Virgin Car Hire and Insurance

[Stupot99]

Hi there,

I wonder if anyone can help me, as I am going round in circles!

I have booked a Fly Drive through Virgin for December for three weeks, and I noticed that I only have the basic insurance package on the car. I rang Virgin, and they quoted over £500 for the extra insurance!

They were very nice over the phone, and said to be honest it would be best to shop around and get a better deal. How do I go about this, what am I looking for? I looked on the web, and I keep getting full car hire insurance quotes!

If I did get extra this extra insurance, how do I present this to Alamo on arrival? The lady at Virgin said if I did get the extra insurance, they will still charge me for all the other extras!

I noticed that I can check-in on Virgin's Alamo site - can I add the insurance when I am checking in?

Sorry for the questions, I just a little baffled by it all

Can someone help me?

[Guest]

You'll usually find that its cheaper to ignore the "free" car and just book the vehicle independently yourself through websites such as:
Alamo/brits
DiscountFloridaCarHire
USCarHire
USRentaCar
NetFlights
Virgin Atlantic & Virgin Holidays (different prices available on each website)

The above websites include all of the required insurances, taxes and fee's.

There are stand alone insurances you can get to go with the "free" vehicle you currently have but many, myself included, won't touch them. Too much risk if something goes wrong. You would still be liable to pay for airport fee's, tyre tax etc.

Depending on your dates you may want to break your reservation down in to a 1 week rental then a 2 week rental. Over Xmas the prices increase.

[Stupot99]

Originally Posted by andy1984uk

You'll usually find that its cheaper to ignore the "free" car and just book the vehicle independently yourself through websites such as:
Alamo/brits
DiscountFloridaCarHire
USCarHire
USRentaCar
NetFlights
Virgin Atlantic & Virgin Holidays (different prices available on each website)

The above websites include all of the required insurances, taxes and fee's.

There are stand alone insurances you can get to go with the "free" vehicle you currently have but many, myself included, won't touch them. Too much risk if something goes wrong. You would still be liable to pay for airport fee's, tyre tax etc.

Depending on your dates you may want to break your reservation down in to a 1 week rental then a 2 week rental. Over Xmas the prices increase.

See more...

Many thanks - great advice.
Do I have to tell Virgin and Alamo that I don't want their Free Car hire, or just forget about them all together, and pick up my other car hire option?

[Guest]

If you tell them they'll probably charge you an amendment fee. Just ignore their vehicle.

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Totally agree with Andy, good advice.
However I would pose Virgin the hypothetical question about a refund without actually saying you are going to cancel.
If they say yes you get cash back then grab it, if they say no there is an amendment fee then just say ok and leave it like that. Then don't bother getting the car from them.

[PPM]

If you remove the car hire and ask for a credit surely it will no longer be a package, and you would have to pay full value of flight instead of deposit?
Also I'm unsure if VH can sell flight only?

[electo]

we have booked a holiday with virgin with a free car
it was then cheaper to hire another car thru virgin car hire with gold insurance for less

[DIBBadmin]

This thread has been automatically closed as it has not been posted on in 365 days.

[Stupot99]

Many thanks to you all.

I will shop around.