Best rates for a rental car … any tips?

Rented Fox many times but not in Vegas. Service and quality always equaled or even exceeded the big guys.

Let’s be serious what car r3ntal company doesn’t have a ton of bad reviews online

When I rent a car in Vegas, I get the smallest one I can. Casino parking garages are sometimes really tight as far as maneuvering around narrow passageways.

Much prefer to use more established brands and usually have good experience with Enterprise in the States - always get told to just pick any car in whatever row the midsize cars are in.

FWIW - I also pay for a worldwide car hire insurance/CDW policy (£99 per annum) to cover all the excess charges they try to sell you.

looked a little more into this, also with other comparison sites:
there's a huge difference in pricing when you limit your liability to 300K (instead of 1 million), rates get much cheaper then.

now my question (in case someone knows): why would 300K not be enough???
like, what damage can i potentially be causing that's bigger than that?
or is there another reason i'm not seeing?

You could hit and kill a 25yo ball player who was on his way to sign a 20 mil contract with a 3 mil signing bonus.

Or if it is property only liability you crash into a multimillion dollar house setting it on fire destroying a Monet painting.

But something seems weird because the 1st $x00,000 cost much more than the next $500,000. This is because of your question. The black swan events where liability is excessive are rare. OTOH, if personal injury liability is in the picture, liking someone in an accident with resulting jury award of over $300K is not difficult to cause.

Couple of ways to address this you could try to sign up for a travel credit card providing PRIMARY coverage and decline all CDW. You could get a personal umbrella liability insurance.

But the best solution depends on your specifics. Citizenship, residency since you are not US perm resident, do you own a car? Where? Insurance (does it provide coverage?), net worth (are you effectively judgement proof?), family status, etc.

Had a discussion with my uncle recently who was driving a borrowed car that didn't have insurance. Looked it up and the standard is liability ins follows the driver, collision etc is on the specific vehicle.

I got a Chase Ink business card specifically for the rental car insurance. One of my guys has a $4k+ claim ongoing now, so I'll let you know how good that insurance actually is sometime in the near future, lol.

understood, yeah, makes sense (kind of).
it's really the potential black swan event that kicks it up, but the chance of anything happening that exceeds the 300K is very small ... but i guess it's also the legal and health system in the US, thats very different from what we have in Europe, those cases i sometimes read about where huge sums are awarded when something happens, we dont have that here.

the question is basically, do i risk a couple of hundred bucks (which is the difference if i rent lets say 2 weeks) for the very unlikely chance of something drastic happening ...

Yeah, basically in the U.S. there are too damn many lawyers. And they sue anything that moves.

Will the couple hundred bucks change your life?

Will losing a 10 million dollar lawsuit change your life?

But will $1mil of insurance change your life if you lose a $10mil lawsuit?

hehe, i guess it's like in the movies .. or even worse

Generally speaking, a savvy lawyer won't sue you for 10 mil if you don't have it. If you're only insured for 1 mill, they know you'll just go bk and they'll never collect. The big reason to have insurance is that the insurance company will send their lawyer to defend you.

Correct in the biggest advantage. And you want the insurance company to have enough pain to put up a strong fight.

But you are incorrect on the just go BK and only sue for insured amount. If the case is strong, they will sue well over insurance limit if you have assets to make it worthwhile. So you want enough coverage to insure insurance co is incentivized to put up $ for strong defense. You don’t want to make a full limit pay settlement to be less than cost of the defense

If you are worth $3mil, sued for and lose $10 mil, you can go BK but you will still be broke and BK. Creditors including claimant will take everything they can. This is one reason to leave $ in a 401K vs rolling into IRA, better creditor protections in most states

guys, pls stop ... i've had a rental in Vegas soo many times, but reading all this, next time i'll probably just walk ;-))

Me too! Calling my insurance company today to up my coverage to 100M!

is it too early to admit that i work for an insurance company???

commission check cashed ... kaaatsching ...;-)))

speaking of insurance-

In most states Amex offers premium primary insurance. It goes by the state you live in and cost like 20 bucks (varies a little by state) for the entire duration of the rental up to 30 days. You have to opt into it and use that card for the rental. I once crashed a rental and I talked to Amex once on the phone for less than 5 mins and they paid like 10k in damages without issue.

There are credit cards with high annual fees that also have primary insurance included, but if you don't have one of those the Amex insurance is great.

Never pay for the scam insurance the rental places try and sell.

I forgot about amex. Pretty sure it was them who covered a rental I totalled. Was driving on the highway in Seattle and a truck tire must have come off going the opposite way and smashed into the hood and windshield directly in front of my face. It was very scary and probably the closest I've come to death in my life. 6" higher and it would have come through the windshield into my face. It was at night and I never saw it coming or going. The only way I know it was a tire was from the tread tracks left on the hood. Crazy how much damage it did. Anyway, the point is, the card must have covered it, no problem, because I never heard a word about it after uploading all the pics and statement.