Thomas Cook not so free car hire

[manchesterguy19]

Soooooo Thomas Cook have given me free car hire with my holiday to florida.

I thought how nice. That was until i got a quote for insurance from them. For the fully inclusive option it was £369 and for the gold £422.

So not free after all, good try TC.

Anyway does anyone know where i can

A. Find cheap car hire and insurance.
B. And what do i need to have on my insurance to cover me for any eventuality.

PS. I wont be using many toll roads so dont want to pay up front for those as ill just pay if i use them.

Thanks All

83 days and counting

[mick]

Sadly a very common tale on here over the years with TC, VS and Tui. BA fly drive with Avis is one of the few big players who include a fully insured car.

You could try one of the popular brokers used by DIBB members such as DFCH (our favourite and link in the yellow banner above), usrentacar, netflights and Virgin Atlantic (they do stand alone car). Or Alamo Brits direct.

You need to have CDW with no excess and more importantly SLI (aka extended cover) for $1m. Please avoid anyone offering the State minimum SLI of $20k


Mick

[mick]

PS

Alamo offer the best Sunpass scheme (very marginally better than Avis) and you can pick your own car at MCO and avoid the terminal desk

Mick

[Quensabob]

We have used Thomas Cook free car a few times, my hubby is good at bartering the cost of the added insurance down!

[Moorlandman]

Virgin holidays wanted £400+ for standard car

[itsmeGAV]

Originally Posted by manchesterguy19

Soooooo Thomas Cook have given me free car hire with my holiday to florida.

I thought how nice. That was until i got a quote for insurance from them. For the fully inclusive option it was £369 and for the gold £422.

So not free after all, good try TC.

Anyway does anyone know where i can

A. Find cheap car hire and insurance.
B. And what do i need to have on my insurance to cover me for any eventuality.

PS. I wont be using many toll roads so dont want to pay up front for those as ill just pay if i use them.

Thanks All

83 days and counting

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As above, you would also get this with VS, TUI etc etc.

If you can, it would probably be better off booking car rental separately.

Have you tried DFCH? No hidden extras.

[First timer loz]

I too was offered the “free” car hire with Thomas cook but was quoted over £500 for insurance, so I’ve booked with Discount Florida Car hire and the whole thing including sat Nav and all insurance needed for £394 ! I would have paid the Thomas cook insurance had I not read a post on here previously about this !

[mick]

Originally Posted by First timer loz

I too was offered the “free” car hire with Thomas cook but was quoted over £500 for insurance, so I’ve booked with Discount Florida Car hire and the whole thing including sat Nav and all insurance needed for £394 ! I would have paid the Thomas cook insurance had I not read a post on here previously about this !

See more...

About a year ago a lady was trapped by Tui in exactly the same way. They wanted £600 just to upgrade the insurance and thanks to the DIBB she cancelled and booked a fully insured car from Andy for £300.

Andy will ALWAYS include the proper insurances.

Mick

[Adam6177]

It was this exact question that bought me to this forum... I think someone very eloquently put it that "the Thomas Cook free car and insurance isn't worth the paper it's written on"

I ended up cancelling the free car and got a whole new deal through Andy @ discount Florida car hire for a better car, with better insurance for less than the insurance top up would have cost with Thomas Cook.