Car rental abroad: credit card or debit card?

This is a nasty surprise many travelers renting a car abroad encounter.

After booking (and often paying for) a car online, you go to the agency to pick it up.

Since you took the mandatory minimum insurance, the rental company asks for a bank hold for the amount of the deductible (to be able to charge repair costs if you have a problem during your rental.

Nothing unusual so far.

The drama occurs when the rental agent explains that you absolutely must present a credit card while you have a debit card.

In France, we don’t make much difference and we use a misnomer to refer to our payment cards as credit card whereas the vast majority of our cards are debit card.

Read this article to see how to tell the difference between a credit card and a debit card.

I don’t know the exact reason behind it, but for the rental company, they are certain they can recover the deposit from a credit card, much less from a debit card.

If you don’t have a credit card to present, you’re stuck. You aren’t going to give up the rental because you’ve already paid for it. The only solution is to take out the insurance that buys out the deductible amount. And the cost of this insurance can double, or even more, the initial rental amount!

Traveler forums and Facebook groups are full of outraged testimonials. Forewarned is forearmed: have a credit card with you!

For my part, I have two credit cards:

• A card American Express Air France Gold which has the advantage of being 100% free the first year (free can be negotiated afterwards, I’ve been using it for free for 4 years…). However, check that the rental company accepts American Express cards, generally it does, but there may be a few exceptions.
• A card Accor Pay which has the advantage of being a Visa card that will be accepted everywhere. The first card in the range costs €54 / year, but there are often offers to get it free for one year.