So, I have waited to post this until our car rental period is over so we could enjoy our trip and not dwell on the problem. It happened in Portugal but it could just as easily happen elsewhere.
I typically rent cars thru AutoEurope and typically the vendor is Europcar. For a rental in Portugal I was having difficulty with a one way rental so I used Gemut. The car was to be picked up in Sintra with a prepaid voucher. I used my husband’s AMEX since he is the driver. When we went to pick up the car at Europcar, our AMEX was being “rejected”. In order for any insurance to apply to possible damages, all charges need to be made on the original AMEX. We also tried my AMEX and it didn’t work either. I called AMEX and they said they were showing no rejections or attempts on the card. In fact, the card reader at Europcar was saying “invalid merchant”. Except staff was saying they do take AMEX and showed their computer screen that said something like “denied”. I called Autoeurope and Europcar and both said AMEX is a acceptable form of payment and they couldn’t help. I called GEMUT which I thought had 24 hour service. I waited an hour for them to return the call but finally after pressure from Europcar, I used a different card. They said it would not affect the insurance (they are wrong) An hour or so later, GEMUT called and said, all charges needed to go on the same card, the one with the insurance. At that point , we were 2 hours from Sintra on a Friday. Gemut, said we need to go to a Europcar and resolve. There were no Europcars in that part of Portugal and it was now a weekend. Sunday night, we were told to go to Coimbra Monday morning to apply the charge to the correct card. They provided the address, which ended up wrong as Coimbra Europcar had moved. Hence we walked a mile after parking the car to the new location where we were told Europcar and Autoeurope called and they could absolutely not change the card. So nothing could be done. They did say our liability for any issues would be no more than $1000. So, that was good, I guess?. We only had a short time in Coimbra to begin with and the extra 2 miles in a hilly town did not improve the status of my bum knees. So we were a bit cranky in Coimbra (as was the ticket guy at the university library when we arrived 7 minutes late)
We drove the car (extra carefully and with a bit of anxiety until we arrived to return the car in Braga at the end of the rental period. (Which BTW, THE nicest rental car folks,ever)
So, here’s the question, we had a prepaid voucher. That was fixed and couldn’t be changed. AMEX said the problem wasn’t on their end, nothing was coming thru. Europcar in Sintra, was saying it was AMEX, which, BTW, I have a separate AMEX account and neither cards would go thru in Europecar’s system. Somehow per GEMUT and AutoEurope the problem was ours to solve. Their resolutions wouldn’t work because other locations wouldn’t process the card. To me, the easy solution would have been for Europcar to put out the $30 or so bucks per day for the full coverage insurance, but since I reserved thru GEMUT it was theirs to resolve per Europcar.
UGG, thank goodness nothing happened and we were mentally able to not stress much, the whole situation gives me pause. What to do for future? Not sure I want to do a prepaid voucher again. Also, when I get home, I will find out if this was an AMEX issue or Europcar(most likely). I will also get another card, perhaps Capitalone with car rental insurance.
Please, this is not a rant. We are having fun.(currently in Porto). Just wanting to post what I think is an perplexing issue that might help others.