I am going on a road trip in june and require a rental car from atlanta… currently i have a deal with sixt for 340 usd for 2 weeks full size vehicle
but the insurance is 24.75 usd per day…
i am not sure what my travel insurance provides in terms of coverage as i am with bankwest cc travel insurance and i think it is an excess waiver and i think in the states there is no insurance standard.
Any car recomendations or insurance advice would be helpful
US Car rental
nickl1986 on 03/01/2017 - 08:10
Comments
Car Hire in the USA doesn't include insurance by default, as most USA citizens can use their existing car insurance to cover hire cars.
In europe there's a specific insurance for EU citizens to cover hire cars in the states, but I couldn't find any such one for aussies.
You'll need to get the LDW and SLI to be properly covered (and your travel insurance will cover the excess on those).When we rented cars in the States with Thrifty, it included the basic insurance but the extra insurance you could by was a premium version. It's just up to you if you think its worth it or not
The things I look for with US car rental insurance are Loss Damage Waiver (LDW), Collision Damage, Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Protection (UMP), theft protection and third party insurance - all with zero excesses.
We now use an Aussie based car rental website that offers US car rentals which include all of this - and taxes - in one price so no hidden extras or currency conversion fees. Compare the prices and if you're able to cancel your existing rental, you may be better off going through one of the Australian companies (eg driveaway, flight centre online who also use driveway but prices vary, thrifty, etc etc) if it works out cheaper overall.
Some other general tips:
- If you have roadside assistance for your car here, you may be able to use the US roadside assistance (AAA) for towing, breakdown etc through their international policy agreement (we have NRMA and can do this). Check before you go, get their guide with the phone numbers/free services and bring your roadside assistance card with you. When you pick up your rental car, the company may try and sell you breakdown service but a true ozbargainer would never pay if they already have it for free :)
- Most US car rental companies charge a ridiculous fee for a GPS - check if your mobile phone can do the same thing for free (may need US SIM card, I've only used it this way but it may also work offline)
- Depending on where you're driving, you may go on toll roads. If some are cashless, you'll need some sort of toll pass (otherwise you could be charged a large fee if you don't have a pass by the toll company through the car rental company). The car rental companies may have them for a daily fee (plus toll costs) but there may be cheaper pass options elsewhere so check it out before you go.Did you try a quote from http://iwantthatflight.com.au/carhire.aspx ? make sure you change it to "I live in Australia" and the currency to AUD. The price includes the insurance. I had a quick look and you can get a car including insurance for 2 weeks in Atlanta for around 560-580 AUD.
Hire from someone like Alamo or a few others which I can't remember off the top of my head. Make sure you tick/select resident of Australia. And voila the car hire rate will include cdw/ldw and usually this rate will be less than what they charge locals for just renting the car without any insurance.
hi everyone, thank you so much for your help. I have just receive a quote from sixt for 380usd inc sli and ldw so i am probably going to go with that
That's odd, when I rented cars in USA a couple of years ago insurance was included free.
Anyway I use this mob whenever I need to purchase insurance https://tripcover.com.au/. I find virtually every CC insurance is pretty useless with car rentals (but OK for everythig else). I remember when I rang up to clarify coverage with a couple of them they even said in order to be covered I need to purchase the highest available insurance from the rental company, and couldn't answer me when I asked what exactly are they covering me for then if I already have $0 excess with the insurance I'm required to buy.