Rental cars are a must when exploring nature-filled destinations like Switzerland, Dolomites, Austria and Norway. There are several 3rd party car rental companies who give great deals like rentalcars.com, booking.com, rentalcargroup.com, kayak.com, airportcarrentals.com, discovercars.com. Certain premium travel credit cards (Amex Platinum, Capital One Venture X) also offer car rental status with major car rental companies like Hertz, Avis and Enterprise. Several academic centers (e.g., UF Health) also offer discounted rental car programs with free status for their students and faculty (https://benefits.hr.ufl.edu/support/gatorperks/transportation/).
Third party companies usually offer the following benefits which are optional when booking directly with Hertz or Avis:
- Unlimited mileage
- Collision Damage Waiver (CDW)
- Theft Protection and Waiver (TW)
- Third Party Liability
- Breakdown assistance
Which credit card to use for car rentals overseas
I typically use Chase Sapphire cards for cars rented directly from companies (e.g., Hertz or Avis) since they offer primary car rental protection and there are no country exclusions (https://awardcracker.com/premium-credit-card-travel-benefits-comparison/). I will also make sure to refuse any additional coverage offered by the agent at the rental car counter.
Whenever I get rental cars from third party websites that include CDW, I use Amex Platinum to pay for them since Amex provides secondary insurance for any damage that exceeds the primary coverage offered by the company. I have always wondered if Chase may deny claims after getting a rental car with preexisting CDW coverage.
Should I pick one car rental company and be loyal to it?
This may make sense for business travelers who get reimbursed, but I recommend others to compare prices from as many car rental companies as possible to get the best rate.
Example Rental Car Booking for Norway Trip
I am going to Lofoten, Norway in August/September 2024 and wanted to compare the rental car prices for 1 week. I used Leknes (LKN) airport for the search location and started searching on my usual rental car websites (see the images below). Enterprise did not have the Leknes airport listed, and both Avis, Hertz and Budget resulted in very high prices compared to 3rd party rental car discount websites.
Kayak.com Rental Car Comparison
I finally checked on Kayak.com and the search results showed prices of all the other rental car companies along with its own cheaper “private deal” (see the image below).
Kayak.com Rental Car Price Tracking
Kayak.com also lets you “track rental car prices“, which is not offered by other websites mentioned above. There is another website called “Autoslasher”, but I find it awkward to use since it requires you to first fill out all the rental car details and then wait for the email to arrive with prices.
Conclusion
Kayak.com is the winner from the price comparison search for Leknes, Norway which is an expensive place for rental cars. While the car rental price is still higher than I would like, I reserved the car and enabled the Kayak alerts to monitor the price.