MARK

Oct 4, 2022

Take care...Credit Card requirement for insurance

Beware of this company which insists on possession of a Credit Card in order to make the pre-authorision for insurance. They stated at the desk at Shannon that a Debit Card cannot be used for pre-authorisation and insisted that I therefore must take out the €33 per day full insurance.....more than doubling the price of the four day rental. I reluctantly agreed as I had no option. Luckily..it was only four days or could have cost me many hundreds. Turns out...that is just Budget's business policy so they can be more sure that they'll get their money in the event of a claim ....not an actual statement of banking fact in Ireland even though the desk staff very much presented it that way. I later checked the fine print of the agreement and it does say that a pre-authorisation will be done against my "credit card" but the term is used in a very generic way that to virtually everybody would take to just mean "plastic card". Nowhere does it state that this cannot be a Debit Card. Such a fact that can more than double the rental cost when the customer is in no position to decline should be made very prominent with a warning at the time of booking. I had already paid for third party world wide car rental insurance so doubly infuriating. When I returned the car I did have a quick word with the competition in the next booth and they stated that they happily accept both Debit and Credit cards for insurance pre-authorisation. Wish I'd had the presence of mind to cancel on the spot and move to the competition. If you have a credit card...then all well and good. But if not...best to shop around carefully.