Hacker News Reader

Comment by mstade | Hacker News Reader

Amex has two great perks that justifies the cost for me:

- Excellent travel insurance

- 15-20% discount on car rentals with Hertz and Avis, priority service including complimentary upgrades, and no extra fees for super cover

Additionally their fraud detection and customer service is great. If my card is stolen or there are unauthorized transactions, they'll sort it out immediately and get Anne's card in your hands within the day. As a European who travels a lot in Europe and across the Atlantic, there's no other card that offers the same.

Then there's all the rest, VIP access, airport lounges, concierge service etc. Those are nice extras.

I pay everything on my Amex. Some smaller shops don't take Amex, but most places I've been seem to accept it. The few times I have to fall back to a Visa or MC I struggle to recall the pin.

View on HN

What about the scummy car rental insurance? Does Amex cover that?

If you decline the car rental company's insurance and charge the rental fee to your Amex, then Amex has a free car rental insurance plan. It's essentially secondary to any other coverage you carry, so if you wreck a rental car and already carry collision insurance, then it hits your coverage first and the Amex plan just pays your deductible.

They've also got an opt-in plan where any time you rent a car with your card they charge you a $25 flat free, and then that buys you coverage that runs primary so you don't have to claim against your own car insurance at all.

This was actually one of the reasons I ended up getting the Reserve card - it includes primary car rental insurance for no extra fee.

Yes, this is what I meant by super cover. Essentially you just rent without any additional coverage and Amex will cover anything not covered by the rental agency's insurance. This saves a good $20/day at least, meaning if you rent cars for just a few weeks per year the fee will be worth it, when considering the discount as well. I've racked up about 7-8 weeks of car rental so far since New Years, and thanks to Amex I saved a bunch of money on it, probably more than the fee.

Another good feature is I've sometimes had to return the cars in different cities, and every time they waived the fee because of the preferred status as a card carrying member. These things add up for sure.

As far as I know, the insurance also works with any agency, so not just Avis and Hertz, so there's money to save even if you go for a more "fun" agency like Sixt, with nicer cars.

Disclaimer: You'll want to verify all this with Amex though, but this is what I've been told and what I've read in the ToS.

This is pretty much spot-on. One thing, though, it's rental cars; that is, it doesn't cover trucks.

Got burnt by that last summer when I wrecked a rented truck (on my AmEx Platinum) on vacation for the girlfriend's birthday. :/

That's good to know, thanks! Although I wonder if that's universal, because the definition of truck is probably different in different countries. Care to share more of your experience?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com