Airport parking warning: How being too precise can cost you £££s 13 October 2016 at 5:31PM edited 20 October 2016 at 3:16PM in Flights, currency & car hire 7 replies 3.1K views

MSE_Luke

'Airport parking can be cheap if booked ahead. But you risk big charges if you overstay due to a delayed return flight – though there's a trick to get round this...'

Read MSE Guy's full blog: 'Airport parking warning: How being too precise can cost you £££s'[URL="http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/team-blog/2016/10/13/airport-parking-warning-how-being-too-precise-can-cost-you-s/][/URL]

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gloriouslyhappy

Thanks for this - my budget charter airline has a history of changing times so followed your advice and booked exit time right up til last half hour of allowance, giving me / them 14 hours after scheduled arrival.

Barny1979

Hardly rocket science, when booking airport parking, I play around with the quotes and see how much extra time I get for "free" so as to give as much wriggle-room as possible if flights are delayed or changed.

Harizo

Advice needed please. We haven't flown for many years!

We are flying out from Luton at 1450 on 28th Oct so I've set the arrival time at 1200.
We land at 1845 on 4th Oct but as suggested set the return date/time to 1200 on 5th Oct.(Makes no difference to price).

However, the best priced parking is the Airparks run car park which has an automated system. From what I understand you drop keys into a box and enter your booking ref etc. On return you follow a similar process for the release of your keys and they tell you where the car is parked.

My concern is this statement on the website
'If you return early, you will need to contact the car park directly to give them as much notice as possible. If you don't, there may be a delay before you get your car back. We can't offer you a refund for any booked parking that you don't use'.

Using the suggested timings for in/out we will be considerably early.

What do you suggest?
Many thanks

Harizo

Have just found this on Airparks website....

'If you need to park for longer than your booking you have a grace period of until midnight of the day you booked up to. After that it’s £15 per 24 hours'.

So I guess I could put 1930 or 2000? (flight lands at 1845)

DCFC79

Harizo wrote: »

Advice needed please. We haven't flown for many years!

We are flying out from Luton at 1450 on 28th Oct so I've set the arrival time at 1200.
We land at 1845 on 4th Oct but as suggested set the return date/time to 1200 on 5th Oct.(Makes no difference to price).

However, the best priced parking is the Airparks run car park which has an automated system. From what I understand you drop keys into a box and enter your booking ref etc. On return you follow a similar process for the release of your keys and they tell you where the car is parked.

My concern is this statement on the website
'If you return early, you will need to contact the car park directly to give them as much notice as possible. If you don't, there may be a delay before you get your car back. We can't offer you a refund for any booked parking that you don't use'.

Using the suggested timings for in/out we will be considerably early.

What do you suggest?
Many thanks

Maybe its me but im confused, you mention 28th october then you say 4th and the 5th, are going out on the 4th and coming back 5th ?

mikeeboy

I've always used up the 24 hrs so nothing new for me, but good advice anyway.

I am, however always scared of flight time changes. The earlier you pay for parking the better the rate but you're at the mercy of your airline not changing the flight time.

What do you think is a safe distance out from your flight that you can book parking?

Frozen_up_north

I don’t know about other airports, but the “on site” parking at Leeds Bradford (operated by the airport themselves) is priced per 24 hours from your requested arrival time/date, not per calendar day.

If your return flight is delayed or cancelled, additional days are charged at around £5 per 24 hours in the long stay and quite a lot more in the premium car parks.