Car rental deposit

Hi,

my daughter and I are taking a months holiday in in Queensland this month, flights both international and domestic are booked, hotels are sorted and we know the main sites and cost of places we want to visit.

just one bit of advice needed if anyone can help, we want to hire a car for twenty days which is ok except that when I have rented in the UK they have my card number to hold against any problems that might arise ie damage etc, but if I'm reading the Australian rental sites correctly they want to actually hold a deposit which seems to be anything up to 3k.

is there a cheaper alternative or am I missing something?

Thanks

We had to pay an $800 deposit for hiring a car when my sister was out dos we lived so close to rental depot... Apex. Some are only $100 but if you live elsewhere it may be ok. I think if we'd done zero stars it may have been ok too. Hope that helps. Apex do an online chat x

We are doing the same, but as I understood it, they simply take a print of your card. ie: swipe it but no money comes off it........unless you damage it and they got your card details already to take out the excess.

I may be wrong, but that how I read it. When are you going, we are going on the 7th August to Brisbane and returning on the 30th....very excited!!

Excess fees are very high in Aus. Our holiday insurance does cover this though, cheaper than the car hire places anyway. There doesn't seem to be stand alone excess insurance here, at least not for a sensible price.

i am pretty sure when we hired a car in QLD they did pre approve an amount on our card, which means that you do not have access to that amount as credit until they release it. It wasn't thousands though just a couple of hundred.

Thanks, yes I think like you say, you just can't touch that money in your account until they release it, have found one that seems to be very low though as long as I have 0 excess which I don't mind.

We fly over on the 11th but are doing a few days in Perth first before flying to Brisbane on the 15th and will then heading up to Hervey Bay Area for the rest of our time, and yes excited and just counting the days!