Florida package holiday free car hire how free is free

bez2345

Hi All

Sadly its come to that time of life when my youngest has gone on and on about Florida and we are now looking to bite the bullet and do a second trip there.

The big question I have is this time looking around for flights and hotels is the most of the big names are offering free car hire and have scrapped transfers from the airport to hotel, however when you start the booking process you seem to get sideswiped with a lot of additional charges for something that is being advertised as free.

Has anyone booked a package holiday to Florida and used the free car hire and all it has cost them is the refilling the tank back to the level they collected the car or has it cost them a lot of extra dollars and the joys of a car hire company holding onto your credit card details.

pompeyrich

bez2345 wrote: »

Hi All

Sadly its come to that time of life when my youngest has gone on and on about Florida and we are now looking to bite the bullet and do a second trip there.

The big question I have is this time looking around for flights and hotels is the most of the big names are offering free car hire and have scrapped transfers from the airport to hotel, however when you start the booking process you seem to get sideswiped with a lot of additional charges for something that is being advertised as free.

Has anyone booked a package holiday to Florida and used the free car hire and all it has cost them is the refilling the tank back to the level they collected the car or has it cost them a lot of extra dollars and the joys of a car hire company holding onto your credit card details.

In my experience the car is "free" but it will only have the basic insurance and you can insure it with the tour operator/package provider for a fee of at least £25 a day, they will also provide the smallest car for your party which might be too small for all your bags and stuff.

I have never used the "free car" and have managed to get a "full size" or SUV type car, fully insured and extras such as airport fees, tax etc. included for less money than the insurance packages available through Thomson/Virgin etc.

best bet is to do a dummy booking for your circumstances and take it through to the car bit and see what extras they suggest/recommend and work out if it's better than a deal from a UK car hire supplier.

Backbiter

My experience is the same as pompeyrich's. You will get a better deal if you ignore the 'free' car and book your own independently. We once had to pay a fee to Virgin to cancel the 'free' car, but we were still significantly better off paying that fee and hiring a car ourselves.

_steve66

Agree with others, never had a "free" car that didn't come with catches.

That being said, have often booked a car with BA (maybe others) if I didn't want to pay for the flights upfront.

Flights only = pay now
Flights + car = package = pay deposit now and rest 5 weeks before departure date. :T

isplumm

_steve66 wrote: »

Agree with others, never had a "free" car that didn't come with catches.

That being said, have often booked a car with BA (maybe others) if I didn't want to pay for the flights upfront.

Flights only = pay now
Flights + car = package = pay deposit now and rest 5 weeks before departure date. :T

Hi

If you use BA to book your holiday - so car + flight etc, then you should get a discount - we managed to get almost a free hotel in Barcelona compared to do it separate ...

Mark

NiftyDigits

bez2345 wrote: »

Hi All

Sadly its come to that time of life when my youngest has gone on and on about Florida and we are now looking to bite the bullet and do a second trip there.

The big question I have is this time looking around for flights and hotels is the most of the big names are offering free car hire and have scrapped transfers from the airport to hotel, however when you start the booking process you seem to get sideswiped with a lot of additional charges for something that is being advertised as free.

Has anyone booked a package holiday to Florida and used the free car hire and all it has cost them is the refilling the tank back to the level they collected the car or has it cost them a lot of extra dollars and the joys of a car hire company holding onto your credit card details.

It's not really as the others here suggest. As you know you can pay a few more pounds to upgrade to the car that you want at the time of booking.
As long as you don't need to put an extra Driver on the booking, you just can buy your own standalone insurance package, therefore avoiding the ridiculously expensive package offered.

Two options here:

Daily or Annual Worldwide (inc. CDW & SLI) from BetterSafe.

Annual CDW & SLI for the Americas including Worldwide Excess Protection from Insurance4CarHire.

Remembering to go in via Quidco.

Both policies fully insure, contrary to what the salesperson on the ground might try to tell you whilst trying to sell you an expensive package.

There may be some local taxes to pay, but that's it.

Click here to read about someone who did just this.

Of course check how much your 'free car' is costing, by doing a dummy booking without a car, to see if it is really free.
Then you can compare costs with doing the Fly Drive thing or booking a car separately with someone else.