best place for car hire?

[matty624]

Apart from our Fun in the Sun tickets, everythings booked, except for the car!
Dial a flight seems to be coming out cheapest, even bettering the reliable Airline Network. A luxury is coming out at £758 (for 32 days), which works out at only £165/week! We usually get a minivan, and I think they may give us one anyway, but I think I'll risk it and go for the luxury. If we can't fit everything in on the way home, I'll just have to do a couple of trips to DTD. I'm sure dw, ds and dd could wander round the shops while I return to the villa for the luggage... (of the joys of Virgin's DTD check in!)
Has anyone used Dial-a-flight?
Does anyone have any better ideas? I'm open to suggestions...
TIA
Ian

 

[Rain]

Ian,

I have also been looking at cars, we normally go for the premium or luxury .

Airline network was coming in at 425 for 14 days

vehiclehire direct are quoting 398.

It is really difficult trying to work out which to go for after Florida Car Hire went into liquidation last year!

I am tempted to go for the tried and trusted Airline network.


Lynda

 

[Daftman]

Have you tried Florida Homes and Travel,they beat my cheapest quote by about £40,excellent customer service aswell,just email your request and they get back to you pretty quick with a price.
The other good thing is they deal direct with dollar and pay them in $ so at present rates we're getting pretty good deals.

Regards

Sean.

 

[matty624]

Thanks both of you. It has crossed my mind too what happened last year with Florida car hire. We found out about it whilst in Orlando, I could hardly believe it, as we had almost gone with them last time (we went with Airline Network) and had used them happily in 2002. I suppose it could unfortunately happen to any of these companies.
I'm going to use a credit card to pay, in the hope that I'll have some sort of protection in the event the company goes belly up!
I'll try Florida H.T. Sean. If you pay in dollars, it must work out to our advantage.
Lynda, what is the main difference between a luxury and a premium? In the past we booked a premium and were given a minivan instead, which I was okay with.
Thanks,
Ian

 

[richard3330]

We found the best Car Hire Rate at

www.novarentacar.com

Richard.

 

[Rain]

The luxury just had a few extra refinements such as Leather seats, great CD player, heated seats!!!! did not need those,seats that remembered the position and automatically went back to give you more room to get out when you switched off the engine. Lights that came on automatically at dusk. drink holders back and front.
If you like the gadgets (I do) then luxury is nice.

We had the premium one year too! That was also a nice car similar to the luxury to look at but did not have the extra bits and pieces.

Think I may try the convertable this time as there is only the two of us!

Lynda

 

[matty624]

Originally posted by matty624
Dial a flight seems to be coming out cheapest, even bettering the reliable Airline Network. A luxury is coming out at £758 (for 32 days), which works out at only £165/week!

Just an update. I rang dial-a-flight and the £165/week for a luxury car was too good to be true! It didn't include taxes etc. the website skips over that fact completely! The real cost was actually £976, a big difference in price.
Back to the drawing board...
Ian

 

[Rain]

Ian,

Just goes to show you gotta read the small print and know what you want and need.

Lynda

 

[martina857]

m

 

[matty624]

Thanks Martina, I had already rung them this earlier this afternoon. I spoke to a very nice man called Tim who was really helpful and certainly will win my business once I've established they are the best (or at least near it) rate. I was offered a minivan for £904 for 32 days. They are offering a 'special' rate for minivans of £190/week or £36/day.
The £904 was the advertised rate (despite the long length of the rental) because to be fair to FH&T it already was the lowest I've managed to find. They are certainly looking favourite.
Thanks all,
Ian