Hire car child seats
Discussion
We're off to France next month for my brother's wedding - the first overseas travel since my daughter (now 2) arrived.
I've been looking at hire car quotes and the 3-4 places I've checked all seem to say that they will let you request a child seat but they can't guarantee availability and you have to sort it out when you pick the car up.
Is this usual? Does anyone know of somewhere that will let me book a car AND guarantee me a seat for the sprog? The last thing I want to do is get there to find that they haven't got a seat and so we can't actually go anywhere....
I'll apologise in advance if it's a bit of a n00b question. I've never had to hire a car before (or drive on the wrong side of the road for that matter!) so international travel with an anklebiter in tow is still a bit of a learning process.....
I've been looking at hire car quotes and the 3-4 places I've checked all seem to say that they will let you request a child seat but they can't guarantee availability and you have to sort it out when you pick the car up.
Is this usual? Does anyone know of somewhere that will let me book a car AND guarantee me a seat for the sprog? The last thing I want to do is get there to find that they haven't got a seat and so we can't actually go anywhere....
I'll apologise in advance if it's a bit of a n00b question. I've never had to hire a car before (or drive on the wrong side of the road for that matter!) so international travel with an anklebiter in tow is still a bit of a learning process.....
I run a rental business next to an airport. All I can add is we make a fortune out of confirming hire seat and specific type's of car on rental requests. The big national/international companies work on an overbook policy and frequently we pick up the customers they let down. Try one of the companies that are a franchise rather than an outlet of a national company, they survive on reputation/service rather than the price war the nationals go at.
blindswelledrat said:
Ive never experienced this before.
FWIW- If your kids are old enough for a booster seat I would strongly recommend taking your own.
THe price of child seat hire is ludicrous
I completely agree about the price - it's outrageous.FWIW- If your kids are old enough for a booster seat I would strongly recommend taking your own.
THe price of child seat hire is ludicrous
LL Jr is only 2 so still in a "proper" car seat. Apparently, we can take our own seat onboard the aircraft if we want (and I don't think it counts towards the baggage allowance) assuming it is within certain size limits. A bit of a PITA to lug it through check in etc (especially given how bulky ours is) but probably easier (and certainly cheaper) than trusting in the lottery of hoping for the best on getting to the hire car concession.
It would probably still be cheaper to buy a separate small lightweight seat just for the trip than to hire one!
Our youngest is just 2, and Ive recently checked that tehy can actually have a booster seat, or at least not one of the proper big seats.
I have vowed never to hire seats again after spending £300 on the hire of three of them in Italy last year.
It all sounds ok when they say '5 euros per day plus taxes' until you realise quite how much that is for 3 of them for 15 days!
I have vowed never to hire seats again after spending £300 on the hire of three of them in Italy last year.
It all sounds ok when they say '5 euros per day plus taxes' until you realise quite how much that is for 3 of them for 15 days!
Both mine are now 20 & 18 years, so it's a few years since we needed to bother with car seats. However when we were still on the car seat routine we tended to take our own and suffer the extra bagge cost, to be honest from memory it never made a huge difference to our costs and the quality of seat available was not what we would have been happy with. Good luck
Ahem ....
5potTurbo said:
You need one of these
Just bought 2 for my daughters as I knew it would be costly for a 2 1/2 week U.S hire, and their normal boosters are light, but bulky.
They prefer using the new 'bubble bum' seats now as they're softer!
INFLATABLE booster seats are the future .... fit in your hand luggage, so no extra baggage costs or hassle. Just bought 2 for my daughters as I knew it would be costly for a 2 1/2 week U.S hire, and their normal boosters are light, but bulky.
They prefer using the new 'bubble bum' seats now as they're softer!
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