Loss of use? Get lost.
First time here? Check out the site's "greatest hits" or read a random post from the archives. Feel free to ask a question, and consider subscribing to the latest posts via RSS or e-mail. Thanks for visiting!

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.
(image)





Subscribe to Posts by Email