legal notices from IdeaMerge

IdeaMerge and holiday autos serve as booking agencies representing several reputable vehicle rental companies, generally called (in relation to IdeaMerge and holiday autos) "vendors" or "suppliers". In the parlance of the travel industry, IdeaMerge and holiday autos are therefore commonly referred to as "brokers", "consolidators", or "tour operators" (even though we don't operate tours). IdeaMerge and holiday autos are rental partners. In case of a dispute between an IdeaMerge client and a vendor, both holiday autos and IdeaMerge may act as a mediator.

The vendor alone is responsible for the condition and operability of their rental vehicles/units. IdeaMerge and holiday autos are responsible, in contrast, for representing reputable vendors and for doing so accurately and with reasonable precision, thoroughness and diligence.

IdeaMerge and holiday autos strive to present straightforwardly, clearly and precisely the true total cost of a rental. Insofar as pre-payment of the true total cost's component costs is possible, the corresponding portion of the true total cost will indeed be pre-paid by the customer to holiday autos. Hence upfront IdeaMerge and holiday autos minimize the transactions that must occur — and the surprises that might occur — upon the pick-up occasion.

When you pick up your rental vehicle, you will be asked by the vendor to sign the vendor’s rental contract and agree to their terms and conditions. As such, your rental contract is with the vendor, not with IdeaMerge and not with holiday autos, and is subject to the vendor’s terms and conditions. That rental contract and those terms and conditions and any other information or documentation presented to you on the pick-up occasion by the vendor govern your rental and supersede any information or documentation presented by IdeaMerge or by holiday autos. In accordance with vehicle-rental industry standard, the vendor’s terms and conditions are subject to change without notice. Such changes are rare and the vendor is obligated to inform holiday autos in advance about such changes. Moreover, holiday autos in turn and in timely fashion endeavours to inform the affected clients about such changes.

Typically a vendor requires that a valid credit card — with available credit sufficient — be presented upon the pick-up occasion by a member of the rental party, which member must indeed be present there on that occasion and must sign said rental contract. (That credit card can indeed be different than the card that was used to pre-pay for the rental.) Otherwise the vendor will refuse to allow the rental and, moreover, will consider the rental booking to be thereby cancelled (i.e. by the customer), making the customer responsible for the applicable cancellation fee — whether such cancellation occurs upon the pick-up occasion or at an earlier time (e.g. if after booking a rental a customer alerts IdeaMerge or holiday autos or the vendor that such credit card cannot or will not be presented by the customer to the vendor upon the pick-up occasion). Debit cards, cash or travelers checks are typically not accepted in this respect. Similarly, charge cards such as American Express are often not accepted for this purpose. Regardless, more than one card cannot be used for this purpose.

Why do automobile rental vendors require such a valid credit card upon the pick-up occasion? It's essentially an industry standard. Automobile rental companies must take extra precaution when renting to a person who cannot present to them a valid credit card, because a person without a credit card is generally considered a greater credit risk than is a person with a credit card. Remember, the automobile rental company is entrusting to the customer a piece of property worth tens of thousands of dollars (US or otherwise). One car rental executive used the following analogy recently to describe the situation: "Let's say you're going to your cousin's wedding, and you need to rent a tuxedo. You can go out and rent one tomorrow, no questions asked. You can go to the wedding and destroy the rental, and you're going to be responsible for a couple hundred dollars. When you rent a car, the net worth is around $30,000. It's really just a numbers game and we need to have some way of being sure that the risk is not higher than it needs to be when we rent you a car." Increasingly, some car rental locations (in contrast to car rental companies in general) do accept debit cards for this security purpose, but in those cases they typically must therefore perform a check of the customer's credit history. (Motorhomes are on average far more expensive than cars, so it remains almost generally true that motorhome rental companies and their various rental locations (i.e. depots) do not accept debit cards, cash or travelers check or the like for the purpose of a security deposit.)

Somewhat in contrast to the vendor's terms and conditions, the rental rates and various mandatory and optional prices are, like the cancellation policy, officially agreed to by you and IdeaMerge and holiday autos when you submit a booking to IdeaMerge; in this sense they are not subject to change. If applicable, however, certain fees and taxes imposed by governments and charged by the vendor upon the pick-up or return occasion (rather than upfront by holiday autos or IdeaMerge) are of course subject to change.

In an effort to best represent holiday autos and vendors, so as to optimally benefit to our clients, IdeaMerge presents insurance information on its website. However, no insurance is provided by IdeaMerge. Rather, all the insurance and any associated loss damage waivers or reducers (or the like) connected with a rental booked via IdeaMerge are provided by holiday autos or by the vendor's insurance company or directly by the vendor. Therefore all issues related to insurance are decided by holiday autos, or the vendor's insurance company or by the vendor. Accordingly, all IdeaMerge clients agree to hold IdeaMerge harmless for any damages or losses suffered by the client, or anyone in their rental party, that relate to insurance in any way. This includes property damage and personal injury damage, among other sorts of damage or loss.

In accordance with vehicle-rental industry standard, said vendors reserve the right on any occasion (especially including the pick-up occasion) to refuse to deliver a vehicle or other product or service, whether these are already booked or not, to any customer whom they professionally consider unfit to operate the vendor's vehicle/unit or other product or whom they otherwise professionally consider as presenting too great a risk (in terms of safety, security, credit, or any other sort of risk) to the company, the company personnel, representatives of the company, or the general public, regardless of whether the customer presents such risk directly or by way of a travel partner. Such denial of vehicle, product or service terminates any existing contract the customer has in connection with that vehicle, product or service; henceforth the companies directly involved with the customer will have no liability in relation to that contract or contracts, and therefore no refund will be due to the customer.

On the other hand, a client who refuses to accept a vendor's rental vehicle upon the pick-up occasion may be classified by the vendor a pick-up day cancellation and thus would be ineligible for any refund. Of course before effecting such a cancellation the vendor would likely instead attempt to satisfy such client by modifying the state of the vehicle/unit or by switching the client to another vehicle. Such difficult situations truly are rare, yet it is prudent to hereby consider them here as being a general possibility.

In signing a rental contract with a vendor, the IdeaMerge client agrees to accept the rental vehicle directly provided to him or her on that occasion by the vendor. Therefore all IdeaMerge clients agree to hold IdeaMerge harmless for any damages or losses suffered by the client, or anyone in their rental party, that relate in any way to the condition or operability of the rental vehicle/unit provided by the IdeaMerge vendor.

Medical reasons are not considered sufficient grounds for a client to claim that an applicable cancellation fee should be waived. No waiver of such fees will be allowed; all applicable fees will be assessed. Clients who wish to limit that risk should consider purchasing travel insurance from a third-party provider.

Regarding any force majeure — e.g. an "act of God" (including but not limited to fire, flood, volcano, earthquake, storm, hurricane or other natural disaster), a labor strike (for instance, an airline workers strike) or other general labor interruption, and civil strife (including but not limited to terrorist activities, hostilities, war, embargo, blockade, travel restrictions or warnings imposed or issued by governments), or interruption or other failure of electricity or fuel supply or other civil infrastructure, or an industrial accident — which force majeure affects the client's and/or the vendor's ability to actuate the rental or merely affects their interest in doing so, both the vendor and holiday autos and IdeaMerge will reasonably and earnestly attempt to accommodate the client’s consequent schedule changes; yet no refunds for cancellations or merely for unused booked rental days (or hours) will be given and no waiver of any fees will be allowed; all applicable fees will be assessed. Especially, it is not reasonable for a client to expect the vendor or holiday autos or IdeaMerge to assume that a client whose actual pick-up is delayed (i.e. relative and in contrast to the booked pick-up date) by a force majeure (or other cause) can afford to shift futureward the return date, nor is it reasonable for the client to expect that such shift can be accommodated by the vendor. Rather, the default assumption made by the vendor and holiday autos and IdeaMerge in such cases is that the return date remains the booked return date until the client asks IdeaMerge or holiday autos or the vendor to change the booked return date and until that change is indeed confirmed to the client as being booked. Regardless, in such case the client will be charged for every vehicle rental day (or hour) that the vendor has committed to the client (in terms of the most recently confirmed booking). A force majeure has no bearing on that commitment.

IdeaMerge is not responsible for any financial loss (or gain) the client experiences in terms of foreign currency exchange.

The persons, companies and institutions named by IdeaMerge LLC are believed to be reputable and engaged in the business or service they purport to. Inclusion or exclusion of mention of a firm or organization does not necessarily signify the suitability of their services or products.

IdeaMerge LLC takes reasonably thorough measures to maintain the integrity of the information included on this website. In acting on the information provided free charge by IdeaMerge LLC you do so at your own risk and you implicitly agree that you will not hold IdeaMerge LLC, its members or its employees responsible for any bodily injury, property damage, mental anguish, other damage or loss you or your associates experience in connection with that information.