Car hire with visa debit

Mimty

Hi all,

We are hoping to travel to Germany in June but now find because we don't have a credit card, that it is impossible to hire a car. Has anyone any experience of hiring a car with only a Visa Debit? Most places will take the vd for payment but need a cc for the deposit. Only place that so far said they'd take me are a uk company who are charging almost double for the car itself and want a €950 deposit on top of that. If all else fails we might have to go with them but I was hoping for a cheaper option if at all possible. Thanks in advance for any help/advise.

K.Flyer

Enterprise Car Hire in Dusseldorf Airport, accepted Visa Debit from us last year. We dealt with them directly for convenience, but did the reservation on-line for the discounts.
There were two options, take the full comp all risks covered insurance and there is no deposit required, or pay a deposit with the reduced cover.
We went for the first option ourselves and it worked out fine.

Mimty

Thanks for that K.Flyer. Sadly we are flying into Hahn and just checked them out and they don't do rental out of there. Tearing my hair out at this stage... One of my friends was in Belgium recently and they had no cc and didn't know they needed one. Got to the Avis desk and after a bit of a dispute they took the visa debit from them and only blocked €150 for the week but not sure I want to take the risk and try something like that.Do you know if taking the fully comp with any company means no deposit it just enterprise? Thanks

the_syco

Also, advise you look into the likes of https://www.blueinsurance.ie/car-hire-excess-insurance.asp for the car insurance excess; you'll find this is where they sting you on.

Mimty

Thanks for that the_syco. Great prices!! I have emailed the car hire co to see if they will take 3rd party insurance or will they insist on their own. Fingers crossed as it would save me about €250!!

Happy_Harry

I rent a lot of cars, have a yearly excess insurance, but car rental companies don't really care you do. They will want the deposit if you don't get their insurance in my experience.. Some companies will take cash as a deposit, but check beforehand indeed.

Antar Bolaeisk

Yep, third party excess insurance is pretty much ignored by car hire companies and in the case of you having to make use of it you will have already forfeited the excess to the car hire company. It's only useful if you need to claim back the value of the excess in the event of you having forfeited it.

Some car hire companies will also insist on you taking out the full package depending on if you have a local license or not so worth checking out if you're not going with one of the more international groups.

In most cases I've found that unless you have a credit card with sufficient credit to cover the excess block the car hire company will insist on you taking out their insurance, normally at an inflated rate, and still take an extra (relatively small) value to be refunded after the car is returned.

Mimty

Thanks for all your help. Still emailing/calling around to see what the best deal I can get is, but so far all crazy prices. Will let you know how I get on.

Yamanoto

This was in the Irish Times travel section last week.

...there is a company in the UK that can arrange car hire on Visa Debit cards. The numbers must be embossed and you will need two forms of identification. You can contact indigocarhire.co.uk and on (0044) 113 2899279. It is better to call them. They cannot take bookings online for debit card car hire.

munchkin_utd

unless you have a pressing need for a car (for example, staying with a girlfriends family out in the sticks) then why not just get a train/ bus.
AND/ OR... get a flight to somewhere more transport friendly like Cologne which is on a mainline intercity rail line and a train every 20min the few minutes into Cologne centre.

Its common knowledge that booking with Ryanair often lands you at the most awkward out of the way places that will cost you so much on ground transportation that it negates any savings on the flight.
Well.... except when doing a fly drive spin, but without a credit card thats not going to economical either, which brings you back to the idea of flying to somewhere cosmopolitan and well connected, and not a Ryanair regional árse end of nowhere airport.