Car hire with thomsons

[angelicamy12]

Hey,

I'm booking a package holiday with thomsons this weekend and part of my package includes an economy car with Alamo. This includes basic liability cover but they said they strongly recommend we upgrade to fully inclusive or gold. The only option it gives me with Thompson is to upgrade to a compact car for £336 which will give me fully inclusive insurance. Is there a cheaper way to do this? I get so confused with cars and insurance policies. It's just my boyfriend and I going and £336 seems quite expensive!

 

[wilma-bride]

Personally, I would never drive in the US without at least the fully inclusive. You can purchase separate rental car insurance policies but you would probably be better off just hiring a car separately (through a company such as USRentacar or Holiday Autos). For just the two of you, I would be surprised if you couldn't get a compact car with insurance cheaper than £336. Then you just don't collect the car from Thomsons

 

[wayneg]

Very few people on here take a tour operators car, their insurance is usually too expensive.
Is it for 2 weeks? Just got a rough idea of price, you can hire a car fully inclusive for around £200, or gold for £215.

 

[angelicamy12]

Yeah it's two weeks that we are going for. I'll definitely look into buying it separately. It was probably very naieve of me to think the car was 'included' in our package which is already over budget arrrgggg

 

[Julia Ann]

That's also news to me about being able to pick up a cheaper car with insurance elsewhere. I will certainly be looking around when I come to book our trip. Like you say it's expensive enough. Is it ok to just not collect the car that's been reserved for you by the tour operator then? They don't come knocking at your hotel door asking you why you haven't collected????

 

[wilma-bride]

Is it ok to just not collect the car that's been reserved for you by the tour operator then? They don't come knocking at your hotel door asking you why you haven't collected????

It is absolutely fine, lots of people do it. Just be careful not to let slip in advance that's what you plan to do (i.e., at the booking stage) otherwise they are likely to charge you an 'unpackaging' fee. We normally just refuse the additional insurance and tell them we have taken out a separate car rental insurance policy. They can't make you take their insurance.