I need to rent a car at Schiphol (Amsterdam) airport next week. I figured that as the location is in the Netherlands, I’d try budget.nl first. Indeed, a very user friendly website in Dutch comes up. I happily try to book a car. It starts off smooth enough, but I soon run into trouble, as I can’t decline my CDW. Nor can I get car seats for the kids. So, I try Hertz. They do let me choose car seats, but no declining CDW there either.

So, get on the phone with the Schiphol desk. Very helpful, but it turns out that only North Americans can decline CDW, so I need to book from budget.com. And yes, not only can I decline CDW, but I also pay about half the price as I would have on budget.nl! I still need to call back tomorrow for the car seats, but it’s worth the effort for the savings.

One of these things one has to know. Would have been nice if there’d been something about CDW on budget.nl, but they probably don’t expect Dutch-speaking Canadians to land there.