CONCLUSION UPDATE! Currently in Spain and had a car accident with rental car. Guidance please?

All of this is going to come down to the fine print of each contract or offer. The Chase documentation is available to print. You will normally pay any damage valuations directly to the rental agency and then get reimbursed by the credit card company, subject to the terms of their offer.

The Renault brand is not excluded, although rules exclude some large or "luxury" vehicles.

It also does not sound familiar that your credit card would not already have been charged the basic rental fee when you picked up the car.

Have you gotten a police report? That might not be necessary if nobody else was involved, but every bit of paperwork helps.

Does the car need repair before you can continue driving? The rental agency has to direct that and would usually give you a replacement car. Did you make use of roadside assistance offered by the rental agency?

Thank you for your reply, it was very comforting. We did make use of the roadside assistance and the car was towed to a garage. We had the police called to file a report. It was a single car accident with a sidewalk pole! With further reading SWA Chase Visa mentions exotic cars, but doesn't list Renault, which isn't exotic. Hertz is providing a replacement tomorrow morning.

We were very unclear as to what we had to do while in Spain, but it seems like everything is handled upon our return to USA. We are going to try to continue to have a great rest of our vacation.

I'm so sorry to hear about your unfortunate car accident. Rental vehicles seem to offer that extra "flexibility" over public transport until something like this happens.

I don't do rental vehicles in Europe unless I absolutely positively have to. And if I have to - then I make sure it's covered BEFORE I set out driving. Thanks for providing a valuable lesson to all those travelers contemplating a rental vehicle.

It sounds like all your processes are in order. Just save the paperwork in order to make the claim. The Chase info also recommended taking a couple of photos.

For what it's worth, we used the rental car coverage provided by Chase Slate Visa in Canada a few years ago. My husband backed into a retaining wall in a crowded parking lot one night. We called Visa the next morning, they were extremely helpful and told us exactly what to do. We followed their directions exactly, and it ended up costing us nothing.

Trying to switch credit cards after an accident might create more problems than it solves.

Amex may not take kindly to being your card of choice after a loss occurs. Its kind of like buying insurance on your home the morning after it burned to the ground and asking the agent to back date the coverage

Terms and conditions:
https://usa.visa.com/support/consumer/card-benefits/consumer-auto-rental-collision-damage-waiver.html

What types of rental vehicles are not covered?

The following vehicles are not covered by Auto Rental CDW: expensive,
exotic, and antique automobiles; certain vans; vehicles that have an
open cargo bed; trucks; motorcycles, mopeds, and motorbikes;
limousines; and recreational vehicles.

• Examples of excluded expensive or exotic automobiles include: the
Aston Martin, Bentley, Bricklin, Daimler, DeLorean, Excalibur,
Ferrari, Jensen, Lamborghini, Lotus, Maserati, Porsche, and Rolls
Royce. However, selected models of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac, and
Lincoln are covered.

• An antique automobile is defined as any vehicle over twenty (20)
years old or any vehicle that has not been manufactured for ten (10)
years or more.

• Vans are not covered, with the exception of those manufactured and
designed specifically as small group transportation vehicles (for a
maximum of eight (8) people including the driver).

A Renault doesn't seem to be a generic exotic or expensive vehicle.

How do I make sure my Auto Rental CDW benefit is in effect?

To be sure you are covered, take the following steps when you rent a
vehicle:

1. Initiate and complete the entire rental transaction with your eligible Visa card.

1. Decline the auto rental company’s collision damage waiver (CDW/LDW) option or similar provision.

If you attempt to change credit cards then you will have zero coverage -- neither card will pay. So leave the charge where it is.

There may have ben a misunderstanding with the car brand and coverage, unless they meant no cars are covered at all in Spain.

When we inquired about Chase Explorer Card coverage on damage the rental company was charging us for causing on a U.S.-based rental, Chase wanted:
1) Copy of the monthly billing statement verifying the rental transaction.
2) Copy of any correspondence from rental company outlining charges from the loss.
3) Police report and/or auto rental company accident report.
4) Additional items listed below, which were provided by the rental company.

Chase sent a form which we filled out. Initial notification must be made within 60 days of damage, but there was additional time to get documentation together. Sounds like you have taken the correct first steps

I had to ask the rental company to provide Chase with:
1) Copy of initial auto rental agreement
2) Copy of finalized auto rental agreement
3) Itemized estimate of repair or repair bill
4) Two photographs of the damaged vehicle
5) Copy of their supporting documents

Hold onto every scrap of paper/ email until the claim is settled.

I can't comment on the Chase claim service, since when I wrote to the rental company I challenged the damage, referring to the initial rental agreement which showed that their agent had noted damage in the disputed area of the car when we picked it up and the rental company dropped its claim. But the Chase insurance people seemed to be on top of everything.

Sorry this happened to you. AMEX has a clause that you have to pay for the entire rental with your card, or did last time I used it. Definitely read the fine print and don't split rental charges between cards.

Are you asking about the supplemental insurance offered by Am Ex for a fee or standard cover from Am Exp. Actually think the one time fee for the supplemental from AE is worth it and a no brainer when renting.

I keep an Amex just for the premium $20 insurance coverage when renting a car.

But you can't change credit cards now!

If you have a picture of the car it proves it's not exotic.

Also provide the credit card company with a copy of your rental agreement. If the agreement says you booked a full-sized, compact car, small SUV, etc. you've got a good argument that it's not some sort of luxury car, even if the customer service rep you talked to hasn't heard of the brand and wants to call it fancy.

In the fine print of the credit card insurance, there's often a dollar threshold they used to split luxury from non-luxury, and I'm looking at the Renault UK web site right now (it's in English and probably fairly similar to Spain offerings) and they've only got one car listed there- Koleos SUV- that has a MSRP of more than $30K are current exchange rates, and even the Koleos should be under that threshold.

Do come back and keep us posted. This is a critical and frequently asked question with very little first hand experience so it would be big service to this site to continue to report on your first hand experience with your credit card company. You can even vent a little and we will be sympathetic. Good luck.

PS Am interested in knowing if you will be charge for the time the car is out of service. That frequently pops up in the US with damaged rental cars.

Thank you for all the supportive and helpful comments.

UPDATE!
Originally we picked the car up in Sevilla. The accident was in Granada. We were given a replacement car the next day in Granada. In Granada they said the replacement went under the original rental contract. We returned the car yesterday in Seville like the original contract. Nervous as to the cost of the damage they would quote. When the agent said do we agree to the estimate of 600 euros we couldn't sign fast enough. We were expecting thousands, like it would have been in the states. They did charge us for gas in the accident vehicle, which is understandable. Also, the original rental terms did hold true. So no added one way fee.
I will update after we go through the credit card company on our return to US.

Call back. You got an idiot agent who probably decided "since I don't know what Renault is it must be exotic". It's not and Chase will cover it.

If they try the "loss of use" just tell them you will pay it AFTER they send you all the logs proving that ALL the other cars in that class were rented while they were repairing your car. (Been there done that, Hertz shut up and went away!)