This did what we needed
Written: Aug 10 '09 (Updated Aug 10 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Worked well in supporting multiple rentals for a major event, free collision insurance, quick setup
Cons: Some difficulty in figuring out insurance benefits
The Bottom Line: Visa was there when we needed them. This account worked well. Migration of AMEX accounts to Visa accounts will continue.
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| Saxguy's Full Review: Visa Fleet Card |
In July, my day job organization held a major event in New Orleans. We needed an ability to rent 70+ vehicles, mostly cars and vans, with some specialty vehicles for up to a week and a half. Obviously, we needed a charging solution to fund the agreement we made with Enterprise Rent A Car and a few specialty vendors.
Initially, we had asked our current corporate card vendor, the American Express Corporate Card to provide a fleet agreement. While their standard corporate card does provide a low-cost insurance benefit, there are issues when the cardholder making the charge is not the primary driver. AMEX took their time sending us an agreement, which was 9 pages long. We reviewed it with our CFO and General Counsel, and approved it. A week later and with less than 2 months to go, AMEX refused to honor the agreement saying that our rep had sent us the wrong agreement and now we needed to sign a different one. At that moment, we asked our Visa provider, UMB Bank, if they were willing to establish a fleet account with Visa.
Well, as has usually been a case, they found a way to do what we needed quickly. We discussed their standard terms and they said that if we agreed to them, there would be no need to sign the agreement. The terms were very fair in terms of validating that all drivers were authorized in writing and had current US drivers' licenses. It really was that easy. Better yet, they were willing to provide collision damage insurance on passenger vehicles AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE.
Set up was very easy. We established the fleet account as a "ghost" account, meaning that we had an account number issued for multiple charges but that there was no physical card. We did have the option of getting cards under the agreements, but we had one head of the transportation team and it was useful for us and for Enterprise for him to be the focal point on the charging. We used this account only for the rentals, making separate arrangements outside this account for the fuel costs. Had we gotten individual cards, we could have specified what charges (such as fuel and repairs) would be allowed and we had the ability to select vendors for allowing charges.
The rental arrangements worked smoothly and well. We had originally specified only Enterprise as an allowed vendor, so some charges with a specialty vendor were originally declined. A phone call to our contact at UMB fixed that problem within 5 minutes. Visa's billing, which has been a slight concern on our small group of travelers with Visa cards, was not a concern on the rentals. We were able to follow and document the charges.
The one difficulty was in understanding the insurance program. There was no problem with collision insurance on passenger vehicles and standard vans. However, We were renting a couple of specialty vehicles to transport disabled guests and needed to know whether to purchase collision coverage separately for those vehicles. I sunk about 15 minutes into the 800 number for Visa insurance. It took me a couple of transfers to get to someone who actually knew about the kind of specialty vehicles we were renting. He needed more information than I had, so I encouraged a 3-way conversation between Visa's insurance unit, Enterprise and our on-site manager. I was told it was worked out to our satisfaction.
So, the account did what we needed and was set up quickly. I can enthusiastically recommend the Visa Fleet Card.
Thanks for reading. God bless!
I have a new live CD out, samples are on my profile page.
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Recommended:
Yes
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