car hire in USA and nyc hotels.

greenman09

Hi
im not sure where to post this anymore as the other forum isnt used anymore,
im looking for your recommendations on where to book car hire. whats sites do you use? do they accept irish visa debit for paymen?.
in terms of hotels, do you have a preferred site you book through? usually use booking.com as ye dont pay til checkout on hotels, but sure its best to have all the options.

thanks

coylemj

I think you need a regular credit card for car hire in US and most other countries. The reason is so that they have a way to charge you after the event e.g. for petrol top-up or damage to the vehicle.

If you don't buy full (comprehensive) cover with no excess, they will usually reserve money on your credit card the same way a lot of hotels do when you check in, they do this to protect themselves in case you blow your CC limit on holidays and bring the car back damaged. The only way a car hire company can do something similar with a debit card is to charge you the full excess when you collect the car and most people wouldn't have enough money in their current a/c to handle this.

InTheTrees

For hiring a car in the US you can use a debit card but it needs to have a Visa, Mastercard or other big card issuer logo on it.

Laser cards wont work.

ProudDUB

OP, it is very hard to hire a car in the US with just a debit card. As others have said, if you do damage to the car, they can charge it to a credit card. They can't if all you have is a debit card. I lived in the US until last year. None of the major car hire firms (Avis, Hertz, Budget etc) would rent a car to me unless I had a major credit card. The one company that did was Enterprise, and they needed A LOT of information from me that the average Irish tourist would not have before they would give me the car.

They needed to see not just my US drivers license, but also two house hold bills that had my address on them to verify where I lived. They called my car insurance company to verify that I had car insurance at that address, and they also wanted two personal references, who they called there and then in front of me to verify who I was. Hard to see how the average tourist could meet those requirements.

That is just my experience as a person living there. If you booked and paid for it with an Irish travel agent or a website that accepts debit cards, you may be able to do it, but I'd check the small print of the payment terms and conditions of it all before I booked anything if I were you.

athtrasna

A quick search in this forum will provide answers to both questions OP. Resisting the urge to repeat myself

InTheTrees

InTheTrees wrote: »

For hiring a car in the US you can use a debit card but it needs to have a Visa, Mastercard or other big card issuer logo on it.

Laser cards wont work.

I tried to delete this message of mine but couldnt.

While what I wrote may be true in a few states( all states are slightly different in laws) ProudDub's experience is more usual.

Best to check first whether a debit card is acceptable with the Company AND in the State you're visiting.

chillywilly

I am heading to San Fran next Sunday and renting a car driving down the west coast to LA. After trawling the internet and I found out that National car hire accept debit cards and all they require is your flight itinerary (ie. proof that you have a return flight). I think they take the whole amount that you owe then take a further 15% of premium as deposit.

Ring them directly to be sure though (as I did), as different states/cities may have different rules.

Have a good time in NY, I love that city!