car hire in the US - car insurance query

Trying to book a hire car in the US and came up with
https://www.economybookings.com/car...462_1341470__TOPF2?currency=USD&mpr=1&ctype=6

The insurance is what worries me:
Standard insurances included in the rental don't cover your excess which you could lose if your car is damaged or stolen. Refundable Excess and Full Excess Protection eliminate your risks and protect your excess for up to $ 3292.20.


what is the excess? I was planning on using my 28 degree card, but no doubt the card doesnt offer car insurance......

I do have an altitude black, but I've no doubt the conversion is going to be pretty steep....
http://www.westpac.com.au/personal-banking/credit-cards/reward/altitude-black/#s3

Overseas travel insurance

For overseas trips up to 6 months, cover includes:

Specified medical expenses incurred overseas
Up to $20,000 per person cover for loss or damage to personal property
Up to $550 per person for loss or damage to travel documents
Limit of $2.5 million of personal liability cover
Up to $5,500 rental vehicle excess cover as specified in the policy for loss or damage to rental vehicle.
You, your spouse and your dependent children could be automatically covered for Complimentary Overseas Travel Insurance on your journey, if each of you meet the eligibility criteria, including pre-paid travel costs using your credit card.


TLDR - do I need to use the AMEX or is the 28 degree card sufficient for car hire insurance?

 

Bit more research and I've cancelled this booking......turns out there was a reason why it was so much cheaper than the others

Damn car hire is going to be expensive!

 

Dollar, Alamo, National, etc. are all good.

 

Do a search of the forums mate. This question comes up every month or two.

Bottom line, you have to take insurance if you're driving in the US. It's not like renting a car here, where they cover you, but charge a $2500 excess or whatever...

In the US, if you have no insurance, you're liable for everything, damage to the rental, damage to the other car, injury the other driver or passenger might suffer (and this can be massive!)... For the sake of a couple of hundred dollars for your holiday, you're covered...

 

yeah its all sorted now. what threw me is a work mate went over and said his card covered the insurance.....what he didnt tell me was that it was hired under his brothers name who transferred his personal car insurance over (or something to that effect). his credit card covered him for the excess

I can see why it comes up though. The first one I hired said it had insurance. reading the fine print showed it only had insurance up to $800. Plus it only covered 1 of the vehicles. its a minefield if you're not careful!

 

Rentalcars.com is the only site I know of that you can set your location to Australia and get treated like an Australian. The deals there are typically not available to a US resident as they are cheaper than typical.

My partner is a USA resident and we got her a CC that covers the rental insurance for this reason. If we ever need 2 cars in the USA I drive hers and she hires one in her name. The catch with those CC insurances is the card holder must be the primary driver.

Ironically we had to use it in Korea once too and it took us about 4 tries before we could get someone to put the "female" down as the primary driver! They just could not understand the concept!

Edit: Oh and once I did find a place in the UK that offered global rental insurance for long term. I could cover my partner for a year for the price of a week getting it through a car hire place. Don't forget they have about 6 different insurances if you go through the hire company, and you need all 6 for what we'd class as fully comprehensive. You could pay $60 insurance for a $10 car per day if you let them.

 

Questor Insurance used to do an annual worldwide hire car policy for £50/year, but have since restricted the policy to UK and EU residents only. Saved me a bucket load of money when I went to the US.

There is CDW insurance available at https://www.worldwideinsure.com/car-hire-excess-insurance.php, which covers damage to the vehicle, but does not cover liability to other parties. This requires Supplemental Liability Insurance, which is pretty much impossible to get now other than through the rental companies.

The risk you take with a 3rd party provided insurance is you need to pay up for any damage or liability and then claim from them. Getting the insurance from the hire car company means you hand back the keys and let them deal with it.

 

(Bumping this thread from Aug 2015, only ref. I can find here) – Re: Aust. Domestic car hire

Only came across economybookings.com for car hire for the 1st time just now – for a Brisbane Airport (QLD) car hire ~1 week, and they seem to offer a very good cheap deal (fr. Thrifty car rentals, via them) as their top option.
I also see a range of varied reviews & comments about them with a brief search online – has anybody else got any experience with them please?

Generating a quote for the same via rentalcars.com they offer a similarly cheap deal for the same (fr. Thrifty car rentals, via them) @ only ~10% dearer than economybookings.com
The rentalcars.com online booking seems to offer a little more info incl. a clear additional driver option whereas economybookings.com does not.

Thoughts or experiences with either?

 

Ha, since that very old post, my Mrs became an American citizen with an American credit card which got me around all the car hire insurance issues. So I don't have any experience with this in the last 6 years.

Certainly back then my research was through and that was the cheapest way to get an insured car in USA.

This thread was about Australians traveling to the USA and hiring a car once you are there, which is a real frustration because the companies make their profits on fees and nickel and dime charges and insurance costs that exceed the cost of the car itself!

As for Australian domestic car hire, I think you necromanced the wrong thread.

 

Yea, not ideal sorry all; tho I couldn't find any other more relevant thread, nor any other that mentioned economybookings.com.

In any case:
So.. It looks like, for a Mitsubishi Outlander or similar/compact SUV hire car, 5 days From/To Brisbane Airport in a few months:
- webjet.com.au: cheapest (bundled with flights bookings)
- economybookings.com: very cheap, + ~5%
- rentalcars.com: fairly cheap, + ~15%
- jetstar.com.au: + ~90% (bundled with flights bookings)
- hertz.com.au: + ~120% (with corporate discount)
- goaussiecarrentals.com.au: + ~150%
- thrifty.com.au: + ~170%
- flybuystravel.com.au: expensive, + ~190%
- avis.com.au: ridiculous, + ~270%
- redspot.com.au: N/A or not open during relevant hours
- sixt.com.au: N/A or not open during relevant hours