Just wanted to share a bit of good news unrelated to the usual politics of the day.
I was in a car accident back in October in a rental car, not my fault. Ran over a large piece of tire that a truck blew into my lane. The truck did not stop, but I don't think that the piece of tire came off the truck but was just out in a traffic lane on the freeway. Nevertheless, my rental car was damaged and the rubber underpanel of the rental car was damaged and dragging so we had to stop. Since no one else stopped thought several cars were swerving into other lanes to avoid it, I was held responsible for the accident by my insurance company even though I was told initially that this type of thing happens all the time and I was not at fault. Nevertheless it has taken 6 months to settle this matter as I was out of town and had spent a lot of time contacting the rental car and my insurance company trying to get this matter resolved because I frequently travel and am out of town. My insurance company told me that this was not unusual with rental car companies and that if often took a long time to settle a claim. For the record, I did not purchase a dditional insurance when I rented the car since my insurance policy provided rental car coverage, however I have a $500 deductible. I also used my American Express Gold card rent the car. So six months later I found out that my insurance found me liable for the accident and the damage to the vehicle was about $1300 and they said I would receive a bill separately. So after six months I get a bill for $600; $500 for my deductible and $100 for an administrative fee from AVIS Car Rental. So since I'm out of town my husband follows up and wanted to know what the $100 admin fee was for. This led to a series of other follow up phone calls between us, and AVIS, and the insurance company. So finally a very nice lady from our insurance company called my husband and told him that the $100 was an administrative fee and they (our insurance company) would pay it. My husband asked where to mail the $500 for our deductible. The lady said that she noticed that I had put the rental car on my American Express Card. She asked had we contacted AmExp and requested that they pay my deductible. She said that she was certain that AmExp covers the deductible when you use the AmExp card to rent your car. I never knew that and I've had this card for more than 10 years, though never had a need to know, before now. She said, would you like me to send them a copy of your bill and request they pay it, and of course we said sure. She said that they usually pay up quickly and to give it a couple of days. A couple of days later, we got word that they were paying it.
I LOVE MY AMEXP CARD and have never had a problem with them. I told my husband that I was going to call AmExp to find out what other benefits they provide that I don't know about. Perhaps it was somewhere in the info when they sent me the initial application and I overlooked it but I am just thankful that the nice lady mentioned it at our insurance company, because otherwise, I would not have known. Instead I saved $500, $600 when you factor in the Admin Feen Needless to say, that was a good day and I just wanted to pass the information on to as many people as possible, since you never know what you don't know.
