Car Hire on Virgin Prepaid Mastercard ?

Dannydebt

Hi,
I found this in the T&C of the Virgin Prepaid card which seems to imply you can use it for Car Hire..............

"4.5 Due to security safeguards, Merchants that accept your Card are required to seek authorisation from us for all of the Transactions that you make. There are some circumstances where Merchants may require you to have an Available Balance greater than the value of the Transaction you wish to make. You will only be charged for the actual and final value of the Transaction you make. Merchants request this as they may need to access more funds than you initially planned to spend. For example:
4.5.1 Hotels and rental cars – As Merchants may not be able to accurately predict how much your final bill will be, they may request an authorisation for funds greater than your Available Balance."

jimbo26

it will depend on the individual hire company and whether they seek authorisation for a figure greater than the balance on your card.

Dannydebt

This was the reply I got when I asked Virgin...........

"
Thank you for contacting Virgin Money.
The Pay As You Go Card can be used wherever the MasterCard logo is
displayed as an accepted means of payment. There is some specific
information regarding Car Hire on our website, we have included this below
for you:
4.5 Due to security safeguards, Merchants that accept your Card are
required to seek authorisation from us for all of the Transactions that you
make. There are some circumstances where Merchants may require you to have
an Available Balance greater than the value of the Transaction you wish to
make. You will only be charged for the actual and final value of the
Transaction you make. Merchants request this as they may need to access
more funds than you initially planned to spend. For example:
4.5.1 Hotels and rental cars – As Merchants may not be able to accurately
predict how much your final bill will be, they may request an authorisation
for funds greater than your Available Balance.
Some rental companies do take a paper imprint of a credit card as a
security deposit. If they try to do this with the Pay As You Go card then
it will not work as the card can only be used for electronic (online)
authorization requests. If the car hire company has the facility to perform
an online authorization of the security deposit then they will definitely
be able to use the card.
If you require any additional information, please let us know."

In_debt_5

Do you know how much they normally request authorisation for? Would it be the amount of the excess?

Dannydebt

In_debt wrote: »

Do you know how much they normally request authorisation for? Would it be the amount of the excess?

Someone mentioned £500, but I am not sure.

nickc25

Dannydebt wrote: »

Someone mentioned £500, but I am not sure.

Ive created a thread on this and just found this thread! Anyone managed to find any information about this?

THanks