If your children are on half-term holiday soon and you are planning to collect a hire car, make sure you have the right kind of credit card. These cautionary tales show the costly consequences if yours does not pass muster.
I hired a car for a family holiday from Enterprise Rent-A-Car in France. The collection desk at Carcassonne airport refused to hand over the keys when I presented the Visa credit card used for the booking because it was issued by First Direct. It told me it did not accept cards from online banks.
The rental branch subsequently confirmed this in writing. Enterprise’s terms and conditions state that Visa, Mastercard and American Express are accepted, while virtual, single-use and prepaid cards are not. We were forced to arrange alternative rail and taxi transport for our group of 10, costing us €440 [£370] and causing considerable stress.
The booking agent has refunded the £388.44 rental cost, but Enterprise first ignored, then refused, my requests for my expenses to be refunded.
JM, Oxford
This is an extraordinary stance on the part of Enterprise, given that First Direct is part of HSBC and that terms and conditions not explicitly stated in a contract are unenforceable.
You have been battling vainly for redress since May, so it’s provoking that Enterprise instantly rolled over when I waded in. It admitted that First Direct Visa cards were accepted and that branch staff blundered.
Apparently, it says, staff are now “very apologetic” three months after the event despite the company having doubled down in writing when you complained.
It has now refunded your expenses, though not a penny more to reflect the impact of its error.
It says: “On this occasion, the customer did not receive the high level of service and support that we aim to provide. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused in this situation.”
VD of London was also caught out by unexpected credit card rules when she tried to collect a prepaid car from Warsaw airport that had been booked through Holiday Autos. The provider, Flex To Go, refused to release it because her credit card bore her initials instead of her forename.
“The Holiday Autos confirmation did say ‘no abbreviations’, but I took that to mean shortened names rather than initials, and I have had no problems with my card over many years of hiring cars,” she says. “In the end, we had to get a Polish friend to call the car hire desk and pay over £145 for their comprehensive insurance – when we already had our own – so we could have the car.”
Although it is common for UK credit cards to replace a customer’s forename with initials, it is not unusual for car rental companies to refuse them as security guarantees. Instead, they insist the name on the card matches the name on the lead driver’s licence.
However, I agree that Holiday Autos’ warning about this was open to misinterpretation. Flex To Go’s Ts & Cs did specify it, but these were not given to you until you had completed the transaction at the collection desk. Those Ts & Cs conceal other nasty surprises.
Buried in the small print are clauses stating that the company charges customers for “minor expenses for ordinary use of the vehicle, ie refilling screen washer liquid and washing the vehicle”.
Customers are also required to carry out “daily inspections” of brake fluid, oil and liquid coolant control, regardless of any dashboard warnings.
These terms strike me as onerous and unusual, and were neither highlighted by Flex To Go as “onerous and unusual” terms must be, nor were they mentioned by Holiday Autos.
Flex To Go did not respond to any of these points. Holiday Autos ignored the point about the ambiguity of “abbreviations” and its supplier’s maintenance demands.
It told me that names on cards and driver licences must match for identity verification and fraud prevention, and that customers should review terms and conditions before travel. “We appreciate how frustrating this situation must have been,” it says.
Always read reviews of car rental firms before booking to discover which ones to avoid. Looking at the Ts & Cs of Flex To Go, which operates on three continents, I will not be using them. And don’t be caught out by hire firms’ rules on credit cards that are designed not only for identity verification, but to ensure deductions from a customer’s bank account are possible if a vehicle is damaged.
Hire companies tend to accept physical credit cards only, not Apple Pay, as one reader found to his cost. If the firms can’t reliably match the card to the licence and booking name, they are likely to insist that you pay for their comprehensive insurance, which can be expensive.
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