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In the years leading up to the pandemic, I easily accumulated 30 to 40 rentals a year. Most of them were one day rentals, some more, but almost all of them were from a couple of different rental agencies in LA. I was primarily renting from Sixt and Hertz and both were located within walking distance of my house. I’d gotten in the habit of doing a quick walk around, and since they grew to know me, I’d fallen in the bad habit of not photographing the exterior or odometer. This bad habit, like most any, came back to bite me in the long run. Here’s an example of how an after hours drop off turned into a protracted ordeal, made worse by Covid.
Always photograph the odometer
I recently rented two sets of cars from Sixt at the London Heathrow Terminal 5 branch. It’s super convenient and had been offering exceptionally attractive deals. On this past trip we had two separate rentals – the first was a bmw 3 series we landed for less than $50 a day, and the second was a Peugeot that, for some reason, was pricing at $150 for the day.
I’m not sure what was going on that specific day, but every rental was 4 or 5x what it was on any other, and we had to have a car to visit a friend near the Cotswolds. The first rental worked like clock work, we rented, we drove, we returned, all was well.
We rented the second car for a single day, drove it there and back, dropped it off after hours, and thought nothing of it. I couldn’t have put more than 200 miles on the car. Then I got the bill.
- We rented the car at 11am
- We returned the at 10pm
- That’s 11 hours
I was being charged for driving an extra 790 miles OVER the 300 miles permitted. That meant they were asserting we had driven 1100 in 11 hours. Clearly an error had occurred.
I emailed 4 times. Sixt phone numbers don’t work and the only recourse is email or, what I found out after the 4th email, you could use your profile to start a ticket.
You can create a ticket by going to Manage Bookings
Then report an issue
Then select the issue…
You’ll then receive the following ticket
I was unsure how this would be resolved. I didn’t take any pictures and had no physical proof of my claim. The only thing that was on my side was the math – it was impossible to have driven that much, and clearly a mistake had occurred. After filing the ticket, within a couple of days, I received the following email:
Had I failed to hear from them, I would have contacted my credit card company and asked for a stop payment to be issued on the overage charge.
Overall:
Ultimately, Sixt did the right thing and corrected the mistake, albeit it took far too much effort on my behalf. It was a good lesson for me to learn: I should always photograph the odometer and take exterior/interior pictures when renting any car. A lesson I should already know and preach to others, but had gotten lazy on doing for myself.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.