Thrifty car rental - costa rica
 

Happy new year!

My husband and i leave sat. for CR. (SO excited!) we have a reservation for a suv through thrifty. has anyone used them before? i know tricolor gets alot of praise (as does dollar), but they were both much more expensive. any opinions would help!

I would like to know this as well. I have a reso with Thrifty, too for pickup Jan 24th. I think they are located directly IN the airport, though, so I think that means paying airport tax in addition to the rental fees. Anyone used them who can comment?

I have heard some complaints about Thrift at the San Jose Airport.

I used Mapache, and they were the cheapest at that time for a Jimny 4x4.

I had a major accident while I was down there and the staff was helpful in handing the administrative process.

I STRONGLY recommend getting travel insurance to cover trip interruption and damage to your vehicle. It saved me $2,000 and it only cost 80 bucks for a 3 week vacation.

michelina01 -

I emailed tricolor to get a quote and i got a rate of 375 for our 9 day rental, and that includes all insurance and mileage. that is less than what our thrifty rental would have been once we added in the insurance. i had emailed tricolor about 2 weeks ago and got a quote of about 600, but figured i would try again just to see. Since tricolor is spoken of so highly, we are going to cancel the thrifty res. and go with this. maybe when your trip gets closer, try emailing tricolor. have a great time!

Hey there Janster;
Funny, I have been online doing the same thing now. Got a quote from Tricolor of $605 for 11 days with all taxes and full ins. coverage for the Jimmy 4x4. Thrifty is about $150 more as of now. The main reason why we were leaning toward Thrifty is b/c our research has shown us that they are the only company that has the soft top Jeep Wrangler, and we thought that would add to the fun of all the driving we'll be doing. Will continue to check Tri-color at your advice, trip is 3 weeks away. If I can get them $200 lower than Thrifty, I'll switch. Have a blast on your trip...I am dying of anticipation for the 24th to come around! Do send a trip report when you get back and thanks for posting the advice!

Janster...FYI I got a quote from Tricolor as well, and while it did include the obligatory CDW insurance, the quote does not include the optional Liability, which I would definatley tack on. Will take your rate up $100 or so, but I beleive is worth it, considering the way the locals drive in C.R.
Be safe and have fun!

I will post a report. The optional coverage you mentioned is covered by our credit card. you should contact your credit card co to find out if you have coverage. just be sure to print confirmation of that to show to them when you rent.

Thanks my Amex covers the mandatory CDW ins, but not the optional liability, we will buy that on our own. Great if your cc company covers both. These get expensive. Although I have heard it is difficult to make a claim with some cc companies if there is, god forbid, an accident.
Cheers and happy safe travels.

Don't get the optional insurance if you get separate travel insurance. Damage and deductible of damage to your rental is covered by your travel insurance.

thank you for your recommendation, dariow. Who did you obtain your travel insurance through?

I used CSA as they were the cheapest at that time. Here is the web site: http://csatravelprotection.com/

There are a lot of other companies also.

We rented through Tricolor for 10 days in late Nov/early Dec. We were really happy with them. The rate we got (through an email quote; I think it's different if you call) was $373 including all insurances. Credit cards, at least in the US, sometimes cover CDW. However they DON'T cover the SLI. You can waive the CDW if you like. However check with your credit card company because often the cc companies have a deductible you must pay, while the rental agencies don't. I checked around with other companies as well and Thrifty and Dollar did have lower rates intially, but when the insurances were tacked on, their rates were higher than Tricolor's by $200-$300. Good luck, and have a great trip!

We had an awful experience with our car rental. I found a pretty good deal for $450 for 6 nights. When we arrived at the San Jose airport, we were informed that we were required to purchase insurance, which brought our total to $90 per day! At that point, we approached all of the other car vendors, none of which charged less than $80 per day for a compact car. Finally, we gave up and took a cab to our resort. In the end, we were glad we did not have a car because the roads were so bad.

A word of caution on this topic...
I have been researching and comparing prices for my 12 day rental with Thrifty or TriColor. You are all correct, the basic rental rate is about the same, but what makes TriColor so much lower is their insurance - it is far lower than Thrifty's and most other common places. For example, optional Liability insurance (which I strongly believe you should get) with Thrifty is $18/day. It is $3/day with Tricolor. For us, that was a difference of $144.00. Sounded like a no brainer, HOWEVER, Thrifty's Liability is 1 million $$ worth of coverage, TriColor's is far far below that. That is something they don't tell you and quite frankly, I think most people don't think to ask (we didn't right away). Most people think if they have Liability, they are covered, which is true, but at what amount are you comfortable with? Just an FYI and a good question to ask.

Again, I found the cheapest alternative was to take solely the mandatory insurance from the car rental and take out a travel insurance. Besides the car rental, travel insurance covers missed flights and hotels for illness and weather reasons. It cost me about 70 bucks for 6000 of trip interruption and complete damage to the rental car.

I was in a very bad auto accident in Northern CR and the Jimny was totaled. the insurance covered the 2000 deductible, missed hotel days, and cost of my camera.

Car rentals inflate optional insurance costs.

I'm suprised no one mentions Europcar when discussing rentals. We found them cheapest in Oct and while I chose Dollar in Dec (they quoted cheaper on the phone) their offices are right next door and I found out I could have gotten a better price at europcar if I'd talked to the right guy.
We had some trouble with Dollar but none with Europcar.
About insurance, I got that my Credit card (mastercard platinium) covered the optional insurance as long as I made sure I refused it at the rental. If I didn't refuse it, then it was in my name and mastercard was out of the picture. Europcar and dollar both seemed to understand this. We never had an accident to test the ins though.

The trip insurance is an interesting idea. In oct we couldn't fly out on the scheduled day because an accident at the sjo airport closed it for the day. Three of us ended up staying another week while two paid big $$ for delta tickets to fly out the next day.
I wonder if trip ins would have covered the extra expenses.

Yes that would have been covered.

My wife and i went to CR, last december.We strongly recommend Discount Car Rental they gave us the best rate in the market, for a SUV.If you have a low rate just tell them and they will beat any price.
www.rentacardiscount.com
They have offices near the airport, and in the guanacaste area.

I called the CSA Travel Insurance program, and they only cover CDW, NOT liability. And if you use a Platinum VISA, then the CDW is covered.

I have not found anyway to NOT buy the extra liability insurance. The VISA and Travel insurance plans only cover the CDW.

If I am mistaken can someone please clarify?

Liability is covered by the mandatory insurance you have when you rent the car. That insurance also covered my accident but I had to pay a 2,000 deductible.

Travel insurance covered that deductible and replaced my camera and paid for 2 nights of hotel room that I missed due to accident.

I inquired to Visa before I left to find out if they covered damage to the vehicle. There was some sort of problem that I do not remember of why I needed to get the travel insurance.

In any case, have a great trip. I hope you have better luck driving than I did. :)

I looked at CSA's website and, as a Texas resident, was surprised to see this:

"Rental Car Damage (Not available in OR and TX)
Provides primary coverage if the car you rented while on your trip is damaged due to collision, fire, flood, theft, vandalism, windstorm or hail."

So Texans have to pay? Why?

Yeah, I was suprised to see that at the CSA website also...but cannot answer why TX is excluded.

Dariow, I would be curious to know what it is that is different between the VISA CDW coverage and the travel insurance?

I called VISA and also printed out the CDW program from their website. I know they won't cover lost hotel, etc...but all I'm concerned about is car damage and deductible which seems covered.

Some visa coverage is not out of the USA. Secondly, the credit card does not cover things like luggage or camera loss from an accident or cost of trip interuption.

Steer clear of Thrifty. We rented in Costa Rica for 10 days this month (March 2009). Nowhere in the emails did it tell us we had to purchase liability insurance for $19.95 per day. We purchased the extra Amex Premium Ins, but they say it's the law to have their special liability insurance, and they'd call a taxi to take us back to the airport if we refused it(we took their shuttle to Thrifty). No one in the long line was prepared for the extra $20/day either.
In Jaco, we found out that others, like Avis, charged $12/day.
Just FYI.

We are on vacation in Costa Rica right now. I booked a Thrifty rental through American Express travel, bought Amex premium rental car insurance, and checked with Amex to make sure that we would be fully covered and wouldn't have to pay for additional insurance when we rented the car.

At the desk, $20 extra per day or we couldn't have the car. I called Amex and the representative said my best recourse was to dispute the charge after the fact. When I asked to be transferred to Amex's travel office, I got an answering service lady who was generally annoyed by my calling on a Saturday. Not quite the seamless American Express experience I had hoped for.

The person who checked us in at Thrifty said that every single customer was surprised and upset by the additional mandatory insurance, but that I was the nicest one so far. And, believe me, I wasn't trying to be nice about it - at all.

There's no reason why Thrifty can't add this mandatory insurance into their "total charge" which includes taxes, except that they would rather deceive their customers than have their rates look higher than the competition's.