car hire abroad (crete)

lanerboy

lanerboy

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sorry this is not a boaty thread but was hoping people on here can help

We have booked a holiday to crete and we want to hire a car while we are there to explore the island, I am a little worried regards the excess and extra charges regards damage to the hire car, I have heard of some sort of policy you can take out here in the uk to cover you against being ripped off and having your credit card charged for damage that the insurance you take out over there does not cover.

Has any one got any experience with this type of cover, all I want to do is make sure I done loose hundreds or thousands of pounds on my credit card if I was to have any type of accident or damage.

cheers
 
Ive not heard of the insurance but I have a low limit credit card for this type of thing.

Limit is £500ish so enough to cover the test charge but that is all they will get if they try and charge you more
 
Have you checked your credit card coverage? Maybe its just in Sweden but on at least one of my creditcards I have insurance coverage for damage access on car hire up to around €700 if I pay for the car with the card.
 
Hi, my first post in these forums, destined to be a reply, just before I post a thread with the main question I have :D

I come from Crete, Heraklion, and a friend there has a car rental agency. Their policies are pretty straight forward, and as far as I know you can choose between 2 insurance types when you rent the car. There is the simple insurance in which you re only insured for damages to other people s properties, and any and all damage you will do to the car is being paid by you, and there s the full insurance in which you re basically covered in everything. Obviously price of the rent is much higher in that case.

I guess you already know all of these anyway, what I can contribute, is that most of the rental agencies are not going to be unfair, 99% of them are really seasoned profs, and they re renting pretty new cars. Inspect the car thoroughly when you take it, drive carefully, and enjoy your vacation there, many amazing places to visit :)
 
I bought a Questor policy and used it (well showed it to the car hire company desk) at Barcelona on Saturday their immediate response was that if we claimed "they would take months to pay out" and theirs would be "so much easier". My response was that their (Questor) offices were less than a mile from where we lived!

Questor policy £40 for year, Gold Car £50 for 7 days.

That said you only really find out how good a policy is when it comes to make a claim..
 
Last time I rented was at Malta airport.... Hertz - picked up the car Thursday lunchtime and by Sunday my Amex card had been done for $1000 in Sri Lanka and $1000 in New York. Amex covered it of course but I won't be using Hertz again!
 
ok I have now got a separate credit card with a £500 limit on it for the sole purpose of hiring a car in Crete, the thing is the car hire company are telling me that the excess is £1500 which my card needs to cover just in case of any damage

so does this mean my card would be refused at their desk when I get there or do they not actually take that £1500 off the card on the day of the hire. I don't want to get there and be refused hire because my credit card wont cover the excess but as stated earlier in this thread I have had a limit of £500 on this card so I don't get stung

cheers LB
 
When we holidayed to Disneyland Paris, we got caught. We arrived having booked through Holiday Autos (price was excellent) to find our excess was EUR14,000 (not a mistype).

They wanted another £500 for excess waiver for the 9 days - 4 times what we paid for the car hire!

Lesson learned - am looking at these other companies who look after the excess etc.
 
lanerboy said:
ok I have now got a separate credit card with a £500 limit on it for the sole purpose of hiring a car in Crete, the thing is the car hire company are telling me that the excess is £1500 which my card needs to cover just in case of any damage

so does this mean my card would be refused at their desk when I get there or do they not actually take that £1500 off the card on the day of the hire. I don't want to get there and be refused hire because my credit card wont cover the excess but as stated earlier in this thread I have had a limit of £500 on this card so I don't get stung

cheers LB
Click to expand...

When we hired in Spain I questioned the "blocking" of €1200 from my card and the answer was they don't take it but they "earmark" it. Doesn't help answer your question to be honest, but I think I recall him getting an authorisation code for it.

Different league I know, but when my wife books a Tesco home deliver slot I always have a £2.00 "transaction waiting to be processed" when I check online but it's never taken from the account.

Hopefully someone will come up with a definitive answer for you though but gut feel is you will need the limit but against that I note in the small print a charge for an over limit. Perhaps worth a call to the card company?
 
rang the credit card company and they told me I need a limit of over the excess amount to be held so would need a credit limit of about £1800 inc cost of hire and excess

so I said I need to increase the limit to 2k only to be told as I requested a £500 limit I cannot ask for an increase for 6 months ggggrrrrrr so the card I have now got is no good at all so I will put that through the shredder and have to have a re think. the thing is when I look online at all the different credit cards the credit limit seems to be around £1200 max which is not enough so now a trip to my bank is needed to get a proper credit card I think as I cant seem to see any other option unless anyone knows of a card I can apply for on the internet with a 2k limit

cheers LB
 
the £1200 is an agreed amount that all card companies will use to illustrate their interest charge. It is an assumed limit for comparison purposes only.

Any of the mainstream CC only companies will offer limits commensurate with your personal circumstances. MBNA, Capital One and AMEX can and will offer you a limit well above the £1200 should you qualify.
 
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