A traveler who used his American Express card’s collision damage waiver got stuck paying nearly $1,300 because of a missing document. Whose fault was it?
Dear Tripped Up,
In April 2024, my wife and I reserved a one-day car rental to travel from Lisbon to the Shrine of Fátima, about an hour north. We made the reservation through Enterprise, but it turned out to be with Guerin, a partner. I declined the optional collision damage waiver because my American Express card includes a similar waiver as a benefit if I pay with the card. At some point during the trip, the rear of the car was damaged — I’m not sure how — and Guerin charged me 1,205 euros, then worth just under $1,300. That May, I filed a claim with AMEX Assurance for reimbursement. Among the documents it requested was an “itemized repair estimate,” but despite my repeated requests, Guerin did not provide one. American Express closed my case in August, though I was told it could be reopened. I continued to try, but by November, I had given up on Guerin and started trying Enterprise in the United States. I called eight times, speaking to eight different representatives between Nov. 4 and Dec. 9, but no one ever got back to me. Can you help? Steven, Nashville
Dear Steven,
I know from painful experience that cajoling a foreign rental car agency to produce the documentation most U.S. credit card benefit programs require can be maddening. And we are not alone. Let’s add another example that landed in the Tripped Up inbox soon after yours. In March 2024, Troy from Philadelphia rented a vehicle from Europcar in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, declining the insurance as recommended by his Barclays-issued American Airlines Mastercard. He damaged the car to the tune of $1,671, which seemed to include both the repair and the agency’s “loss of use” while the car was out of service.
His claim was handled by Sedgwick, a third-party administrator, which asked him to provide an itemized repair estimate and, later, a fleet log to corroborate the dates the car was out of service. According to a trove of email exchanges he sent me, both he and Sedgwick staff pressured Europcar for months to provide the documents, to no avail.
I couldn’t quite figure out how to divide up the fault here: Does it lie with the insurance companies for requiring too much documentation, or the car rental agencies for failing to provide it? So I tried to contact everyone: Guerin, Enterprise and Amex (which owns AMEX Assurance) for your case, and Europcar, Barclays and Sedgwick for Troy’s.
Let’s start with you, Steven. Though Guerin never responded to my emails, Enterprise did. Michael Wilmering, a spokesman, emailed to let me know the company had now reached out to you to provide the requested itemized repair estimate, “which was not available upon his initial request,” he wrote. (I know you made far more than an “initial” request, but we’ll get to that later.)
“While international differences in insurance and repair documentation can create complexities, we are committed to doing our best to assist travelers in navigating these requirements,” he continued.
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