florida car hire stand alone cdw

Dubs

nataliew123 wrote: »

so looks good for now, i will try and confirm with alamo uk and hound thomson to see if i can confirm with them and update as and when

Hi natalie, how did you get on with your car hire from Thomson? Ive had the same response from Alamo that it's optional - they even suggested I may be covered by insurance offered by my credit card (although I'm not).

When I emailed Thomson their reply was a copy and paste of their website terms, which didn't clear anything up. I'm currently waiting out another 72 hrs for them to reply to another request and wondered how you got on?

WAYT

Dubs wrote: »

Hi natalie, how did you get on with your car hire from Thomson? Ive had the same response from Alamo that it's optional - they even suggested I may be covered by insurance offered by my credit card (although I'm not).

When I emailed Thomson their reply was a copy and paste of their website terms, which didn't clear anything up. I'm currently waiting out another 72 hrs for them to reply to another request and wondered how you got on?

Just buy insurance; Worldwide (inc. CDW & SLI) via Quidco and be done with it, instead of giving yourself a headache.

Dubs

WAYT wrote: »

Just buy insurance; Worldwide (inc. CDW & SLI)[/URL] via Quidco and be done with it, instead of giving yourself a headache.

Would have done that ages ago if it were that simple. Thomson say the CDW is compulsory and that's what is being discussed.
The headache will be turning up with said "Worldwide (inc. CDW & SLI) via Quidco and finding that Thomson insist we purchase their CDW also.

So the question remains.......

WAYT

Dubs wrote: »

Would have done that ages ago if it were that simple. Thomson say the CDW is compulsory and that's what is being discussed.
The headache will be turning up with said "Worldwide (inc. CDW & SLI) via Quidco and finding that Thomson insist we purchase their CDW also.

So the question remains.......

It is that simple. Alamo have assured you that won't happen. If it does, walk away and rent from the desk that gives you the best deal. You'll already have insurance.
What if Thomson say that you have to pay? You'll go elsewhere anyway.
So save yourself the headache, buy the standalone insurance and move along.

Dubs

WAYT wrote: »

It is that simple. Alamo have assured you that won't happen. If it does, walk away and rent from the desk that gives you the best deal. You'll already have insurance.
What if Thomson say that you have to pay? You'll go elsewhere anyway.
So save yourself the headache, buy the standalone insurance and move along.

I really don't want to start my holiday stood with family & suitcases debating whether Thomson's Ts&Cs overrule Alamo's, nor trying to haggle a reasonable deal at another rental desk in the airport.

I have already booked a vehicle here in UK as backup, to be cancelled if Thomson agree to me using a standalone CDW policy.
I'm just after OP's comments/experiences but I will wait for a definitive answer from Thomson that this is permissible per their terms of booking.

The whole point of this is to save around £110 so it's worth the effort now to get it resolved

Ssloan593

Hi - I'm in a similar predicament and don't know what to do! We leave on July 10th. Booked with virgin holidays and booked car hire through them for 3 weeks. Only comes with basic insurance which they say is not enough. Airport taxes and fees will be well over $150 according to Virgin - but no exact figure. They have offered the better insurance package including the fees and taxes for just over $400. We're on a tight budget and don't know what to do!!!! Found this all out today.

WAYT

Ssloan593 wrote: »

Hi - I'm in a similar predicament and don't know what to do! We leave on July 10th. Booked with virgin holidays and booked car hire through them for 3 weeks. Only comes with basic insurance which they say is not enough. Airport taxes and fees will be well over $150 according to Virgin - but no exact figure. They have offered the better insurance package including the fees and taxes for just over $400. We're on a tight budget and don't know what to do!!!! Found this all out today.

Look here

There are two providers that offer the appropriate daily insurance.

https://www.carhireexcess.com But you need to add the optional Supplemental Liability by ticking the box.
https://www.bettersafe.com/Products/Car-Hire-Excess-Insurance-Protection with CDW and SLI

http://www.insurance4carhire.com/usa-canada-car-hire-excess-insurance as above is an annual policy.

Dubs

Ssloan593 wrote: »

Hi - I'm in a similar predicament and don't know what to do! We leave on July 10th. Booked with virgin holidays and booked car hire through them for 3 weeks. Only comes with basic insurance which they say is not enough. Airport taxes and fees will be well over $150 according to Virgin - but no exact figure. They have offered the better insurance package including the fees and taxes for just over $400. We're on a tight budget and don't know what to do!!!! Found this all out today.

Do you know which hire company Virgin use? I ask this because if it's Alamo they were very helpful and replied to my emails within a few hours and were able to tell me how much they charged for CDW, which was $26 per day plus the extra complsory charges ie sales tax/ facility charge/Florida surcharge /vehicle license fee etc.

I finally managed to get a definitive answer from Thomson that if Alamo said alternate CDW was acceptable then we were at liberty to discuss it with them (Alamo) at the time of rental - Thomson would not insist we took out CDW through them.
We went ahead and took out standalone CDW (btw annual policy was cheaper than daily policy!), downloaded emails from both Thomson and Alamo and everything was fine when we came to collect the vehicle, Alamo didn't even ask to see the standalone CDW policy, although I had it ready to show them.

One word of warning - you will be tired and hot by the time you get through customs, collect your luggage and travel party and arrive at the car rental desk.... make sure you have your wits about you when they ask if you want to prepay fuel and bring vehicle back empty - they charge $3.45 per gallon and we paid between $1.99/2.11 per gallon.You will also face hard sell to upgrade; we negotiated an upgrade to include additional driver, essentially meaning the upgrade cost $5 per day and we ended up with a huge Ford Expedition, very happy. However, if we hadn't researched this beforehand (we got quotes from UK based companies for fully inc rentals and worked out what we should be paying on arrival at the Alamo desk) we would probably have paid the original quote of $35 per day.

Finally, make sure all your documents are downloaded offline should you need to clarify anything, as we could not connect to the internet at the rental point.

Hope this helps, and kudos for going for 3 weeks.....2 weeks just isn't long enough. Enjoy your hols

WAYT

Dubs wrote: »

Do you know which hire company Virgin use? I ask this because if it's Alamo they were very helpful and replied to my emails within a few hours and were able to tell me how much they charged for CDW, which was $26 per day plus the extra complsory charges ie sales tax/ facility charge/Florida surcharge /vehicle license fee etc.

I finally managed to get a definitive answer from Thomson that if Alamo said alternate CDW was acceptable then we were at liberty to discuss it with them (Alamo) at the time of rental - Thomson would not insist we took out CDW through them.
We went ahead and took out standalone CDW (btw annual policy was cheaper than daily policy!), downloaded emails from both Thomson and Alamo and everything was fine when we came to collect the vehicle, Alamo didn't even ask to see the standalone CDW policy, although I had it ready to show them.

One word of warning - you will be tired and hot by the time you get through customs, collect your luggage and travel party and arrive at the car rental desk.... make sure you have your wits about you when they ask if you want to prepay fuel and bring vehicle back empty - they charge $3.45 per gallon and we paid between $1.99/2.11 per gallon.You will also face hard sell to upgrade; we negotiated an upgrade to include additional driver, essentially meaning the upgrade cost $5 per day and we ended up with a huge Ford Expedition, very happy. However, if we hadn't researched this beforehand (we got quotes from UK based companies for fully inc rentals and worked out what we should be paying on arrival at the Alamo desk) we would probably have paid the original quote of $35 per day.

Finally, make sure all your documents are downloaded offline should you need to clarify anything, as we could not connect to the internet at the rental point.

Hope this helps, and kudos for going for 3 weeks.....2 weeks just isn't long enough. Enjoy your hols

It's already been stated that Virgin use ALAMO.

Thanks for updating the thread. I won't tell you that I told you so.

nataliew123

That is excellent Dubs, thanks for the update, really helps put my mind at ease. just a quick question though, When you got through customs and went to Thomson desk did they just give you a voucher for the car hire or did they try and hard sell you their insurance product? Final Question, did you go with better safe or another?