Help Please - Orlando Car Hire

willygraham

Help Please. We have booked a package holiday to Orlando with Airtours for October 2007. The holiday comes with 14 days Dollar car hire but with only basic insurance. Airtours want me to pay £240 for all the extras and LDW/CDW.
I have tried to find out how much Dollar will charge me for all the extras I need whenI collect the car at Sanford Airport. No-one seems to know.

Any Help and advice would be much appreciated.

Many Thanks

richardw

Dollar and Alamo get involved with these deals and charge a premium for the extras, and they have the longest queues to pick up your car, I know I've stood in them.

How much would a https://www.insurance4carhire.com policy cost for your circumstances?

willygraham

Thanks very much for the advice. The Policy for CDW/LDW looks reasonably priced but I fear there will be other charges :-

Airport Handling Fee
Local State taxes
Excess Waiver
Etc Etc

I contacted Dollar UK but they have been most unhelpful!

Hopefully someone out there has been in a similar situation to myself?

pompeyrich

An intermediate car including all taxes, all drivers and a tank of petrol is £263 from Airline Network for 2 weeks in October, a full size car is about £20 more, so your "free" car is anything but free. However as you have mentioned, there are more extras than that to be added and I think it would be best to pay the £240 here, airport handling fee is 9.8%, Florida state surcharge $2.00 a day, licence fee $0.47 a day, LDW around $20-$30 a day then there is EP which may include UMP uninsured motorist protection at around $13 a day and 6.5% tax on it all, plus the hassle.

willygraham

Many thanks for your advice. Perhaps you are right, maybe I would be better off accepting Airtours' all in package or hire my own car direct with Dollar or Alamo and snub the "free hire car" option from the tour operator.
Kind Regards.

Browntrout_2

I am travelling into Sanford on 2nd August and just looking at car rental deals now.

I really want to avoid excessive queuing for car hire.

Imagine leaving home 6am checkin/waiting around then sitting for ~9 hours and queuing at Immigration and then queuing at baggage then queuing another 1, 2 or 3 hours to get a blinking car!!

Really wanted a Sebring convertible but decided with 4 of us that it would too cramped luggage wise and my daughter wouldn't really appreciate getting her straight hair messed up, plus the heat, so going large...

http://www.uscarhire.co.uk/

Car type 4 x 4 / SUV
Hire type Gold Inclusive
Number of days 14

Dollar £367.00
Alamo £282.00
Budget £348.00

I think Dollar might be the way to go to avoid excessive queuing, anybody any thoughts?

master_blaster_2

im just lookin to hire a car my self for july
i will prob go with yes car hire
they say that everything you 'need' is included in the price
im looking at a 4x4 for 17 days and it is coming in at £450 ish all in

willygraham

I have booked 14 days (compact car) through Auto Europe. Total cost including all insurances, taxes & surcharges =£169.20. Airtours wanted to charge me £234 just for insurance etc!!

susan1

hi
you don't have to take the car hire from airtours. look at car hire via https://www.travel supermarket, they have complete weekly packages starting at £84. no nasty surprise extras at the airport. don't let them tell you there are. also stick to your guns and don't be persuaded to take an upgrade you don;'t want or need. they are very good at badgering weary transatlantic passengers!

bignred05

a lot of people are talking of cueing etc, we went last year
the problems of cueeing only arise if 2 or 3 planes arrive together
we where lucky we we near the front of the cues so we went straight in and out without cueing

i would advise anyone going to florida, to pre book any car hire/upgrades before arrival
when you arrive they will try and talk(they get paid on the commission they make) you into a bigger car
Again last year the first remark by the car hire people was how many suit cases we had ????
reason behind it was they might not fit into the trunk (the boot)
bearing in mind we only had 2 adults & 1 child there was plenty of room

also don't be to keen to take there offer of an upgrade for (only a few dollars more)
if they have not got your car model available, they must give you a better car for free
this again has happened to me in the past, i had already paid for the upgrade back in the UK, once we arrived they tried to sell me a bigger car
once i said no they guy said i was getting this car anyway

also be careful as to what you are paying for, one year we went to California, and the people in the car hire sold us any name driver on the car
(in other words the wife could drive the car)
slight problem there wife could not drive at all, i did not notice this till we had left the airport :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

vanilla8

Ive booked a flydrive with Virgin, but will not be taking their 'free' car.

Have booked a seperate hire car with fifteen 02 for £209, which includes taxes for 21-24 year old drivers. (in August)