UKC

I've just tried to book flights to Barbados next summer (I like warm rain and swimming with turtles) return flight from Manchester £845 each .....
return flight from Manchester with Car hire included £705 each
So I can save £140 per person just by getting car hire included (and saving myself another $500 getting the car locally).

I'm not sure I fully understand how the travel industry works!

In reply to cander:

The agent will get a kickback from the car hire company. This will be funded by the excess-on-the-spot penalty charges charged to your credit card when you return your hire car with too much / not enough fuel, to many / not enough miles driven, the scratch on the bumper that was already there...

In reply to ByEek:

I don't have to take the hire car, I can get to the airport take a taxi to the beach and I still get the cheaper price.

Being fair - if you're daft enough not to fully check a hire car for scratches / dents before you sign the hire docs you're being naive, and I'm pretty sure I know how to fill a petrol tank so I don't think that explains it.

In reply to cander:


Car hire is a common theme on the Radio 4 consumer programme You and Yours. The tricks used by the industry to extort money go way beyond taking advantage of the naive. However, you are right to be flummoxed by the idea that it is cheaper to buy a ticket which includes a whole lot more.

In reply to cander:

I hire several cars a year. Before I drive off I spend 5 mins taking pics of each panel/area/wheels/inside before I drive off in it. Any problems, just get the pic up on the camera when you return it, zoom into the area in question, problem solved.

In reply to ByEek:

I've just booked a return flight to Johannesburg with an onward internal flight to Nelspruit. Looked on a price comparison website and got a quote for £831 with South African Airways. Decided to ring SAA direct as I wanted to clarify whether the 2 hour connection time at J'oburg was adequate for immigration and transfer if the incoming London flight was delayed. They said it might be tight. So I asked them to reconfirm the price for the flight I had seen and a later connection flight. Both came back at £960. I told them about the price comparison flight quote and she said she would double check on her computer.

A few mins later she came back with £832 for either flight, saying there was only one seat left for each of the Nelspruit flights! For the sake of £1 I booked the whole flight with her with the later connection but what goes on with these airlines? If I hadn't mentioned the price comparison flight quote I would have believed the price was £960 as she didn't volunteer the cheaper flight without being prompted.

In reply to Removed User:

Oddly enough using Explorer 9 at work the new site isn't showing so I'm still on old format UKC ... however you can assume I pressed the "like" button. I will do this in future

In reply to Removed User:

You can avoid a lot of this hassel by taking out excess insurance with insurance4carhire.

In reply to cander:

There could be a couple of things going on:
1. The airline's fare rules will be more flexible if the flight is included in an "opaque" package - meaning you don't know the cost of the flight, you only know the total cost of the package.
2. The travel agency will get a bigger kick-back from the car hire than from the flight. Selling flights is basically a loss-leader for a lot of travel agents.

In reply to Removed User:

I prefer the vagueness of the big biro cross they scrawl on the forms. A friend of mine once rented a car, pointed out a barely visible blemish on the door panel, drove off, scraped the door coming out of a multi-storey car park and returned the car without having to pay a thing.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

Yeah the travel agent was keen to see if she could offer a complete package including accomodation, but wasn't able to match the price we'd found by going direct to the owner.

In reply to Removed User:


I also often hire cars. Photos are a good idea, but what I always do is check the car very carefully and then - if there's any damage, no matter how minor - go and bring hire company staff and make them mark it on the form before I drive off.

In reply to Trangia:


But that doesn't avoid the hassle of the hire company making a large deduction on your credit card if there's any damage.

I posted my way of avoiding hassle a couple of minutes ago.

In reply to abseil:


Agreed saves a lot of hassle, but insurance4carhire will still refund you if the hire company take it from your credit card.

It's also important to check for interior damage, spare wheel (inflated?) and tool kit including jack! And things like high viz jackets, warning triangle etc in countries where these are compulsory. I always have my head torch handy for night time arrivals and car pick up.

In reply to Trangia:



About "insurance4carhire", thanks for that, seems a good idea.

About interior damage - good point!

In reply to cander:

Not sure about your experience, but apparently if you log onto Google incognito and book flights it's generally cheaper. God knows how and why, and I haven't tried it as I keep forgetting to.

In reply to Tony the Blade:

That's an excellent suggestion. I've tried deleting cookies before and definitely noticed suspicious goings-on but it's a faff and I hadn't realised it would be much easier using incognito.

In reply to Tony the Blade:


They are playing the classic sales pitch buy now and get a deal. Buy later and you risk losing that deal. I note that Laterooms now tell you how long ago it was when someone last booked a particular hotel and how many rooms are left. I am not sure I believe what they say though.

In reply to cander:

I've not tried this for flights. but when booking a car I get the usual online quotes then ring Avis to see if they will price match. Last time they went through a long list of promotions they had going and it turned out that as a BA executive club member I got 50% discount. As a result my Avis-supplied car was cheaper than all of the dodgy spanish outfits operating from Mallorca airport.

In reply to Tony the Blade:

I often wonder .... is it because cookies track your visits to the website and if you start looking at flights they recognise your return visit and start increasing the price to try and get you to bite? I've looked at flights from a different computer for example at work and the price is still the lower initial price.

In reply to ByEek:


Just by way of balance, having hired quite a few cars from the big brands and small local outfits over the years I've not yet been scammed nor had to pay for damage including on a couple of occasions where I have actually damaged the car. They're not all crooks or at least not all of the time.

The only time I've ever had any problem was with a 'not full' brimmed fuel tank which I duly topped up with about 16 cents worth of fuel and returned the car with the receipt. Easier than arguing when you don't share a language.

jk

In reply to jkarran:
Back to flights, Anyone any ideas how to get cheaper business/1st flights?
Virgin upper on Z class is good

In reply to cander:

Don't forget to delete any cookies before looking up a given connection for the second time on websites like expedia, or even consider using two different computers for cross-checking different portals.

Apparently, a second search for the same flight indicates to them that you have already made up your mind and will fly, so they assume that you will also book at a more expensive price.

Reading about this in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung saved me about two hundred euros for a single flight to Toulouse just last month: First check, cheap price on offer, but limited availability, second check after discussing details with daughter, cheap offer gone, third offer after deleting cookies, cheap offer magically available again...

Christian

In reply to cb294:

People like this conspiracy theory, but if you clicked on the cheap offer you may well have blocked it for yourself, then this block was released after a period of time...

Neil

In reply to cb294:


This has happened to me more times than I can remember (a lot anyway) - booking for myself, and others) and I find it very frustrating. So thanks a lot for the helpful tip about deleting cookies. My usual method is to check on one computer, then book on another when the decision is made.

In reply to cander:

You might like this

youtube.com/watch?v=ZAg0lUYHHFc&