses on it and clearing the balance every month meant by the time I graduated three years' worth of credit history had accumulated. Meant getting credit, and making use of cashback perks etc, has been easy since, despite my meagre salary.

Billy_G

InsideInsurance wrote: »

You;ll need to check with your bank what limit they give students, often its a fairly basic £500 in which case this wont help you. It is sometimes more, especially if you work, I think mine was around £3,000 but that was more years ago than I care to admit to now.

Forgive my ignorance but I know absolutely nothing about how credit cards work! Is there any way that the rental company will know that my limit is only £500?

JordyC

Sounds like they will pre-authorise an amount which they can then authorise and charge you for if the car is, say, bought back damaged. So, if this pre-auth charge was £750, a credit limit of £500 would be insufficient to cover the potential charge they could levy. It detracts from your "available" balance, but only appears on the statement if they were to bill you for damage etc.

So in short they would only know your credit limit if the limit you are given is lower than their pre-authorisation charge - I think.

InsideInsurance

Billy_G wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance but I know absolutely nothing about how credit cards work! Is there any way that the rental company will know that my limit is only £500?

You said they pre-auth £750 in which case the bank will decline the authorisation because you've only a limit of £500

They wont know if its because you have a limit of £500 or £100 or if you've a limit of £15,000 but have a £14,500 outstanding balance. The important thing is the transaction will be declined due to insufficient credit and then you don't get the car.

GolfFoxtrot

InsideInsurance wrote: »

You said they pre-auth £750 in which case the bank will decline the authorisation because you've only a limit of £500

They wont know if its because you have a limit of £500 or £100 or if you've a limit of £15,000 but have a £14,500 outstanding balance. The important thing is the transaction will be declined due to insufficient credit and then you don't get the car.

The OP said they'd require an additional £750 deposit if using a debit card, this may actually be less if using a credit card. From the original post it appears the rental company prefer credit cards.

I applied for a student card with lloyds about 5 years ago or so, my credit limit was about £1500 which they always kept increasing. I still actually have that credit card and I graduated 3 years ago, it's got quite a high APR compared to other cards I could get but as I pay it in full every month it doesn't actually matter.