I’m on my first U.S. trip in 4 years. Things are going great, and I’ll post more photos from Boston and St. Louis. I even got an complimentary upgrade to first class for my flight to St. Louis tomorrow.

In the meantime, I just want to say I will never try to use Priceline again – and let this be a warning to others.

Second, the Budget rent-a-car people don’t always know what they are doing either. But I sorted it out. 

For various reasons I decided I needed to rent a car for my week in St. Louis starting Monday.

First I went to Priceline which promises competitive search and fares. I got what seemed like a pretty good deal for $336 for 6 days, including all fees, and which also promised complete insurance coverage for all the liabilities you see checked in the photo. (I think having everything covered is important, just in case.)

Despite all those checkmarks, above that list was another box to buy insurance. But when clicking on the box it said the option was not available.

Just to be sure everything was ok, I called Priceline to confirm and they said the car was actually not covered and I should buy the insurance option. I pointed out the checkboxes but they said regardless it was  not covered.

To double-check, I called Budget and they looked up the Priceline reservation and said nothing was covered. In addition Budget said wouldn’t accept Priceline insurance because they never pay up!

Budget then offered me insurance over the phone but by the time the rep was done the total was coming to over $800!

I canceled my Priceline reservation and decided to try reserving directly from Budget online instead.

The online system at Budget said all my coverage was included at no extra cost and the total for the week was just $343.30. 

To make sure I called Budget and this time they confirmed that my direct reservation included everything. 

So my suggestion to people – especially if you reside overseas – is to just do your car rental reservation directly at site of the car agency itself. It does seem that when you enter the fact that you reside overseas that insurance all of a sudden becomes included for just a slightly higher cost.