Avis at LGA is always horrible, even still after signing up for the preferred program. They still m

A sk George Mayo about car insurance, and he ll tell you that his State Farm policy covers rentals. He s certain of it. And he s also certain that when he rented a car from Avis in Nashville recently, he declined cheap hotel reservation the optional cheap hotel reservation insurance.
Insurance isn t required by law when you rent a vehicle in the United States, but it s a good idea. That s because you don t want to pay $30,000 cheap hotel reservation for a new car if you re in an accident, or even a few hundred bucks for a fender bender.
Car rental companies have an incentive to not only sell you their optional Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) and Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) products, which can be highly profitable, but to oversell it. To that effect, they often incentivize their agents cheap hotel reservation to push these extras, which can double the cost of your car rental, to gullible customers who may already be covered.
The agent tried to get me to purchase liability insurance, he remembers. I explained that I already had liability insurance through my State Farm policy and showed him the copy of rental agreement from the Internet where I declined all auto insurance. The agent had me sign a piece of paper indicating that I refused the Avis insurance.
When he returned the car, he found an additional $251 for the full insurance package which he d declined on his final bill. Apparently the form he thought he was signing, verifying he was turning down the insurance, was actually a form accepting cheap hotel reservation the collision-damage cheap hotel reservation policy.
After some haggling, Avis agreed to cut his bill in half. But Mayo was still upset, so he contacted me. I asked to see a copy of his rental agreement, but he didn t keep it. The agreement would have shown exactly what he d accepted.
I refer to this as the sign here scam. You ask a company for something verbally, and it then slides a rental agreement under your nose that has you paying for something else. In the old days, when car rental companies used cheap line printers to generate contracts, you could hardly cheap hotel reservation read what you were signing, which led to all kinds of confusion the kind of confusion car rental companies were frequently accused of taking advantage of.
Another common trick and this applies to Americans traveling overseas is the foreign-language contract. Your really don t know what you re agreeing to, and the rental agent knows it. (Always ask for a translation to avoid this problem.)
Fortunately, he had filled out an online form specifically declining the insurance, and could show Avis proof that he was already covered. I contacted the car rental company cheap hotel reservation on his behalf, and it agreed to refund his $251.
One option is American Express premium  car rental insurance.  Basically, it s $17.95 flat rate for up to 40 days of consecutive rental.  The great thing is that it is PRIMARY insurance, not secondary and there s no deductible.  The bad thing is once you add it to your card, it s automatically charged each time you rent a car with that card.
Technically speaking, car rental companies do not sell insurance at all. They call damage cheap hotel reservation waivers. For a fee, they agree to not hold you responsible for some potential liability. But, it is not insurance and, in fact, in most of the US they cannot possibly sell insurance because they are not licensed as insurance companies.
That $17.95 rate is only for residents of CA. The rate for the rest of the USA is $24.95 for $100,000 or $19.95 for $75,000. cheap hotel reservation The other problem cheap hotel reservation is if you have several cheap hotel reservation Amex cards, they automatically apply the coverage to all of them. I just use a Visa in the USA and Amex when renting outside the USA. It is a good deal as it is only a one time fee, not per day. There are a few countries where coverage is excluded.
I know Chris isn t a fan of loyalty programs, but joining the car rental loyalty cheap hotel reservation program is a no brainer.  One of the biggest perks is that you bypass the rental desk where the hard sell occurs.  And to get this benefit you generally don t even need to achieve an elite status, i.e. no golden handcuffs like with hotels and airlines.  You fill out on online form, decline coverage, and you re done.
I ll second that. I belong to all the major car rental programs. I love getting in the express line, bypassing cheap hotel reservation everyone else, and hearing the upsell on the damage waivers on the other customers. My contract is pre-filled with my declines and never am asked if I want to purchase more. I m usually in and out in no time.
A few times over the past year I ve had an agent ask me what my deductible was. I ve always refused to tell them. To me, this is part of the scam. I rent the car, and when it is returned, there will magically be some kind of damage on it in some obscure place for just under the amount of my deductible.
Good point, I haven't spoken to an agent in over a year with Avis.  I show up, my name is on a board with the stall number, the keys are already in the car, I just show my ID to the guard on my way out.  In fact, since joining with Avis, I haven't even had to fill out the car damage report, and they haven't ever tried to charge me. Except at LGA.
Sadly, I have to go through all the shenanigans with Hertz and Enterprise still, even after joining.  It's funny because up until 2 years ago I hated Avis and loved Hertz.  Avis was always awful, then I signed up for their program and they have been great.  Hertz was better before I signed up for their program and now they seem to treat me horribly.  The last two times I rented from Hertz, cheap hotel reservation they tried to sell me insurance despite me being in their Gold program.  Then one time they charged me for a full talk of gas after the fact, even though I had purchased a full tank before returning it.  I kept the Hertz receipt and the gas receipt and got them to credit me back.  Then another time the car engine died an hour after leaving the lot, and Hertz refused to tow it back or replace it.  I had AAA at the time and they towed the car back to Hertz and I rented locally.  I never heard back, and was still charged the regular rental rate. I disputed it and won fortunately.
Avis at LGA is always horrible, even still after signing up for the preferred program.  They still make me meet with an agent and try to sell insurance and always give me down grades and cars that smell like smoke.
I had to vote no. The insurance is a big money maker for them. It only makes sense that they would try to sell it. Once again, read what you sign. I know that it is not a popular cheap hotel reservation position to take but if you do not read what you sign why are you surprised afterwards? Another expensive learning experience.
In Italy last year, though, I took the Italian all-inclusive coverage from Hertz and was glad I did. When I returned it I watched as they went under every returned cheap hotel reservation car looking for any damage they could find underneath. When I showed cheap hotel reservation them I had purchased an all damages plan they didn t bother to look at mine. I ll bet you the next guy who rented that car will have to pay for small undercarriage damages he didn t even know existed. And the rental agencies here tell you they have no control over their foreign affiliates.
I agree completely. I use Thrifty cheap hotel reservation for most of my rentals, and belong to their Blue Chip program. I bypass all the lines, and pick up the car directly at the lot. The contract is pre-filled to decline all insurance, and return the car with fuel tank full. My company specifically cheap hotel reservation directs us to decline all CDW and LDW, since we have a company insurance policy cheap hotel reservation that covers rental vehicles (in the US, only).
I literally hate the process of renting a car. You always cheap hotel reservation have to be on your guard and when you have just come off of a long flight that s difficult to do. I m not saying all rental car agents are snakes, cheap hotel reservation just most of them.  The best comparison is in the days of sitting down with the time share salesperson for the required cheap hotel reservation hour to get your free gift that never turns out to be worth your loss of time.
Third. I regularly cheap hotel reservation rent from Thrifty with no problems through their Blue Chip card. My one Dollar experience (same company) forced me to the regular counter where I got the hard sell and run around from the agent. cheap hotel reservation Loyalty card makes all the difference.
The Hertz that charged me for gas was in HNL, and the one with the broken car was in IND.  It could be location specific, but it was those two incidents in a row that switched me back to Avis.  Mine you Avis in LGA I mentioned is always bad, and Avis in MSN was also pretty bad.  MSN makes me talk to a person first and tries the hard sell and then is nasty at the return.
We rent cars frequently, cheap hotel reservation probably once or twice per month, and I can say I have rarely in the past few years been harassed to buy the optional insurance.  Occasionally I hear would you like insurance and then the agent will take a single no for an answer.
cheap hotel reservation While I, too, belong to the frequent renter programs of the companies I use (and I m not anything remotely qualifying as a frequent cheap hotel reservation renter!), so I usually don t have to go to the counter (some locations still require it).  As far as I m concerned, once I say no, any further attempts to sell me something are pushing.  No means no period!
I think some rental companies are absolutely trying too hard. Doing something like Avis did to this customer (and I absolutely believe that the employee heard him say he didn t want the insurance, understood him, and deliberately deceived him into signing the form) goes beyond a hard sell and constitutes fraud.
cheap hotel reservation That said, my personal experience has been different. On the 1-2 occasions per year I rent a car for personal use, I always buy the damage waiver. (Our car insurance covers rentals only up to the value of the car we have full coverage on, which would leave us open to paying thousands of dollars out of pocket if we totaled a rental, cheap hotel reservation and the peace of mind of not relying on credit card coverage is worth it to me). Recently at Enterprise, I was signing the paperwork in the parking lot and the employee actually told me to cross out or write declined (I don t remember which) next to the extra pr