My 5 Favorite Perks Offered By Any Credit Cards

Venture X Primary CDW covered a $6,000 repair for us. Was a total pain to deal with the process, but worth it in the end for sure.

Yeah, it's great to have the coverage but not great if it's too hard to use it. Would be interesting to see some sort of more methodical look at the actual claims process across all these cards for different coverages (rental, devices, trip delay).

How valuable is CDW if your regular car insurance covers it already? Tier status dillusion is a bad thing. Marriott FNCs have become less and less usable with dynamic pricing. Exactly how many authorized users might one actually have and how often might they actually travel? Sounds great but in practice not so much.

Would your regular car insurance policy have covered it?

Your response means you either
1. Don't own a car.
2. Ignorant and naive.
3. Crazy rich.

The Aspire is still pretty great even after the recent changes.

CDW is only one side of the insurance. It protects the car you're renting (with exclusions for high-end cars). Frankly, this type of insurance is very cheap.

Liability is the other side of the insurance and much more expensive. No credit card offers liability protection. Any renter who does not have a personal automobile liability policy is well advised to buy the rental agency's supplemental liability insurance, which runs ~$15 per day.

Also, Turo and similar non-traditional agencies are not considered car rental agenices by credit cards.

Great comment, Paul. I’ve never understood the fascination with the car rental insurance perks of CCs. I guess maybe if you’re renting a car on a weekly basis for work those *small* savings could add up, but otherwise just pay the $20 per day for “walk-away insurance” and have peace of mind.

Not to mention, “luxury” exclusions are pretty broad and include most nice cars.

Get out of here, Eskimo. You don’t have to be crazy rich to tolerate paying an extra $20 on a car rental.

CDW perks are overrated.

Right but the insurance offered by the rental company would have done the same thing… for a trivial daily cost.

Calling collision insurance very cheap and liability much more expensive. Do you ever pay for insurance?
Your imaginary biglaw $3M Bugatti on PS5 doesn't count.

LOL, Paul Weiss is really a juvenile with big fluff. You remind Tim Dunn of himself in middle school. At least you own your fluff and you're not claiming fluff as facts like little Timmy.

@Redacted

It's $20 per day not per rental.
Hence you fall into category 1 or 2 "Don't own a car" or "Ignorant and naive"

For someone renting cars here and there, few times a week, you don’t need a credit card with primary cdw, but for road warriors and folks who rent a lot it absolutely is worth it and the savings absolutely adds up. Liability can be covered via your own insurance (which you must have), and if you need to use liability then it means you got in to huge crash and you have more important things to worry about.

Forgive my lack of clarity. I'm not talking about the rental car agency's insurance. I'm talking about rental car coverage afforded by a person's AAA insurance, State Farm insurance, etc. Typically an annual rider is available if not already included.

I don’t think you have to be ignorant and naive to not believe in CDW benefits from a CC. I am squarely middle class, travel quite a bit and almost always pay the $20 for peace of mind. I don’t trust the CC benefits to be full proof nor do I want to deal with the aftermath of a rental wreck so I’d spend the money. I also rarely to never rent a car. I drive for a living until pandemic so avoiding a car was a positive of any vacation we took. Now I have just kept that habit unless we road trip with our dog. Each person has their preferences and your level of risk is higher than mine, I have never got a CC for CDW benefits and could careless about them I’d love cards to save money by getting rid of those instead of jacking up fees, devaluations etc

CDW can easily be more than half again as much as the car's per day cost. Say, a $48 rate for a mid-size car and $29.99 per day for CDW. So, sorry, not trivial relative to the cost of the service you're buying in the first place. Context matters.

Amex offers a policy for about 17.95 or so per rental, not per day. You have to enroll each of your cards, etc. It's been a few years that I've had it so I'm not sure what the coverage amounts are now. And perhaps the rate has gone up a buck or 2.

Chase CDW is primary so the credit card pays the damages without making a claim against your regular insurance.

Not having to make a claim means the amount you pay for your regular insurance generally won't go up whereas if you don't have CDW or the CDW is secondary it almost certainly will.

Wouldn't it have been just as easy to answer Fred's question?

Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of. That's why questions exist.

On the other hand dissing someone for asking a question, is.

Years ago someone ran into our rental car in the parking lot at Taos Ski Valley. We'd rented using the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase took care of everything without any involvement on our part. Could be the process has changed since then but it was wonderful to not have to deal with it.

Except when I need the additional four hours the Amex Platinum gives to return a car to avoid an extra days charge I always use one with Primary CDW and can't see why anyone would do otherwise given the extremely low cost of doing so (net of benefits the Venture X has effectively no annual fee).

I think this article was a bit basic and I think the benefits are equally the drawbacks. While the high hotel status provides a great benefit easily, then the benefits at the specific hotel properties have gone down and other issues come up as a result of so many people with the status. I also think the Marriott free night certificates are easier to use than IHG and in general can be used at better properties. One thing that has annoyed me about this is many properties are not charging just above the amount so you cannot use it at as good of a property as before. Some benefits that are cash value and do not divide into smaller increments are also good.

I'm sorry but all these super premium annual fee cards, when in the hands of one person, is a recipe for getting poor slowly. I don't dispute that one good premium card might pay for itself. But get all of them and you're a sucker.

The ability to scrape ice off a windscreen so that you can drive home.

One huge advantage to the Chase CDW coverage is that it is zero dollar deductible and covers rentals in nearly all countries. Furthermore CDW when purchased from the agency rarely covers glass or tires, Chae does.
I have used it to cover the loss of a totaled car in Nicaragua, radio theft in Nicaragua, coconut falling on a windshield in Costa Rica, and repair cost to repair a flat in Cyprus. The paperwork at times can be daunting but in all four cases my claims were settled.

@Steve

Unlike you, who knows the answer and the obvious reason behind it.

Anyone who doesn't know that either,
1. Don't own a car.
2. Ignorant and naive.
3. Crazy rich.

I stand by my earlier post.

Brian Kelly used it to cut cucumber once.
He's probably still high from a party.

@Paul Weiss I am in Germany now, and before we left I saw that my AAA insurance doesn't cover us for liability outside the US. But then I found that in Germany the liability is included in the rate by law. Shockingly a very nice Kia Sportage for only $500 for 2 weeks.

Also note that many credit cards don't cover even collision in Italy.

Yeah, it's great to have the coverage but not great if it's too hard to use it. Would be interesting to see some sort of more methodical look at the actual claims process across all these cards for different coverages (rental, devices, trip delay).

Would your regular car insurance policy have covered it?

Right but the insurance offered by the rental company would have done the same thing… for a trivial daily cost.

Years ago someone ran into our rental car in the parking lot at Taos Ski Valley. We'd rented using the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase took care of everything without any involvement on our part. Could be the process has changed since then but it was wonderful to not have to deal with it.

Except when I need the additional four hours the Amex Platinum gives to return a car to avoid an extra days charge I always use one with Primary CDW and can't see why anyone would do otherwise given the extremely low cost of doing so (net of benefits the Venture X has effectively no annual fee).

Your response means you either
1. Don't own a car.
2. Ignorant and naive.
3. Crazy rich.

Chase CDW is primary so the credit card pays the damages without making a claim against your regular insurance.

Not having to make a claim means the amount you pay for your regular insurance generally won't go up whereas if you don't have CDW or the CDW is secondary it almost certainly will.

Also, Turo and similar non-traditional agencies are not considered car rental agenices by credit cards.

Great comment, Paul. I’ve never understood the fascination with the car rental insurance perks of CCs. I guess maybe if you’re renting a car on a weekly basis for work those *small* savings could add up, but otherwise just pay the $20 per day for “walk-away insurance” and have peace of mind.

Not to mention, “luxury” exclusions are pretty broad and include most nice cars.

Amex offers a policy for about 17.95 or so per rental, not per day. You have to enroll each of your cards, etc. It's been a few years that I've had it so I'm not sure what the coverage amounts are now. And perhaps the rate has gone up a buck or 2.