Car Ins / Taxes

[alisonbestford]

Hi there,
I'm about to go ahead and book Fly Drives for myself, DD age 6 and DH to Florida next January with Virgin.
What I was wondering was whether anyone has taken the 'free' car and arranged their own insurance, rather than pay for the Virgin package?
If anyone has, would they mind telling me how and whether I might be able to save any money by doing so?
I understand that I'll have to pay taxes at the airport but is there anything else I should know?
I'm beginning to think the easy option - taking the Virgin package - will be less trouble but that's a pretty silly way to think if I can save money to spend whilst we're away
any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Alison

 

[jubileegirl]

Hi there Alison (I'm an Alison too!)

If you have a 'free' car provided in your flight price then you can save by getting an independent car hire insurance policy. It will be less than what you will have to pay the car rental firm.
Here's a link..

http://www.insurance4carhire.com/

Nat West do something similar but you have to use Nat West to pay for the car bit of the holiday - not sure how that works out with a 'fly drive', perhaps someone else knows.

I asked this question a while ago and people have all kinds of differing opinions. For us, as we've booked flights already, it's most economical to just get an 'all-inclusive' UK booked deal (I think!!) But I wish we'd known about the options before we got our flights.

I expect you'll get some more advice from more seasoned travellers, but hope this helps a bit!!!!!

 

[alisonbestford]

Thanks for the link Alison.
I think I'm with you on the all inclusive price.
Virgin flights, complete with insurance and online discounts, works out around the same price as booking the ins separately.
I may have misunderstood it but, Dollar Rentals, who supply the car for Virgin, seemed to suggest, in their small print, that anyone elses LDW other than their own would be invalid!
I'm going to go for peace of mind and book Virgin.
Alison

 

[James Weir]

RE car insurance,you are quite correct in what you say,dollar will
not accept 3rd party insuances,if you refuse their insurance,they
will block $1500 on you credit card.You can go to airline-network
and obtain a quote and I think you will find you will save that way.
You then just destroy your virgin voucher.

 

[keith&carol]

Not so people! This is what Dollar would like you to believe because that is where they and Virgin make most of their money.
We have been booking flydrives with Virgin for ages now paying with a Nat West credit card and using their annual insurance at just £75!
You can hire as many times in a year as you wish up to a max of 30 days per trip.
All you have to pay then is the Airport and environmental taxes when you pick up the car. Sometimes they take a $1500 imprint on your card but usually they don't even bother with that.
This has saved us an absolute fortune over the years.

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

keith&carol is quite right. I've been declining the inclusive insurance policies for several years without any problems. In each case I've had a 'free' car with a flydrive ticket and used American Express Premium travel insurance (which includes cover for car hire). It's saved me hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars. If you have a car as part of your holiday arrangements I seriously doubt whether ripping up the hire voucher and making alternative arrangements will save you money.

Regards

Rob

 

[UKDEB]

These threads always baffle me. I know I must be missing something, but I can't work out what.

I have booked a fly-drive with Virgin for this July. My car rental charge for the two weeks, with fully inclusive insurance is £478. Now, presumably we are saying I could tell Virgin I don't want to pay the insurance part. Am I right in saying that with Virgin fly-drives, only the first week's rental is free? If so, I would then have to pay for one week's rental, plus the cost of an annual insurance policy at a cost of around £100. How do I establish how much of my £478 is insurance and how much is the second week's rental?

Maybe I should mention that I don't have a Virgin Holidays brochure. We usually book on the phone with Virgin Travelstore and we're just quoted a price for the two weeks. The invoice doesn't break it down either.

Help me out someone!

 

[alisonbestford]

Hi UKDeb,

I'm still a little confused myself but, to my knowledge, if you book 14 dys flydrive with Virgin, the car is free for 14 dys. Dollar include 3rd party insurance regardless.

Then, from what's been said in this thread, if you refuse their 'package' you can go ahead and arrange your own LDW etc.
The annual policy at http://www.insurance4carhire.com/ jubileegirl pointed out to me looks good. £99 for annual LDW cover.

I'm so confused I've still not managed to book the flydrives yet but I'm getting there The bit about Dollar not accepting LDW by anyone else threw me

I suggest you go online to www.virginholidays.co.uk, plan yourself a holiday and check out the ins prices etc. It won't take long and you can do it as often as you like - the easy alternative would be to collect a brochure I guess but I enjoy messing online

Hope this helps.

Keith and Carol and Rob , are you certain about Dollar? It wouldn't surprise me in the least

Alison

 

[alisonbestford]

Managed to mess that reply up!
Car hire is for 7 days, sorry. A further week for a compact is only £15 though or, for an intermediate, £25 so not bad anyway. As I said, look online. To my mind it's far easier to find info than in the brochure and it works out the cost as you go along.
Alison

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

Originally posted by alisonbestford

The annual policy at http://www.insurance4carhire.com/ jubileegirl pointed out to me looks good. £99 for annual LDW cover.
...
The bit about Dollar not accepting LDW by anyone else threw me
...
Keith and Carol and Rob , are you certain about Dollar?

Make sure that whatever independent policy you use has at least the same level of cover as that offered by your tour operator. Make sure you check the fine print for things like 'loss of rental income' are covered.

It is NOT up to Dollar whether they accept your insurance or not. All car hire comes with the legal minimum cover (a paltry $30K of third-party cover) - how you top this up is your decision not Dollar's. If you decline Dollar's insurance they will require a deposit for the car ($1,500 credit card imprint). Whether or not Dollar "accepts" your independent insurance is entriely irrelevant, and the cynical amongst us suspects that this notion is put about by tour operators who would like to sell you expensive insurance...

Most of my car hire is with Dollar, and I've never had any problems declining their insurance.

Deb, Virgin charge £26 per day for compact and economy cars, and £28 per day for all other grades (their platinum policy adds £3 per day to these amounts). If you have hired a full-size car for 14 days you will be charged £392 just for insurance. I pay £280 for a combined travel insurance & car hire insurance policy which has very good levels of cover, and lasts an entire year. I'm planning three WDW holidays in the next 12 months, so this same annual policy will cover my car hire on each trip. I've not done the sums, but I will save lots of $$$s...

Regards

Rob

 

[alisonbestford]

Thanks Rob.
Alison

 

[amf]

Originally posted by rob@rar.org.uk
It is NOT up to Dollar whether they accept your insurance or not. All car hire comes with the legal minimum cover (a paltry $30K of third-party cover) - how you top this up is your decision not Dollar's. If you decline Dollar's insurance they will require a deposit for the car ($1,500 credit card imprint). Whether or not Dollar "accepts" your independent insurance is entriely irrelevant, and the cynical amongst us suspects that this notion is put about by tour operators who would like to sell you expensive insurance...

I couldn't agree more The only point I could usefully add is that if damage is caused to the hire car, Dollar will hit your credit card and then you reclaim from your insurer (that is effectively the consequence of Dollar's non recognition of other insurances). So best make sure that you have enough credit on your card or use a different card to cover the imprint etc to avoid any card delined scenario arising during the holiday.

In the days when we did fly drive we bought our CDW etc through our travel insurer, Options, at around one third of the cost charged via the TOs "free car" scam. Fortunately we never had to claim on the policy but we left the imprint on a rarely used card, so that we could use our main card as normal. We now fly scheduled (using frequent flyer miles) so its more cost effective for us just to book car hire all inclusive. If I was still paying for fly drives I would certainly not be taking Dollar's insurance.

 

[alisonbestford]

Ok Rob, so, in your opinion, the American Express Premium cover is sufficient?
Unfortunately my DH is totally disinterested in the finer details of booking a holiday and I'm going crosseyed trying to dot the i's and cross the t's
Alison

 

[rob@rar.org.uk]

Like amf suggested, I usually ring my credit card company before the holiday to explain that there will be a temporary hit against my credit limit of $1,500. This makes sure that they will authorise the request when it comes in from Dollar, and gives me an opportunity to temporarily increase my credit limit if I need to.

Alison, as far as I can tell the Amex Premium travel insurance policy gives a higher level of cover than Dollar's/Virgin's own.

Regards

Rob

 

[alisonbestford]

Thanks again Rob.
Alison

 

[TinkTatoo]

Using the NatWest insurance saved us nearly $1000 See here

They want you to think that you "have" to take their insurance but this is where they make big money. Think about it if the Nat West insurers can provide the same cover for £75 and still make money how much extra are the tour operators making??

 

[alisonbestford]

Tink Tatoo, do you have any contact details about the Nat West ins? I don't have a credit card with Nat West but think I've read elsewhere that you can purchase the insurance without.
Thanks.
Alison - going slightly more crazy by the minute in her quest to sort this out.

 

[mkingdon]

Alison,

Nat West do require you to be a customer to get the £75 deal. My DF tried to buy it, and get me to pay using my NW card, but no go, I'm afraid.

That is where I came across the link posted earlier in this thread (Nat West gave me it), as it is the same insurance company that Nat West use, they just charge a little more.

Here are the NW details if you want to try though....

Nat West Insurance

I know this all sounds confusing, and I was a little daunted when I first heard of it (from Rob I think), but with a little persistence,and good advice here I managed to save me £400 on my fly drive and my DF a similar amount when he decided to join us on our trip.

Cheers

Craig

 

[alisonbestford]

Hi Craig,
would that be the insurance4carhire link ?
I'm hesitant to take out the American Express cover which Rob suggested as, although it looks brilliant, it includes health cover and my DH has a long standing illness which means we normally have to shop around for health ins.
Thanks for your help.
alison

 

[mkingdon]

Alison

Yes, that's it.

My Dad has bought that and I bought the NW one. Travel City actually sent my policy document to Dollar to confirm they would accept it.

Now whether they actually did that or not, I'm not sure, but they said Dollar had said it was fine.

Craig