Loss of use? Get lost.
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Ed Perkins points to the deceitful but unfortunately effective practice of insurance upselling by front-desk employees at car rental agencies.
Agents told [customers] that although their [credit] cards covered damage to the vehicle, they didn’t cover the additional “loss of use” fee the car company would collect for the rental revenue lost while a damaged car was out of service. That statement is a flat-out lie.
Loss of use is included in the CDW (collision damage waiver) provision of credit card coverage. If your card has rental car insurance built in, then you should be fine. (Check your card’s fine print to see if you have the coverage in the first place, of course. If you don’t have the rules governing your card’s benefits, call your bank and have them send it. If you don’t have the coverage, get a card that does.)
This “loss of use” story is a sales pitch I’ve gotten before at the time of rental, most memorably and insistently from a desk agent at Advantage Rent-a-Car at the Phoenix airport. I’ll never forget that guy. He kept telling me over and over again how much Advantage charges for “loss of use,” and how neither my own auto insurance nor my credit card would cover it. It was his aggressive hard-sell, and the snotty attitude he copped after I declined his coverage again and again, which cemented my policy to never rent from Advantage ever again.
Bottom line: Never trust a car rental agent to tell you what your existing insurance covers. Not when they try to tell you about the insurance provided by a credit card, and not when they try to tell you about your own policy.
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February 27th, 2007 at 2:05 pm |
Huh. I’d wondered about that. Rented from the desk (something I’d not done in years) in LAS the other day, and got this spiel.
April 4th, 2007 at 10:35 am |
i bet your fancy card dosent coner 3rd party liability.
April 4th, 2007 at 10:40 am |
cover sorry
April 4th, 2007 at 10:56 am |
“Fancy card” ??!
And what does 3rd party liability have to do with loss of use, anyway?
April 13th, 2007 at 3:03 pm |
[…] to car rental late-return grace periods? - Rental car agent blows smoke up my backside, redux - Loss of use? Get lost. « Trans-Atlantic low fare competition heating up: Zoom and […]
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:17 am |
DOWN TIME!!!
This is a person who has worked for Budget rent a car for well over 8 years. I can tell you from experience that 98% of your auto insurances do not cover loss of use. They cannot control how long vehicle sits in shop rental co takes vehicle gets repairs done then bills insurance besides your ded and your primiums going up there is also the responsibility of down tim. 14.99-25.99 seems like a small price to pay….
May 30th, 2007 at 1:03 pm |
I am aware of the credit card companies that do cover loss of use or loss or revenue. The problem with you rental companies is that you will never send the support for it because you guys know it is bogus. So if one car is in being repaired why cant you rent out the other 10 that are just sitting in your lot waiting to be rented out. How are you losing revenue when you have cars just sitting in your lot to be rented? It is a bogus charge and everyone knows. If you have no cars left in your lot of that class why not send the support (fleet utilization log)showing that so the credit cards can pay you for it?
October 1st, 2007 at 12:12 pm |
Its simple and if you have never worked in the rental car business you would not know this but guess what it comes down to this. If You damage a vehicle we cannot rent that vehice and you stupid stupid person(Comment by Jon) dosnt relize that if we cant make the money on the car you will pay for the revenue we lose even if ther is 10 cars left that is 40+ dollars a day we lose to that vehicl..
Think of it this way if someone dammages your car what does the insurance do! RENT YOU A CAR so you can go to your usless and stupid job. No diffrent they just dont pay you for the loss they rent you a car….
October 1st, 2007 at 12:32 pm |
Quentin: No namecalling, please. That’s not acceptable here.
Putting Jon’s question in a slightly different angle:
If there is any car on the lot, and a renter can get another vehicle, how do you justify loss of use? Do you produce fleet logs, or just the log of that vehicle? Or neither?
Further, how is the duration of the loss of use actually calculated? Actual time in the body shop?
I’ve rented cars that had dents and dings. And I would bet good money that the previous renter got hit with a loss-of-use charge. Jon’s comment may have been an oversimplification, but it’s clear where he’s coming from.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:41 pm |
Ok first Jon sorry about the name calling greatly applogize. Next In most cases if its bigger than a Quater or Pierces the paint you will be charged for the damage and loss of use. No logs are needed because when we send the bill to your ins. co. it is listed in the Itimized statement. Next think of it this way if damage a windshiled on a new car to the market and car mfgs. have not started to produce the part we cannot rent the vehicle w/ a busted windshield. We have to wait untill the windshield comes in. Oh and by the way if you read the fine print on most if not all rental contract it states about loss of use. We can have the argument all night long if this is a correct practice or not but it still comes down to this dont want to pay down time take CDW
October 5th, 2007 at 8:08 pm |
Interestingly, Ed Perkins (who wrote the article originally referenced in this post, back in February 2007) revisits the issue of loss-of-use this week, 8 months later. Here’s the link:
http://www.smartertravel.com/travel-advice/beware-gaps-in-credit-card-coverage-for-rental-cars.html?id=2442326
I’m quoting the most relevant parts of Ed’s article below:
December 5th, 2007 at 9:27 pm |
[…] - Loss of use? Get lost. - Reader mail: Why would I want to upgrade my rental car? - Reader mail: What happened to car […]
December 6th, 2007 at 7:13 pm |
Travel in Mexico…..things really have’nt changed all that much since my first Mexican holiday in 1967 after boot camp.
Imagine that: One still has to be ever so careful of the Mexican toristo industry. You can still easily wind up in jail or in great credit-card debt. They know how to screw you just enough so that we keep coming back anyway.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm |
Just make sure you notify (file a claim) your card holder company as soon as possible after the accident.
I was hit with additional expenses two months after the accident, well after I thought the insurance company had it all covered.
VISA has a 45 day period to report claims. After that ………
January 26th, 2008 at 4:32 pm |
Some alpha male AA jock in a dodge ram in Rock Hill SC tried to pull the LOU crap on me (figuring as a Doc I could afford it), and I didn’t bite. I needed a car b/c I had totalled another and got injured in the process.
This is why we need socialism in this country.
…and as for the Gent who went to Mexico…
I studied medicine there for two years and Don’t ASK!! never again would I go back to those corrupt gringo haters. They shaft each other too which is why they are all getting out and coming here. I registered my car legally and they confiscated it and I needed a lawyer to get it back. And they all new G-D well that the majority of students registered their cars ILLEGALLY as tourists but never did anything to them. What a miserable hypocritical society they have.
April 16th, 2008 at 5:47 pm |
Too funny to read the various comments. Insurance companies don’t like hypotheticals like LOU. Nice to see the follow up with info on the credit cards. Unfortunately, most still don’t pay attention.