Ah, credit cards. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, there are times when they are just an outright necessity.
Before we left on our big RTW trip, getting a credit card organised for T was one of the many annoying things we had to do. He’s the driver in our pairing (I hate driving and don’t have my full licence) but had never had a credit card of his own. He didn’t go to uni, so he never had banks offering him sweet deals on overdrafts and credit cards on campus during orientation.
Ironically, as it turned out, he didn’t even need it. Yes, car rental companies require you to show a credit card in the name of the driver when you turn up, but we prebooked through CarHirePlanet, which took a small deposit early on and then charged the full amount a couple of weeks before pickup, strangely. I had used my credit card to make the booking, so at no point was any part of the rental charged to his. And of course, when we picked up the car there was no balance owing, and the terms of the booking meant we were fully insured with a zero excess so even if we had an accident there would be nothing to pay.
When we popped over to Australia last week, although I booked through the same site, things were categorically different with this particular Cairns rental company. The excess would be $3300 (yikes) and payment was to be made on pickup using a card in the driver’s name. Debit cards incurred an extra fee and of course require you to actually have the full amount available in your account. It’s one thing to have a few grand of credit placed on hold; another entirely when it’s a few grand of your own cash being held hostage.
We’d cancelled his credit card when we got back to NZ, and with so little time before we actually left for Australia (last minute trip!) and the fact he’s currently between jobs, the odds of him getting a credit card with a high enough limit were not looking good.
The solution: an additional credit card for him linked to my Visa. This is different from a joint credit card – this means as the primary card holder I remain responsible for the account. The process was relatively quick and easy and his card arrived just in time a couple of days before we departed.
While I’m not loving the idea of paying another $12 in annual fees for his card, you never know when you might need it – and I reckon it’s easier to have one on hand than to find yourself scrambling for one. We’ll probably keep this one this time around.
