Arnold Clark vs Celtic Legend? Excess refund from credit card?

There is no reason not to choose either Arnold Clark or Celtic Legend as far as I know. As long as everything else is the same I'd just choose the cheapest option. Can't help on excess insurance, sorry.

If I remember correctly, the no excess provided by Celtic Legend didn't include tires or undercarriage.

I couldn't find the original documents from my rental in 2023, but here is the info from the Celtic Legend website which also states it is the Arnold Clarke insurance policy you will have.

Please note: Hirers will be responsible for the full cost of repairs
or replacement in the following situations, whether excess waiver has
been purchased or not.

• Lost or damaged keys, or damage to the interior of the vehicle
• Damage to the vehicle caused by hitting low-level objects such as bridges or low branches, or damage caused by failure to pay due care
  and attention to potential hazards on the road, such as deep water or debris
• Costs following a road traffic accident where our vehicle has to be recovered from an off-road location and there is no third party
  involved,
• Customers will also be responsible for any costs incurred by putting the wrong type of fuel in the vehicle.

If I'm interpreting it correctly, your concerns about scrapes due to narrow roads, etc may not be covered by insurance even with the $0 deductible.

We’ve rented directly from Arnold Clark, but not through Celtic Legend. Hey, £8 is £8, so if you’re getting an Arnold Clark car anyway, go with the cheaper option, if everything else is the same.

As for Chase reimbursement, we’ve got a Chase British Airways VISA, not a Sapphire, but the car rental chance coverage with any Chase VISA is through a third party company, “Card Benefit Services,” whose general phone number for information is 1‑800‑253‑5664. You would want to reconfirm this with your Sapphire card, but in our case (and I believe with all Chase credit cards), to get any claim reimbursement through the VISA coverage, you have to refuse any insurance the rental company offers, and go just with the coverage provided through the card you’re using. If you had £2000 in damage, you couldn’t file for a £1000 excess clam and let the rental company cover the remaining £1000, you’d file for the entire £2000 and work with the rental company to obtain documentation to support the amount of damage.

We had a claim this past fall from a Norway rental, about $800 overall in scratches in the paint, possibly from hedges in front of a stone wall. We got a full reimbursement through the Card Benefit Services, after providing documentation, some of it e-mailed to us from Hertz Norway after we’d come home. Had we taken coverage through Hertz with some deductible or excess allowance, I understand that the Chase VISA would not have provided any coverage. In fact, we’d have been out the entire $800, as it would’ve been less than any $1000 (let alone £1000) excess.

It is the “some deductible or excess allowance” that I am trying to clarify with Chase and with Arnold Clark. All of the AC rentals include CDW with £1000 excess; there is no way to decline this. So the question is, if I had a mishap and AC charged me the excess of up to £1000, would Chase pay.

I have emailed AC asking about tire/wheel damage and branch scrapes on narrow Yorkshire roads.

It is the “some deductible or excess allowance” that I am trying to clarify with Chase and with Arnold Clark. All of the AC rentals include CDW with £1000 excess; there is no way to decline this. So the question is, if I had a mishap and AC charged me the excess of up to £1000, would Chase pay.

This is too late for the OP, but I am putting this in here just in case someone else needs this information.

I rented a car for 17 days from Arnold Clark in April of 2024, and opted to use my Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card for the purchase. I also declined the extra coverage. Arnold Clark made sure I read the paperwork that said I would be required to pay the £1000 deductible in the event of any damage.

I wound up scratching the side of the car in a National Trust car park, and when I turned it in, I had to pay £1000, which I charged to my Chase card. As soon as I could, I notified Chase Travel of the accident and my cost, and submitted all my paperwork. They had a few questions and I had to contact the rental agency to get one more document, which was promptly sent. Approximately 6-8 weeks later, I received a credit to my Chase card for the £1000 I had paid for the deductible.

So yes, Chase will reimburse someone who had to pay the deductible.

The Chase coverage really is helpful, with some peace of mind, and now there are other reports that they do provide coverage, as we experienced.

In Ireland in May 2024, Dollar rent-a-car insisted that we get their insurance coverage if we were to rent their car, but I gave them a copy of the letter that the Chase Card Benefits office provided us, verifying that we had insurance thru the card. Dollar accepted it (probably certain that the car would be heavily damaged when they got it back). and when we returned the car unscathed, we walked away, not a vinh been saddled with Dollar’s extra insurance charges. The Chase card does come through for cardholders.

Thank you, @Mardee. This is very helpful.

In the end, being risk adverse, I rented from AC (great experience; I was picked up at the York train station and taken to their hub on the north fringe, which was an easy place to start from) and paid for the zero excess, which added about $400 for the two week rental, but gave me peace of mind as I was wandering along very very narrow roads in Yorkshire and Cumbria, with stone walls a hair’s breadth away as I squeezed over to let another vehicle pass.

Alas, I did scrape a wheel on a kerb. I paid nothing upon return but I did ask the rep what would have happened if I had an excess. He said that I would have been charged the £1000 excess; he reckoned the repair / value of the damage was about £300-£350, and I would have eventually be refunded the surplus excess.

I will be renting every year in the UK for the foreseeable future, and based on your experience, will depend on my Chase Sapphire Preferred coverage rather than paying for zero excess.

Thanks again for reporting back.

MJ, you're welcome. Sorry I missed it when you first posted but I'm glad your overall experience was good. Enjoy your future trips! I love the UK and love visiting there.