HUH? I did the reservation by phone (as always) with AutoEurope. When I said I wanted the full coverage the guy told me to check with my credit card company, and that I was foolish to take the full coverage with AutoEurope as not only was it expensive, but it also had something like a 500 pound deductible. So after I checked with the CC company and found it would indeed cover me, I confirmed the AutoEurope contract without CDW or any "optional" insurance. It was a car with Avis, but I never saw a contract or offer from Avis. I've always appreciated the agent at AutoEurope talking me OUT of taking their full insurance.

Neopatrick-

May I ask what you paid per day for your rental? ( I guess I just did). I did my deal through the UK side of the AE website- there wasn't anyone to help me. I got a rate of about $31/day for a compact 4dr with CDW. On the US side it would be something like $47/day (in France).

It sounds like although you got some help from an AE human, you don't know what the rate would have been WITH CDW. It may have been lower. (?)

And when you say that you never saw a contract or offer from Avis..didn't you sign something (contract) when you picked up your car?

Is there a (gulp)lawyer in the house?


Rick

Rick - I've rented in excess of 30 cars through AutoEurope over the last 25 years.

I ALWAYS have talked to a human - even for England rentals (last time was '04 for UK). I've only taken CDW in Italy, and I got it from AutoEurope (last year). All the other rental CDWs were covered by my Visa or MC.

Hard to imagine that buying insurance would cost less than not buying it - there must be some "glitch" in the communication, IMO. You can cancel the voucher immediatly & start over if you want. AE will refund you the CC deposit. I've done that numerous times with AE & they don't have any problem with it at all - so far. Never tried cancelling it altogether and NOT doing a replacement voucher with them, however.

Also, it's wise to pay the entire rental in advance, which means you pay the whole thing in US dollars. If you pay partially now, and then the remainder when you return the car, you'll pay in Euros or Pounds & subject to a 1% to 5% currency conversion fee. I believe Cap 1 does not charge a conversion fee, so you only get zapped with Visa's 1%.

Don't rely on e-mails (except for the vouchers) - call AutoEurope ASAP & start over if you want.

Regarding the "contract". AE gives you a voucher, which you show to the Europcar people, and then they write a rental contract between you & Europcar. Several times, Europcar charged me some 'surprises" and I have ALWAYS been able to resolve them in my favor through AutoEurope. AutoEurope has electronic access to Europcar's final invoice to you.

Stu Dudley

Well, the actual rate now means nothing as it was almost three years ago. But like all AE contracts I was given a choice of WITH full insurance (inclusive) or WITHOUT (basic). Trust me it was considerably higher WITH -- something over $100 more for a 7 day rental as I recall. What on earth would give you the idea that it might have been cheaper if we HAD taken the insurance? That simply makes no sense. And as I said the agent on the phone had given me prices with and without insurance and was explaining how much money I'd save if I didn't take the plan with insurance. It was enough difference that I put the whole thing on hold for a few days to check it out for myself with my credit card company. I just glanced at the AutoEurope website and for a one week rental London to Cardiff I see rates of something like $190 without insurance and $320. I'd say that's about what we paid. In other words about $27 a day for a Peugeot 206.

And with Auto Europe, the contract was all signed, paid, and finished when we arrived at Avis. There is no question there about insurance or not. They handed us the keys and away we went. I guess we did sign a copy of what we already had been given by AutoEurope. You seem to be making this all sound like there is some devious plot going on between Auto Europe, Avis, and the customer. Nothing could be further from our experience.

Meanwhile I know nothing about dealing with the European offices of AutoEurope. I've only done my contracts through the US office and have always been very happy. If I'm not mistaken AutoEurope is a US based company, so I have no idea why I'd try dealing with their European offices, when they and I are both in the US.

"Hard to imagine that buying insurance would cost less than not buying it"

Yes, indeed.

When I try to re-book my AE rental on the US side of their site I get a price of $370 WITHOUT CDW.

When I try to re-book my AE rental on either the UK, Belgian, French or Irish side of the site I get approximately $295 WITH CDW and no option to remove it.

This seems to be confirmed in the email traffic I am getting from AE and in the "proposed" voucher I got from the US side of the house which is at the HIGHER rate without insurance.

I called Nova just now and spoke to a cheerful Irish lass. She quoted me 245 euro for the rental (but their pickup and drop points are much less convenient). I explained that I wanted NO CDW (several times- I even explained the Visa cc deal). She seemed to be sure the rate did not include it- OK fine- she emailed me the quote. It INCLUDES CDW!

I am waiting for a quote from Gemut.

Weird.

Rick

How do you get to the foreign sites of Auto Europe?

Something like autoeurope.fr?

Or do you just indicate that you live in some Euro. country?

One thing I notice is a lot of sites are using the AE engine to come up with the quotes.

I just did a little comparison, checking a one week rental London to Cardiff on both the UK site and the US site.

You are right that the UK site doesn't give you an option to decline CDW -- probably because it is geared to be used by Brits -- and will their credit cards cover CDW?

Any way, for the same cars I got
the UK site at 138 pounds including CDW. I got the US site at $202 without CDW. You do the math. The US site without CDW is clearly less than the UK site with CDW. Maybe your attempt was some sort of special or just a fluke?

In any case I sure wouldn't take the UK rate when an accident leaves a 750 pound (nearly $1500 deductible) while the US rate declining it and using my credit card has a zero deductible!

Neopatrick-

I certainly agree with your conclusion but I always come up with cheaper rates on ANY of the non-US parts of the AE site.

And so do others -see this-

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2

However, I tried to duplicate your example and you seem to be correct on a UK hire. It is cheaper to book on the US side ( I got $218 no CDW) vs the UK side ( I got 126 pounds - about $240 with CDW). I suggest you try what I am really doing. France- 10 days Pickup- Nimes Drop- Paris. I think you will get a different result. The non- US side is CONSISTENTLY cheaper , at least on my trip.

But the catch is you can't seem to unbundle CDW from anything but the US side of the site.

Is it not possible that AutoEurope (and the company actually providing the car) make some of their income from commission on the insurance?

Therefore, if you do not want to take and pay for the insurance, they increase the price of the rental to keep their profit on the deal at the same level. This would explain why they are quite happy for you to decline their insurance. In fact, they might even make a bigger profit if you decline the insurance.

They might think a bigger profit is necessary to cover those occasions when the credit card company refuses to pay up for some reason, or is slow to pay.

Incidentally, none of the U.K. credit cards (as far as I am aware) offers free insurance if a card is used to pay for car hire. Since the credit card commission is typically 2.5% or so, I cannot see how it is worth their while to do so.

I am having a lot of trouble understanding the logic of this whole industry. Anyway, for me, the plot thickens.

My quote from Andy Bestor of Gemut- $411 for VW Polo 4 dr.

Kemwel (AE sister co) $377 for a diesel Renault Megaine 4dr (same class CDMR- This is the same class of car I have booked at AE-UK side at about $310 but with CDW)

Neither of these include CDW. I may give Andy a call and see if he can beat Kemwel

rs899

I can confirm that if you book at auto-europe.co.uk, you will get rates that include CDW and no way to get out of it. And yes, for a given country and a given itinerary, it is often cheaper than to book on the US or CAN sites without insurance. This is why I booked our Spanish car with the UK site. It was much, much cheaper.

However, auto-europe.co.uk often offer something called "refundable excess" for just a few pounds more that will take care of the deductible. Have you looked into this? (I checked for pickup Nimes drop Paris, and there were such rates offered for the dates I checked.) best of luck.

sue-

Yes, you are right, I remember that. I'll have a looksee. This is really getting to be more than I ever wanted to know about insurance...

Rick

Sue-

I looked at the refundable excess option. It costs about $30 for the 10 days- not bad , but , does not cover in case the driver (ME) is at fault. So, I think its pretty weak coverage and I would like to stick to what is offered by the Visa credit card folks.

Just for giggles, I called Visa again to see if I just got a bum steer the first time. I got the same story. This time it was much more convincing from them. You cannot accept CDW from anybody and count on Visa to cover you overseas. In the US, it is different.

Following up to my post from yesterday about the CNTraveler Ombudsman article and to answer Stu's question...

First off, the AE I was referring to is American Express, not AutoEurope

Second, they found out the car was on an unpaved road because that's where it was totalled.

Having driven 100s of miles on unpaved roads in rental cars (part of the joy of travelling thru interesting countryside), this was just surprising to me since I never really saw this in the fine print, perhaps because I never looked that closely?!

scrb,
Yes, most credit card coverage is secondary to any other auto insurance you have (except Diners Club and Amex premium rental, as you mentioned, which are primary). However, most personal auto insurance policies issued in the US do not offer coverage outside of the US/Canada, so in other countries, the credit card coverage effectively becomes primary. Also some people don't have personal auto insurance so for them, credit card coverage would also be primary.

An additional benefit of the Amex premium car rental protection is that it offers coverage for up to 42 consecutive days for a flat per rental premium. It also covers a greater variety of vehicle types, many of which are excluded on standard credit card policies.

Thanks Patty.

So the standard insurance is for like 14 days or something?

And the Premium probably covers more expensive vehicle rentals, I presume.

Tricky thing is that you apparently have to enroll. Then each time you rent, it would automatically charge you for the premium.

The standard Amex insurance is 30 days. I don't know about other credit cards. The premium insurance covers up to $75,000 or $100,000 depending on which option you choose (as opposed to $50,000). It also covers full size SUVs, "exotic" cars, and some other types of vehicles which the standard doesn't.

If you only wanted the premium insurance for one rental, you could enroll before your trip and cancel afterwards.

end of my saga-

Andy replied via email that he could match Kenwel's prices. I tried to call him twice and got voicemail. As it is getting pretty late to fix this (plus I didn't want to catch his voicemail later when I had an emergency), I opted to call Kemwel.

The person I got (Ivy)was polite and knowledgable. I had some trouble trying to arrange as good a drop as I had with AE-UK, but finally I settled on one near Bastille , but quite a few blocks away from the center (still makes ne nervous to drive there). When I was ready to book it, she said she couldn't match their own price on the website (?) , so I went into the website and booked it.

I ended up with the same car I had booked at AutoEurope -UK. The Price at Kemwel (which, again, is an AE sister company)was $331 without CDW/theft. The price I had at AE-UK was about $310 WITH CDW/theft. The reason for this exercise was to charge it on my Platinum VISA and (unambiguously) pickup their no-deductable coverage (which includes loss of use, BTW). So , beware of the insurance coverage before you book a car.

I still don't understand AE business model, but it MAY have something to do with CRISS , which is the European rental car standards organization (these are the people who assign the EDMR, CDMR car class codes). I think their standards may play a role in making AE-UK and all the European based brokers roll CDW in their rates. But that hurts us here in the US who are using a credit card as CDW insurance.

Rick

Credit cards won't cover you if you rent a "luxury" model, so if the car you get is a full-size Mercedes with auto transmission, you need to think about getting separate CDW coverage.

You've been given a lot of good and accurate advice here, but in general credit-card CDW coverage is secondary.

If you are going to buy CDW coverage, it's almost always cheaper to buy from a company like Travel Guard. You are often charged twice as much by the car-rental company.

Doug-

In the case of Visa Platinum at least , their coverage is "primary coverage outside of your country of residence." That is a quote from their terms and conditions. I would encourage travelers to read the terms of their cc coverage before they rent something, to avoid the mess I went through.

Rick