Dear Tripped Up,
In January 2024, my husband and I rented a car from a Thrifty agency in Sydney, Australia, waiving the insurance and instead counting on the collision damage waiver benefit from my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. We still had to put a $4,195 security deposit on the card. That same day, we were involved in an accident when a semi truck clipped a rear door, causing what we’d eventually find out was $1,929 in damage. Everyone was OK, and we got the driver’s information and provided it to Thrifty. The company said it would seek to hold the other driver responsible, but would hold on to my full security deposit in the meantime. Fast-forward to late 2025: Thrifty has kept the $4,195, and we’ve had to pay it off. We opened a claim with Chase’s benefits administrator back in 2024, but Thrifty has not provided the necessary documentation because it claims it is still going after the driver through collection agencies. In an email back-and-forth with Thrifty that has gone on for over a year, one representative told us the company can hold our full deposit for seven years from the date of the accident. Even if we got back the difference, about $2,266, we have long since passed the 365-day Chase deadline to file documentation for the $1,929 in damage. If Thrifty had just charged us for the damage and returned the rest of the deposit, we would have filed the claim and most likely been made whole long ago. Can you help? Tiffany, Aspinwall, Pa.
Dear Tiffany,
Rental car stories tend to be the most frustrating tales of travel woe, but you’ve out-woed the competition. The email chain you sent me — three dozen or so messages exchanged with a rotating cast of Thrifty staff members and collection agency representatives dating back to February 2024 — deserves consideration for the Customer Service Fail Hall of Fame.
I enjoyed the staff’s use of boilerplate language at absurd moments. “We are unable to provide a specific time frame for resolution at this time,” wrote one agent, a mere 610 days after the accident. Read the room, already!
But I was particularly appalled by Thrifty’s explanation for holding on to your full $4,195 deposit. (Like you, I’m using the values in U.S. dollars from your Chase statements to avoid confusion over fluctuating exchange rates.) A representative told you the company had done so in case the truck driver said you were at fault and claimed damage to his own vehicle. Fair enough, initially, but absurd when that driver did not respond to the increasingly urgent inquiries from Thrifty for well over a year.
Isabella Sawyer, a U.S. spokeswoman for Hertz, which owns Thrifty, said in a statement that the company understood your frustration and appreciated your patience. “Resolving liability in these situations can be complex, and in this case the combination of an unresponsive at-fault third party and geographic, time‑zone and regional complexities contributed to an extended timeline,” she added, noting that the Thrifty Australia team handled the matter “responsibly and fairly.”
Thrifty did resolve a piece of the problem without my intervention. Last October, after you and I had written back and forth a few times but before I reached out to Thrifty, a customer service supervisor intervened to make an exception and refund the $2,266 difference between the full deposit and the amount of the damage.
But you, not the company, deserve 99 percent of the credit there. Your persistence paid off, and I think your threats to file complaints with the Australian authorities helped.
I may have a solution for the remaining $1,929.
Thrifty has now sent you that invoice you long sought, meaning you finally have what you need to complete your claim with Chase. The problem: We’re a year beyond the 365-day deadline that coverage imposes for submitting the required documentation. Here’s the language I found in the Chase Sapphire Preferred benefits guide: Your waiver “does not apply” if “all required documentation has not been received within 365 days after the date of the incident.”
In my experience, the fine print in insurance policies is written very deliberately and followed to the letter. Covered for buffalo attacks? Then you’d better hope you’re in South Asia, Africa or a zoo, because those majestic beasts roaming the Great Plains — and occasionally denting cars — are technically bison.
But I saw a ray of hope in Chase’s responses to the initial claim you filed. It turns out you filed that claim late as well — more than 120 days after the accident. But instead of rejecting it outright, the adjuster requested that you document “the reason for submitting your claim form outside of the required time frame.”
If the 120-day deadline was flexible, presumably the 365-day deadline is as well, right?
A spokeswoman for Chase, Elizabeth Janis, said, essentially, yes. “A claim will not be denied solely because it took more than 365 days to receive the supporting documentation, provided all other terms and conditions of the coverage are met,” she wrote.
Even better news: Late last week, Chase called to let you know you didn’t even need to file the documentation. They are crediting your account $2,000, and Ms. Janis wrote to tell me the phrase “or as soon as reasonably possible” has been added to the 365-day documentation deadline.
I wrote to Jason Schreier, the chief executive of Aegis General Insurance Company’s travel division, to see if insurance underwriters are typically flexible in this way. He pointed me to language in the policies Aegis offers that builds in such flexibility, adding language like “or as soon as reasonably possible” to its mention of deadlines.
So future victims of swerving Australian truck drivers, unswerving corporate bureaucracy or even buffalo (or bison) should still file their claims even if they miss official deadlines, as should travelers elsewhere whose efforts to document rental accidents run into delays.
The accident, by the way, took place two years ago today. I wonder if the truck driver even remembers it.
If you need advice about a best-laid travel plan that went awry, send an email to [email protected].
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Seth Kugel is the columnist for “Tripped Up,” an advice column that helps readers navigate the often confusing world of travel.
The post Help! A Semi Clipped Our Rental Car, and We’re Out $4,195. appeared first on New York Times.
