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It probably has nothing to do with getting the car back.

It’s probably to avoid lending the car to higher risk demographics.

It’s a test.

The rental car company basically loses fewer cars overall and thus has lower insurance premiums, and thus can offer cars cheaper than other rental companies that do not require a credit card (if any even still exist?) that have higher premiums to pay.

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That’s the most likely theory as far as I can tell: While a credit card doesn’t make it more likely to get the money back in case the customer does run away with the car, it’s probably less likely for high-risk customers to even have a credit card.

Which unfortunately creates all kinds of false-positives, like making it very hard for tourists from countries where credit cards are not commonly used to rent a car…

It does but I assume the loss of business from foreign customers still is less than the cost of losing cars.

That said, you’d think they’ve considered exceptions based on your passport?

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