European car rentals and other tortures

This morning I spent several hours trying to rent a car in Rome. Wow! What a pain. Some of the web sites are so clunky it drives me crazy. And, if you leave it up too long while you compare it with some other site, it times out. At one point I had finally found the car I wanted for the price I considered reasonable. So I left the page open while I checked a couple of other sites. When I got back to the first site, the Alamo company, it had timed out. When I navigated back to the page where I'd just been, they informed me that NOW all the cars available for those dates in Rome where taken. Sigh. Oh, well, I finally found a car with AVIS for less than the Alamo car. I like Alamo because they spelled out the insurance question better than anyone else. That was crucial because my credit card company will cover the insurance except for theft. Alamo clearly states that theft is built in to the weekly rate. All the other companies do not spell that out. Of course, when I called the AVIS company with the question about declining collison but adding theft, they said that theft was built in as well. More sighs. Anyway, I'm supposedly good to go now and a car will be waiting at the Rome airport when we arrive.

Today I also logged onto the Bright Roam web site to purchase the proper SIM card for our world phone. Bright Roam is a great deal because you only pay for the use of the phone. No calls means no charges. It costs just a few dollars per year to be a member. So, the phone that we bought for the U.K. will work in Italy and Greece with the necessary changeout of the SIM card. Plus, they give you a US phone number in addition to the International number so you can give your friends the US toll-free number to call you and it automatically rolls over to the international number. Very Cool! I just need to charge the phone that we haven't used since 2008 to make sure it still works. Hopefully it will.

Master Card World Card Arrives

WhooHoo, my World Master Card finally arrived. I got that card because they claim that they will cover a rental car in Italy so you can decline the very, very expensive insurance provided by the car company. All you have to do is purchase theft insurance from the car company and you're good to go. Master Card has a number of criteria you must follow, including making sure you don't rent for over 31 days, that the contract is in the name of the driver, and that you don't rent anything worth more than $50,000. But not having to buy the car company's insurance is a big benefit. Now I have to start sorting through all the hype and find a car that is large enough to carry our gear, indescript enough so no one will want to steal it, and powerful enough so it can keep up with traffic. I originally signed up with American Express to do this deal, only to find out that they don't do Italy. Are they crazy? Who wants to go anywhere else?