Cheaptickets.com Car Rental
 

I found a car rental on Cheaptickets.com for 110.05 for a Midsize but it doesnt say anything about a CDW. I don't even know what that is. Should I be worried? Or should I chalk it up to a good deal?

Heather

Okay, I just read about it and I did it anyway! I picked Ireland at the top and then thought it would be under an Ireland heading. Might help if I told you i was picking it up at Dublin Airport and would have it for four days. I did read the fine print and it does say CDW is 45.00 more onto the total. Still a good deal??

All depends, irishcarrental.com was advertising cars from 13.99 per day. Bet if you read closer, the Priceline offer doesn't cover the 'Airport Fee' of approx 25 Euro, either. Does the company let you use a MasterCard to waive the CDW? Not all companies in Ireland do, you know. So if you have a Gold or Platinum MC, one that does could charge more for the rental, and still actually be cheaper. Think about it: 45 Euro for four days worth of crappy insurance? That's over 11 Euro a day!

I've booked a full sized, Nissan Primera for 11 days in early June, out of Shannon for under 300 Euro - INCLUDING the Airport Fee - by waiving the CDW. See my response to Cheapest Irish Car Rentals currently on the board for more information.

Sorry, thread is actually IRELAND: CHEAPEST CAR RENTAL COMPANY?

I'm booked in June through www.atlascarhire.com but I've used many others in Ireland.

P.S. Not a big fan of the PRICELINE.COM CHEAPTICKETS.COM and HOTWIRE.COM type sites. You have to make too many commitments WITHOUT benefit of all the iformation, for my liking.

So my curiosity was piqued, not to mention a few brief moments of self-doubt. I went to Cheaptickets' website and plugged in the info for my upcoming trip, asking for a minivan for 11 days. They came back with a pretty good price and I 'clicked through' at the "BOOK IT NOW" button, where everthing STILL looked good, but ...

Next to the price was a statement, about estimated fees and taxes -- hyperlinked. Clicking on that brought up a detailed, small print filled window with the following tidbits of information:
"DOES NOT INCLUDE: LOCAL TAX AT 13.5%, Road tax of 1 euro per day, airport pick up fee of 25 euro, teft protection at 5.08 euro, fuel bond or extra driver charge at 6 euro per day."

The company on offer was Budget. They accepted MasterCard and Diner's Club for waiver of CDW, otherwise, CDW was between 19 and 30 euro per day. That bought you a 600 - 1200 euro deductible. "SUPER CDW" was available for 7.62 - 12.70 euro per day EXTRA. That bought the deductable down to 100 euro. The price variations were determined by type of vehicle rented, but even figuring everything at the lowest, it still adds up quick. I was quoted something like 465 euro for the rental. Real good, for a minivan, but now add 62.70 for the local tax, 11 for the road tax, 25 for the airport fee, 5.08 for the teft protection, and the 465 is now 568.78, and that's IF I waive the CDW. Add in the CDW, the SUPER CDW and the Personal accident insurance at 4.44 per day,and the 568.78 rental is now bloated by an additional 518.54, bringing the total rental charge to 1087.32 euro! That doesn't include the fuel surcharge/bond for the starting full tank, or that you are still on the hook for the first 100 euros of damage AND and broken window glass or tires! Generally, it is the uninformed that get burned by this. We once met a couple on the Tarbert Ferry that complained about how terribly expensive the CDW was. I asked why they didn't use a credit card to waive the fee and they said their cards were no good. They had paid with a Visa, were told it didn't cover Irishcar rentals (TRUE) and the man had offered to use his American Express card instead, only to be told that it too, didn't cover Ireland (ALSO TRUE). He also had a Platinum MasterCard, but didn't ask about it AND THE AGENT NEVER MENTIONED THAT IT DID WORK IN IRELAND! Not lying, exactly, but ...

Goes back to what I always advise -- COMPARE APPLES TO APPLES to know if it really is a "good" deal, and LEARN THE RULES OF THE GAME.

P.S. I found one web-site that said "Certain CANADIAN Visa Cards offer acceptible CDW waiver in Ireland." Dunno what guidelines, but those of you from 'Up North' might want to investigate.