Car hire catch

We've been hiring cars on holiday for many years. Back in the old days, we'd hire what we called a 'monkey car' - we'd find a small, independent hire company and hire the cheapest, crappiest car they had. It was an inexpensive way to explore and get to the places that public transport couldn't get you. 

Our monkey car in Crete, 2003!

As time went on and we had the kids, our requirements naturally changed. We wanted four doors, lots of boot space, booster seats and a generally safer, more reliable ride. Of course, with these extra expectations came extra costs, but it was still worth hiring a car for a few days for a bit of exploring (especially given the trials and tribulations of taking young children on public transport). 

Our Chevy (or was it a Chrysler? It began with a C!) in Florida, 2008

More recently, since we started booking holidays independently rather than booking packages, we've realised that it makes sense to hire a car for a week from the airport. It often works out cheaper than a shuttle transfer (and much cheaper than a taxi) - plus, not only can you drive yourself to the hotel without having to hang around, but you also have use of a car for the whole time you're away (and don't have to waste a morning wandering around looking for the best-value hire place!). 

But what you often don't realise until you pick up your hire car is that insurance is a whole extra cost. Many times we've seen that comprehensive insurance is included and thought we've got a good deal, but then found out that the excess is something ridiculous like £3,000. They will then offer you an upgrade to the insurance to bring the excess down to zero - but this usually costs close to or more than the hire itself. Even worse, certain things like windscreen and tyres are often excluded from the policy - but of course you can take out an additional policy to cover you for these. In short, you are faced with a Sophie's choice - you either pay out another £100 or more for peace of mind or you take the risk and spend the whole holiday praying you don't damage the car and end up spending more than the cost of your holiday. 

We've got used to paying the extra amount over the years, trying to remember to add it mentally to the hire cost right from the start. But earlier this year, during my surprise birthday trip to Sorrento (see Sorrento out of season), Lee thought that the extra insurance was just too expensive and decided not to pay it. He figured that he'd make sure he drove extra carefully and we'd be fine - after all, we drive at home every day without damaging our cars. How many accidents have we had in 20-odd years? What were the chances of an accident in the four days we were in Italy? (Yes, I know, with our record you'd think we'd have been a bit more concerned...) It soon turned out to be a bad decision - not because we did damage the car (I know - who'd have thought it?!) but because we spent the whole holiday worrying that we might. We may have been driving carefully but that didn't mean that anyone else was. Anyone who's been to Italy, particularly Naples, will know that the standard of driving is on a par with Mo from Driving School (remember her?) crossed with Lewis Hamilton. Let's just say that our Amalfi Coast drive was a somewhat hair-raising experience, and not because we'd hired a convertible. Needless to say, despite having turned out (sort of) okay in the end, we decided to pay the extra insurance in the future. 

Playing at Audrey Hepburn on the Amalfi Coast, with our already-filthy car

We didn't escape confetti and silly string all over the car as part of a local festival...

Then a couple of months ago we had a conversation I wish we'd had years ago with a friend who travels regularly for work. He told us that you could get a policy before you travel to cover you for insurance excess - and of course this policy costs a fraction of those they sell you at the hire company, despite offering the same benefits. Why didn't we know this? Why had we never thought to find out if it was possible? We looked into it and it's pretty straightforward. Lots of companies offer similar policies. You can either buy a single-trip policy, to cover you for a holiday, or, if you hire a car more than once a year, an annual policy for not a whole lot more than single-trip cover. In the end, for our upcoming trip to Salou, we opted for a single-trip policy with iCarhireinsurance.com for £23, as we're unlikely to hire a car again for another year - although I desperately wish we'd known about this before we went to Sorrento... 

We've been using price comparison websites for years for car and house insurance - you'd think we'd have thought before about something similar for hire cars. It makes sense - how else can hire companies afford to charge so little sometimes for car hire (we've actually seen car hire for less than £5 a day!)? They make their money through commission on the overpriced insurance. It's not a scam, it's not illegal, it's probably not even immoral; it's no different to car insurance companies hiking up their price when it's time to renew your policy - they're banking on you not bothering to check out alternatives. We're not caught out with our insurance at home, but we've clearly been caught out for years when hiring cars. And if we, who go abroad regularly and hire cars most years, didn't know about this, I figure there's a reasonable chance that a lot of other people don't know about it either. So I feel it is my duty to let everyone know about car hire insurance, and hopefully save you some money or stress (or both) when hiring a car. Of course, a potential consequence of people knowing about getting independent insurance is that hire companies will start putting up their prices to make up for the loss of commission. So feel free to spread this around - just not too far, eh?!

Monarch mayhem

In September last year, we booked our holiday for this October half-term. Yes, I know, it's taking being prepared to the limit, but we learned long ago that if you want cheap flights during school holidays, the earlier you book the better. We would have loved to continue our yearly trips to the Bitacora in Tenerife but we had to accept that, even with advance booking, we weren't going to be able to afford it a fourth year running - flights to the Canaries are always expensive and the hotel isn't cheap either. Instead, we managed to find an absolute bargain to Menorca - the flights were half what we'd been paying to Tenerife and the hotel, despite being four star and having great reviews on Trip Advisor, was actually pretty cheap too.

We should have known it was too good to be true - a couple of weeks after booking, the news was full of reports about Monarch being about to go bankrupt. Although we had booked with Travel Republic, our flights were with Monarch, and we held our breath. Then they were given a year's reprieve and we started breathing again. It didn't take us long to realise that it perhaps wasn't actually the best news. We were ATOL-protected, so if they had gone bust we would have been able to get our money back and still had plenty of time to book another (hopefully) cheap holiday. Instead, the moment of truth was going to come just a couple of weeks before our holiday. Still, there was nothing we could do about it except cross our fingers. We heard nothing more about it, Monarch seemed to be doing okay, and we pretty much forgot about it over the next year.

Then a couple of weeks ago we received an email from Travel Republic: our hotel had decided to close early - the day before we were supposed to leave, specifically. They had allocated us another hotel for our last night - also all-inclusive, also four star and also in a one-bedroom apartment. However, it was also right across the other side of the island and had much worse reviews on Trip Advisor than our original hotel. Still, it was only for one night - it wouldn't matter too much if the hotel wasn't as nice. What would matter, however, was the fact that we would effectively lose a day of our holiday. Instead of spending our last day on an excursion or relaxing by the pool (weather permitting), we would spend it packing, checking out, driving, checking in, unpacking and generally hanging around. We were just glad that we had booked a hire car - how on earth would we have got from one hotel to the other otherwise? Not to mention any potential difficulties in getting back to the airport if we had already booked transfers from the other hotel. Still, there was nothing that could be done. It was no one's fault (except the hotel's, but I was trying really hard not to hold it against them). In the great scheme of things, it was no big deal. We would just try to treat it like an adventure and the chance to try another hotel.

It wasn't the first time we'd been bumped in October. It may be half-term but it's also the end of season, and lots of hotels, restaurants and bars are already closed. The first time it happened was the year we got married - we had booked a bog-standard hotel in Crete and ended up being moved to a five-star hotel a couple of weeks before the holiday, as our original hotel had decided not to stay open until the end of October. We were pretty happy about that one. It happened again in Turkey a few years ago, although I think we were given a little more notice this time. The hotels seemed much of a muchness, they were in the same resort and it didn't have too much of an impact. This time was the first time it was due to happen in the middle of a holiday but never mind - at least we were going to stay in our nice hotel for the majority of the holiday. Plus it would make for a bumping blog post...

We should have realised that that wouldn't be it - this was a Sennett Holiday after all - but so caught up were we in the 'excitement' of the hotel change that we forgot all about Monarch. That was, until we went to the pub with friends last week. 'What are you going to do about your holiday?' they asked. We looked at them blankly. 'Monarch?' they prompted. We realised their year was up and, judging by the reports all over the news (which we had been oblivious to), it wasn't looking good for them. We checked the internet before bed - the midnight deadline was gone but there was no more news. We tried to remain hopeful. The next morning the news was not good - Monarch was no more. All flights and holidays were cancelled, those already on holiday were currently stranded and anyone without ATOL or ABTA protection was screwed.

Luckily, because we had booked a flight-plus holiday with Travel Republic, we knew we wouldn't lose our money. But we had no idea where we stood in terms of a holiday. Would they simply transfer us onto other flights? How was the accommodation affected? If we had to book another holiday, would there be anything affordable - and would we receive any refund in time to pay for it? And what about all those other things we had booked - car hire, airport parking and airport hotel?

It took a while to get some answers. Travel Republic were a little slow at putting out a statement, leading me to ask for one via Twitter and Facebook. Once the statement was out, it became clear that we could choose between a refund or an alternative, but it still wasn't entirely clear whether the holiday could be directly transferred to a suitable alternative (as had been going to happen with our hotel) or whether we would have to pay any extra. I managed to set up some correspondence via Facebook and via the customer support request on the website, and soon found out it was the latter. Fair enough - except there were no affordable alternatives. As I mentioned previously, the earlier you book the better when it comes to half-term flights. Booking less than three weeks before half-term - not to mention the fact that all the other airlines were quickly taking advantage of the Monarch situation - meant that the prices were extortionate. If we had still wanted to go to Menorca and stay in our original hotel(s), it would have cost us nearly another £1,000 to fly there. We started looking at other packages but everything seemed to be well out of our price range. A lovely client offered us use of a flat in Malta, but the flights were almost as much as our whole all-inclusive holiday had cost. We started thinking about a cottage in the UK somewhere but even they weren't that cheap. Add on food and days out - because lying on the beach wasn't going to cut it in sunny England - and we were paying almost as much as for our four-star hotel in Menorca, but with a lot less for our money.

We had miserably resigned ourselves to not going on holiday (the first October half-term in fourteen years!) when Lee had an idea. The current political situation in Spain, with regard to Catalonian independence, is pretty unstable - would that have transferred to the price of flights to Catalonia? Sure enough, a quick search on Travel Republic demonstrated that we could fly to Barcelona for not much more than we had paid a year ago for flights to Menorca. Catalonia was the only affordable alternative. They weren't the best-timed flights and they were with an airline we'd never heard of (Vueling, anyone?) but they were just about affordable. We found a few all-inclusive hotels in Salou that had space and plumped for the one with the best reviews. A double room with no balcony, on top of the flights, would have brought the holiday cost to about the same as our original holiday. Unfortunately, we didn't fancy sitting in the bathroom of an evening once the kids were in bed, so we decided we were willing to pay a little extra for a two-bedroom apartment (there weren't any one-bedroom options!). Overall, this holiday was going to be a little more expensive, but not too much - we just felt lucky that we had found something.

Of course, finding an alternative holiday was only half of it - we still had to work out how to transfer the old one across. I tried the trusty Facebook messenger and sent a message via their website, but soon got itchy feet. I tried to phone but after well over half an hour on hold I gave up. In the afternoon, with still no word on Facebook or the website, I tried to phone again - I couldn't even get through to 'hold' this time, and spent an hour listening over and over again to the engaged tone. We started to worry. There were lots of other people in our boat - what if they'd all discovered the same alternative as us? What if it had run out by the time we got through or what if the price had doubled? We decided the only 'safe' option was to book the holiday now and then try to get our refund. Luckily, however, a live chat window popped up while we were trying to book. The very nice man I 'spoke' to confirmed that our plan would work, and told us that he would cancel the original holiday for us and issue a refund. Success!

So where are we now, a week later, and with less than two weeks to go until the actual holiday? Well, Holiday Inn, with whom we had booked a no-longer-needed room at Luton airport, are in my very good books - despite us having booked at the no-cancellation rate, they have still given us a refund. I'm still waiting to hear from Holiday Extras, with whom we booked our airport parking, as to whether we can transfer our Luton booking to Gatwick, and whether it will cost us any extra. We've cancelled our car hire, which we didn't have to pay until we got there, but are yet to book a car for Barcelona. We received a random refund from Travel Republic for £182 today - we're yet to receive the rest (or understand where the figure of £182 comes from) and in the meantime we have a pretty whopping credit card bill ahead of us. The kids would really like to go to Port Aventura, the Disney-style theme park near Salou (and, if I'm honest, so would I) but this is another £200+ that we hadn't been planning on spending. Oh yes, and there's a reasonable chance of civil war breaking out at our new holiday destination, resulting in another cancellation or maybe just some interesting demonstrations while we're out there.

So what have we learnt? ATOL is very important, boys and girls - you never know what's around the corner. And next year maybe we will just stick with our tried-and-tested Bitacora in Tenerife, despite the cost - with any luck, British Airways aren't about to go under any time soon, and, unlike Menorca, Tenerife stays open all year round. In the meantime, I suspect there may be more October holiday disasters just around the corner...!

UPDATE
We now have all our money refunded by Travel Republic (minus a £10 ATOL fee I didn't realise we'd paid but I'm bloody glad we did!). Holiday Extras have kindly waived the cancellation fee for the Luton airport parking and we are now booked in at Gatwick. And we have booked car hire for around £30 less than we would have paid in Menorca. Trying to focus on the £30 car hire and £60 airport hotel costs that we've saved, and not the £10 ATOL fee, £40 credit card fee, £10 dearer airport parking and nearly £200 more spent on a 2-bedroom apartment...