Car hire at Brisbane airport without a credit card?

[bellebellec 10]

Hi all & Happy Christmas!

 

Wonder if anyone would be able to help me? We are trying to hire a car from Brisbane airport but it appears we need a credit card to do so. As we have now sold our house we cancelled all credit cards and now only have visa debit cards for our main current account in the UK.

 

We dont want to open credit card account here as there is no point! Can anyone recommend a car hire company at Brisbane airport that will hire me a car using a visa debit card instead?

 

Thanks for your help!

[THORPES 307]

Hi

I am not sure if they still do but when we came in November 2010 we used East Coast car rentals. They accepted our debit card.

x

[Xenon4017 102]

I _think_ a debit card will be ok. It needs to have a 16 digit number against which they can charge tolls, etc. We've used our Nab debit card as such. Needs to be on the Visa or Mastercard scheme though.

[bellebellec 10]

Thanks to both replies, it appears UK visa debit is ok as 2 car hire companies have now contacted me saying they are happy with UK debit cards. Apex and Brisbane budget rentals.

Thanks for the advice!

[Bobbsy 778]

We got round this by going to our UK bank (Barclays as it happened) and getting a "Visa Travel Card'. Basically it works like a credit card but you "charge" it by putting money onto to card before you spend it. This was accepted by the hire car company and the hotel we stayed in for the first couple of nights.

 

The one caveat--put enough on the card to cover all your needs. We found it was impossible to recharge it from Australia (but you lose nothing by putting money on the card since you can spend it like cash as required once the initial reasons for the card are over. Be aware that both hire car companies and hotels put a hold on more than the final bill is expected to be then release any left overs back to you.