Using A Curve Metal card for car rentals

Butch_Dingle

Hi,
I see one of the perks of the Curve Metal Card is Collison Damage Waiver insurance for car rentals which is very rare for a UK issued card. I'm thinking of getting this as the potentail savings made by refusing the car rental company's own CDW could easily cover the annual fee of the Metal card. However a few questions:

1) As the Curve card is treated as a debit card (I think it says 'debit' on the back), am I right in thinking it wouldn't be accepted at car rental locations which only accept credit cards? Probably not an issue in UK but in some places overseas (Canada) car rental companies still refuse to accept debit cards .

2) How easy is it to refuse the car rental company's own CDW insurance if paying by the Curve Metal card? From past experience, some car rental companies force you to take out their own CDW insurance, even if you are covered for CDW elswhere eg through work. They say their systems don't allow CDW to be deducted from the final price.

3) Finally, does anyone have a more comprehensive set of t&c's for the curve metal card wrt CDW insurance? The t&c's here hardly mention CDW.

Cheers

[Deleted User]

1. correct it's a debit card and will be treated as such

2. It depends on the company and also whether the Curve card allows it for overseas vehicle rentals

3. Ask Curve for them

ywlgy

Well, booking on uk website of most international rental companies for renting overseas will give you inclusive CDW and liability insurance and that price would be even cheaper than booking on local website w/o insurance.

ic

Note that you forego section 75 cover with the curve card. They say they do offer chargebacks here, and have introduced a purchase protection scheme here - however car hire is specifically excluded from that.

I recently got charged the excess on car hire, and have since been totally stonewalled by the rental company (no notification of the charge, no evidence of claimed damage, no proof of repair - all of which I need in order to claim off my car hire excess insurance). My credit card has taken it up for me and pulled the money back.

Personally I'll be continuing to pay for excess insurance elsewhere (my policy cost £35 a year with Questor) and use a credit card.

Penelopa.Pitstop

It will be cheaper to buy annual, worldwide car hire excess insurance than pay for Curve Metal. One of the most comprehensive policies, Worldwide with SLI in USA and Canada plus cover for car club and courtesy car in UK, costs around £90.

Curve insurance has limit on car value, which is very low, something like £35K. Will you reject car upgrade or go and check value of the car in country you're renting, to make sure your policy will be valid?

To give you an example from my last trip: I booked cheapest manual car and got upgrade to Mercedes C-class AMG Line Premium Auto which has RRP price of £41K in UK. I can only suspect that price of the same car in country where I rented it, was higher. So Curve insurance would be useless.

Never had a problem with rejecting extra policies offered by rental companies.

Penelopa.Pitstop

To use it in places where credit card is not accepted. Cash withdrawals work too.

adindas

Penelopa.Pitstop wrote: »

To use it in places where credit card is not accepted. Cash withdrawals work too.

Say you link cash back cards such Capital One, Aqua where you could get 0.5% cash back for purchase (or other cashback CC), if you withdraw cash from ATM does the transaction still appear as purchased and you get cashback 0.5%??

[Deleted User]

In theory, they've started passing the MCC through though so some banks (Natwest, Tesco) are penalising Curve customers that are taking the Michael.

I regularly invest off the back of my Aqua cashback card though....

Curve Compliance are a funny bunch. Advertise acceptance where it's not normally accepted (E.g. Amex... ha, let's not go into that), but then go mad when you do exactly that by paying a CC bill - despite the fact they get a cut of all transactions so should actually be happy with it....

RE: CDW - I'm sure my CDW was pretty cheap, certainly not worth taking out a new product for. £50 for the year or something when I hired a car a lot a few years back

PRAISETHESUN

adindas wrote: »

Are you saying you could still get cashback of 0.5% if you withdraw cash from ATM using curve link to Aquacard ? thanks

Yes you would get cashback since it was a credit card purchase, but as stated above you would likely also be charged a cash transaction fee/interest since it would be classed as a cash transaction since the MCC is also passed along to Aqua.

gordonbennet

adindas wrote: »

If not what is the benefit of having curve nowadays then ?

I only use the free Curve card (not the Metal so no additional insurance perks) but I find it incredibly useful to carry just one card which incorporates all my others - personal bank, self employed business, and a couple of credit cards used for different purposes. If you accidetnally have the wrong card 'loaded' you have 14 days to change the transaction to another card.

Most times it works fine. Just very occasionally it gets declined - like at 'pay at pump' petrol dispensers. But Overall I give it 9/10 for convenience.

If you decide to apply for one please use promo code HIO2J and we both get a fiver!

[Deleted User]

They are supposed to be sending MCC on all transactions, it’s how the underlying cards treat them that is a lottery. I’ve previously used Aqua for cash with no charges, but not since the processing change.