My credit card saved me thousands when I got in a rental car accident

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• I was charged $2,500 for damages on my rental car, and I didn't have insurance — just my credit card reimbursement.
• Getting the charges reimbursed took a long time, but after several weeks I was fully reimbursed.
• Getting insurance through the rental company would have cost far more.

On our last night in Costa Rica, just 90 minutes before our flight home, my partner and I pulled up to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car at the San José airport with a huge gash on the left side of our rental car. And I'd declined the rental company's collision insurance.

Luckily, I had rental car insurance through my Chase Freedom credit card. I'd already notified Enterprise of the accident when it happened, so I naively assumed we could just drop off the car and rush to the airport, and Enterprise would contact me later to take care of everything.

Instead, I ended up in the Enterprise office for 45 minutes, drawing Kindergarten-level sketches of the accident and writing out my account of what happened. They told me I'd have to complete all the documentation there, and then I'd have to wait for them to make copies for me to send to my insurance. They told me I wouldn't be able to gather these copies by phone or email. I wish I had gotten there early enough to make sure I got everything I needed for insurance because, as I later found out, they were right.

I always use my credit card for rental cars

We barely made it on our flight, and as we took off, I felt my stomach drop thinking about how I'd just been charged $2,500 for damages. What if my credit card didn't reimburse me?

I make it a point to book rental cars on a credit card with a rental car insurance benefit so I can decline the rental car company's collision insurance and save money while still being covered. Collision damage waivers can cost $15 to $30 a day, and they often come with a deductible, which is how much you have to pay out of pocket before the insurance will even kick in. Overall, they're not a great deal.

I saved $250 on my rental car reservation this time by declining the collision damage waiver. In Costa Rica, you're legally required to have both the collision waiver and third-party liability coverage when you rent a car, but you can get the former waived by showing the rental car company proof of coverage. I called Chase the day before I left and had card benefit services email me a letter verifying that I'm covered as I pay for the car using my Chase Freedom card.

I've done this dozens of times while traveling abroad and probably saved thousands of dollars in total, but I've never had to actually use my credit card's rental car insurance — until this trip.

I spent hours trying to get everything to file a claim

Three days before the end of our trip, my partner and I were stuck in traffic in the vibrant Caribbean surf town of Puerto Viejo, just blocks from our vacation rental. The streets were narrow, and while I was stopped in a line of traffic waiting to cross the bridge, a guy driving a massive delivery truck tried to pass me and turn where there wasn't room. The back corner of the truck scraped into the side of my rental car. I immediately put the car in park, hopped out to flag him down, and let him know he hit my car.

Even the most difficult exams I took in college Spanish couldn't compare to the way the next three hours tested my language skills. I called Enterprise first to explain what happened. They then sent me on a wild goose chase to find traffic police — different from criminal police in Costa Rica — to cite the incident. The closest traffic police officer was three hours away.

While I waited with the delivery driver, Enterprise also had me playing phone tag with several different insurance agencies to get one of their agents to come out and document the incident. I tried my best in a second language to understand what was being said, explain the accident, and make sure everything was documented accurately; I knew I'd need all of these forms to file a claim with my credit card.

I missed one essential document

When I got home from Costa Rica, I started the claims process with my credit card immediately so I could be reimbursed for the $2,500 charge before my credit card bill was due. I needed several documents, including an accident report, the rental agency's statement of claim, my car rental agreement, a repair estimate, two photographs of the damaged vehicle, and my billing statement showing that the entire rental transaction was charged to my Chase Freedom card.

Thankfully, I'd taken a few photos and a document from the police. I also uploaded everything I had gotten from Enterprise. However, I had rushed out of there to catch my flight so quickly, I'd forgotten to grab a final rental car agreement.

I spent the next month trying to track it down. My online account only showed U.S. rental agreements. It was hard to get anyone to answer the phone at the Costa Rican Enterprise office I rented from, and when I did, they would give me an email address to contact that didn't work. I called the U.S. Enterprise number several times and was told they would email me my final rental agreement, but it would take a while because they had to translate it. After the third try, I finally got it in my email several days later.

My claim was still being processed a few days before my credit card bill was due, so I called Chase and explained the situation. They agreed to dispute the charge from Enterprise until my claim was processed so I wouldn't have to cover it in the meantime.

Just when I thought I'd completed everything, my claim agent called to say they still needed a police report. Apparently, the piece of paper the police officer handed me was a citation, not a police report. If it was this hard to get ahold of Enterprise in Costa Rica, I couldn't imagine how I would get ahold of the police department and track down that report.

I spent the next couple of weeks trying to contact Enterprise to see if they had the report, and then I tried my claim agent again, who said they could also try to track down the report. A week later, I got an email saying my claim had been approved. I'm not sure who tracked down that police report — if anyone — but I'm glad it didn't have to be me. They deposited the full $2,500 into my bank account a few days later, and I used it to pay off the charge.

Getting insurance through my rental company would have been easy — but it would have been expensive

There were several moments where I wished I'd just gotten the rental car company's insurance — when I almost missed my flight, when I saw the receipt for the $2,500 charge and worried I wouldn't get reimbursed, when I was attempting to wade through Costa Rican bureaucracy with my less-than-perfect Spanish, and when I was told I'd have to somehow track down a random cop on the Caribbean side of the country who had filed my report.

It was a headache, but it was worth it. Not only did I save $250 on my reservation, but I saved another $1,000 I would've had to pay to cover the deductible on the rental car company's insurance. That's not even counting all the money I've saved over the years on rental cars I didn't damage. I'd do it all over again, except this time I'd show up to the airport with plenty of time to gather documentation, and I'd brush up on insurance vocab in the local language.