Pre Paid Credit card?

ascot6

Hi I have a bad credit history and currently don't have a credit card and dont really want one. I am going on holiday to spain soon and want to hire a car. Most rental companies require a credit card payment refundable deposit. Would a pre paid credit card for use abroad be suitable for this?and if so any advice would be apprieciated:)

jonesMUFCforever

It will depend on how much you load onto the card - if they want say £200 deposit there must be £200 loaded on the card.
That will lock your funds up - are you sure they won't take a debit card?
(Of course the earmarking of funds will still apply)

eDicky

From my experience, a car rental company will accept any card on which they can pre-authorise payment for the deposit, which includes bank issued debit cards if there are enough available funds in the account, or prepaid debit cards with sufficient funds loaded.

However, it may be best to check directly with the particular company you choose to rent from (not the consolidator website such as AutoEurope), and if they insist on a 'real' credit card you can choose another.

The deposit will be blocked at the time you pick up the car, in Spain this will be in euros. You can use one of those cards you will presumably be taking to minimise foreign usage fees and exchange rate loading. But as Mr Jones points out, the deposit amount will be blocked and unavailable until its return some time after returning the car (without incident), and could be anything up to €1500 depending on the company, car, location and whether the rental company's own excess cover insurance is purchased or not.

Anthorn

ascot6 wrote: »

Hi I have a bad credit history and currently don't have a credit card and dont really want one. I am going on holiday to spain soon and want to hire a car. Most rental companies require a credit card payment refundable deposit. Would a pre paid credit card for use abroad be suitable for this?and if so any advice would be apprieciated:)

Depends on the card. Most show up as credit cards but not all of them can be pre-authorised. Have a look at the information on the card web site or contact them before you buy the card. But even if the info you get is favourable be prepared for the card failing.


Most prepaid cards are also for electronic use only which means the payment processing terminal has to be live.