www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Two years ago I rented a car (Daihatsu) from Budget in Jaco with no problems except for the $1000 deposit on my credit card. Budget told me that it would only be 24 hours and they would release the hold but it was more like 4 days and that really cut into my play money. Can anyone recommend a car rental agency in Jaco that will take a cash deposit or wont hold the deposit of more than 2 days. Just looking to rent a car for one or two days. Thanks

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A car moves your body, a Harley moves your soul.

They will all take a large deposit here. Some may take less if you purchase their full insurance. I have had bad experiences with both Budget and Thrifty in SJO. So far Alamo has been good to me. A few weeks ago Alamo's deposit was $1000.00 however I do not take their insurance as my Amex will cover the car.

The deposit is an authorization only on the CC. Merchants can not release these, they release or fall off after x number of days when there is not a sale processed against the authorization. The time I believe varies by the card type but it generally is around five days.

Bill

Just curious but why do you need the authorization to be removed after 2 days? Are you using a credit card in CR? That's not very smart. Besides the international transaction and currency exchange fees, there is a lot of CC fraud there (that's why they usually ask for ID when using CC). I almost never charge there. And I only use bank ATM's, not the ones in stores or restaurants. They rig them to copy your number and clean out your account.

Put the car authorization on a different card that you won't be using in CR. Make sure you call the card company ahead of time and give them your trip dates and location, so they don't freeze your account if the car rental tries to authorize a deposit.

I always put car rentals on Amex because of the insurance coverage. I would be leery of giving a tico a cash deposit. On Amex if anything goes wrong you can charge it back, most Amex credit limits are large enough where a couple days hold is not an issue.

Your are right Orange, The credit card I use only has a $1500 limit and I only use it to reserve and pay for hotel rooms and air fair I pay cash for every thing else. My last trip was 10 days 4 in Jaco and 6 in SJ I was hoping the $1000 hold would be off my card by the time I got back to SJ so I could use it to pay for the room. I wound up having to pay cash for the room. I do have a bank card that I use to pull out cash and like you said I never use the ATM's in the hotels, stores or restaurants. Sound like I need to get a AMX card.

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A car moves your body, a Harley moves your soul.