Credit card CDW claim advice

R

raenye

Lever 2 Membel
So I hit a pothole with a rental car, had a flat tire and now the rental agency wants $900 (!) for fixing the rim and the tire. Perhaps they're replacing all four rims with 24k gold ones.
However, I paid with a World Elite MC, whose CDW policy does not exclude tire damage. Hooray.

Anyone had experience with a CDW claim?
Should I have MC settle directly with the agency or it's better to pay and have MC reimburse me? (perhaps I'd get points...)
Should I even try to get a more reasonable estimate than $900 if I won't be paying anything OOP? (no primary insurance, so card insurance will cover it all).
I just don't want to authorize a $900 repair if MC might find a reason not to pay (not likely, I'm in full compliance with all terms).

I'd love to hear advice. Thanks!
 
littlenemo

littlenemo

Laughing Coffin Member
Since its MC paying for the insurance you will need to review the T&C and follow the outlined procedure for claims.
 
R

raenye

Lever 2 Membel
The form allows me to specify the beneficiary as either me or the agency.

I'm just wondering whether they can deny it on a basis of "this repair estimate is inflated" rather than just call the agency and haggle with them.
 
littlenemo

littlenemo

Laughing Coffin Member
If the rental agreement allows you to get competing bids that are lower and, you, as the beneficiary get an amount higher than the bid, then you're in the "black."

You should be allowed to see a detailed description of the supposed $900 worth of repairs.
 
R

redbirdsj

Level 2 Member
I'll give you my experience. This was with the primary CDW benefit on the UA Explorer Visa so might not apply to yours. Had an incident where I was in a parking lot and was backing into the aisle at the same time as another car and we bumped. No fault was assigned by either insurance company. I was driving an economy rental and they were driving a large SUV, so naturally my car took the brunt of the damage. Ended up being about $1200 worth of body work. I made the claim through Visa's channels (even though arguably I hadn't met all the prerequisites for coverage since I collateralized the car with a different CC) and submitted all the paperwork. Got a letter later saying the claim had been paid and they had negotiated the costs down to about 2/3 of the quote given to me by the rental car company. Saved me close to $1,000. It was fairly simple and straightforward and they even provided an online portal where you could check the status.
 
R

raenye

Lever 2 Membel
Thanks for sharing.
But why did you say "saved close to $1,000" if the bill was either $1,200 (pre-negotiation) or $800 (after)? was there any OOP? loss of use, admin fees, etc.?
 
R

redbirdsj

Level 2 Member
I'm not sure I would have been in a position to negotiate the bill down with Alamo the way the insurance company did. If I hadn't and didn't have the insurance or the coverage was denied, I would have been on the hook for $1200. I could have paid that OOP or made a claim on my insurance, but my deductible is $1,000 so wouldn't not have saved much and had the claim on my record.
 
R

raenye

Lever 2 Membel
To close the story, I decided mastercard should pay the agency directly. Sure glad I did.

The damage recovery unit sent me the itemized bill and then called and sent another letter urging me to pay within 10 days. I didn't.

After I got the final bill I could see mastercard got rid of nonsense such as 10% loss of value (for a wheel and tire!). Mastercard also told me that they wouldn't have reimbursed me for this had I paid directly.

To sum it up, World Elite MC FTW. Paid zero OOP.
 
Y

YoungBubbie

Level 2 Member
Sorry as I've forgotten, but which credit card is the best one to use for car rentals? Which is the one that has the primary insurance CSP or United Explorer?

Thanks.
 
smittytabb

smittytabb

Moderator
Staff member
YoungBubbie said:
Sorry as I've forgotten, but which credit card is the best one to use for car rentals? Which is the one that has the primary insurance CSP or United Explorer?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
BOTH now have it, along with several others. United Explorer long had it before everyone else.
 
Suzie

Suzie

Level 2 Member
My SO backed into a pole in Switzerland with a rental car we had picked up in Milan. I had my seat back down and was snoozing. The impact woke me, I said "what happened?" at the same time opening my car door to get out and check the damage. We were on an incline and at the same time I opened the door, he went to shift - the car rolled back and the pole hit my door! Horns were starting to blare, so he took off trying to find a parking spot. The door wouldn't close so I was hanging on with both hands to pull the door in while my seat back was still reclined - wish I had a video. The rest of the week he had to open and close the door for me because it had to be lifted into place to close.

Bottom line - we rented on AA Citi Executive - billed $1600 - before first billing cycle they had credited us $1000 - they said they don't credit the tax portion of the bill. Oh well, my SO got $600 worth of stories out of it.

We did pick up a map from hotel lobby and marked the location and WALKED back and took pictures of the pole and intersection, along with pictures of the damage, and forwarded to Citi. Think it helped getting reimbursement.
 
smittytabb

smittytabb

Moderator
Staff member
Suzie said:
My SO backed into a pole in Switzerland with a rental car we had picked up in Milan. I had my seat back down and was snoozing. The impact woke me, I said "what happened?" at the same time opening my car door to get out and check the damage. We were on an incline and at the same time I opened the door, he went to shift - the car rolled back and the pole hit my door! Horns were starting to blare, so he took off trying to find a parking spot. The door wouldn't close so I was hanging on with both hands to pull the door in while my seat back was still reclined - wish I had a video. The rest of the week he had to open and close the door for me because it had to be lifted into place to close.

Bottom line - we rented on AA Citi Executive - billed $1600 - before first billing cycle they had credited us $1000 - they said they don't credit the tax portion of the bill. Oh well, my SO got $600 worth of stories out of it.

We did pick up a map from hotel lobby and marked the location and WALKED back and took pictures of the pole and intersection, along with pictures of the damage, and forwarded to Citi. Think it helped getting reimbursement.
Click to expand...
I think you got somewhat lucky to get the 1K. Citi is one of the banks that has lifted the exception for the "I" countries - Italy, Israel, Ireland, etc. It used to be that the CDW expressly excluded those countries.
 
Suzie

Suzie

Level 2 Member
smittytabb said:
I think you got somewhat lucky to get the 1K. Citi is one of the banks that has lifted the exception for the "I" countries - Italy, Israel, Ireland, etc. It used to be that the CDW expressly excluded those countries.
Click to expand...
It was February 2014. Putting spend on our first 100K AA card - we were lucky on a couple fronts!
 
italdesign

italdesign

Level 2 Member
Thanks for pointing me here, @raenye. Sounds like your claim went very well. I filed a claim with CSP (visa) yesterday and asked whether they will deal with the rental car company directly, they said no, they will deal with me and I need to deal with rental car company. So I'm curious how you were able to get them to work with each other.
 
S

Ski4ever

Level 2 Member
italdesign said:
Thanks for pointing me here, @raenye. Sounds like your claim went very well. I filed a claim with CSP (visa) yesterday and asked whether they will deal with the rental car company directly, they said no, they will deal with me and I need to deal with rental car company. So I'm curious how you were able to get them to work with each other.
Click to expand...
Have you tried talking to more than one person, or a supervisor? I filed a claim once with them and they communicated directly with the rental agency, came to an agreement on what they would pay and then sent me a notification that they had paid the claim. I never talked to the rental car agency.
 
ed1chandler

ed1chandler

Level 2 Member
I'll be submitting a claim later tonight and I'm a little fuzzy on how this works, so help me out here:

Assuming there's a "payable to the rental company" option, how does that work given that the rental company has already charged your credit card at that point? I mean, by the time the claims handling is done, I expect I'll have had to pay the charge on my credit card, so then what?

On the bright side, it looks like the money spent on damages earned points with the rental company!
 
italdesign

italdesign

Level 2 Member
I think the gist is to not have the charge go to your card if possible. This is possible if they bill you by mail. But what if they automatically charge your card? I'm not sure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top