Priceline Car Rental ??s

Hello!

I have a couple of questions for anyone who's used Priceline for a rental car.

We need a car with insurance (Not getting insurance isn't an option.). If we rent through the Alamo website, the insurance is $22/day, which would be quite costly for our 7 day rental. At Priceline, the insurance is only $11/day. Here's my questions...

1. If I have a rental through Priceline, can I still use the Kiosk? (It may be worth the extra cost for us to avoid lines and use the kiosk.)

2. If an accident does happen, is the Priceline insurance just as good as the insurance that Alamo offers? (On our last trip, we had a flat tire on our vehicle and it was pretty quick/easy to get that taken care of with the full coverage from Alamo.)

Thanks to anyone who can help.

I suggest you read the fine print on both as what is covered may vary.

I believe you don't need insurance to have a flat fixed - the rental company should take care of it.

Re: our flat tire

When we called in the problem, they went through our rental contract to make sure we had insurance. I don't know if they'd have taken care of it without, but it sure sounded like that was the case. When they found out we had insurance, they exchanged our car for a different one.

Do you have AAA? That would cover stuff like flat tires and lock outs. Don't forget that credit cards often offer some type of insurance on rental cars too.

The rental car company bears the expense of ordinary wear and tear. If a windshield catches a rock on an interstate and cracks, the rental car company pays. If the windshield, headlights, and foglights are all busted out because the renter drives the car in an off-road race where it gets pelted with rocks for a couple hours, the driver (or possibly his or her insurer, depending on their policy) pays. Same thing with flat tires.

Now, that's not to say that a slick rental car company may try to shirk paying having to pay when the renter returns the car. The company may take advantage of the renter's uncertainty, particularly if the renter didn't buy coverage from the company.

Unless a renter does something unusual to cause the flat (peel out, drive crazy fast, use railroad tracks as a shortcut), a flat is considered ordinary wear and tear and attributable to the rental company.

I use Priceline all the time and get really good rates when I make a bid. For example, I got a rental car in Florida for $10 a day. However, the taxes and such doubled the amount I had to pay, but it was still a good deal.

Flat tires are handled by the rental company; you don't need the full insurance for that. I had a flat tire in a rental about 120 miles from the rental lot. They sent a tow truck to put on the spare and then I had to go to some Firestone dealer they had a deal with to get the tire repaired as it was too far to drive back on the little donut spare tire. I bitched and moaned to get some compensation for my time.

Thanks so much for the responses, everyone but my main question/concern is if I can still use the kiosk at Alamo with a Priceline reservation. I REALLY don't want to waste my time in a long line and I'm spoiled by just using the kiosk for a quick in/out.