TUI fly drive - is insurance included?

[Florida virgin]

Just doing some dummy bookings etc - TUI fly drive to ORlando - happy with price - but no mention of insurance and no option to upgrade insurance - don't want to book it and then pay an extra £400+ for insurance - would rather to flights only.

[mick]

About a year ago I contributed to a post from a lady who had booked a fly-drive with Tui with their normally criminally low car insurance - no CDW and state minimum SLI of $25k.

Tui wanted around £600 just to upgrade the insurance and I suggested she ditched the car and she re-hired from Andy at DFCH for £300 fully insured.

I've never booked any sort of holiday with Tui but I'm sure you'll get to what's included before you commit to paying. If you don't then their sales tactics are worse that I thought.

I'll have a quick look later.

Mick

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Hi.

This is on the front page of their Fly Drive halfway down.

What Happens on a Fly Drive?

We’ll fly you out to Florida where you’ll be met by a TUI Advisor. They’ll point you in the direction of the car hire people and set you on your way. After that, it’s totally up to you. Theme parks. Everglades. Shopping malls. It’s all there for the taking. At the end of your stay, you just need to head back to the airport, hand over your keys and check-in for your flight home. It’s that easy.

In order to hire the car, you have to take out the rental insurance that can be pre-booked or paid for locally. Remember, each driver needs to present a valid driving licence and a credit card in the driver’s name which serves as a security deposit.

However I just did a dummy booking and it doesn't give you the option to pay for the Insurance, well certainly not up to the stage where you enter the details of those flying.

I have never used them but I know loads on here ditch the car and hire themselves from a 3rd party supplier.

[mick]

PS

Does this help? Suggests that unless you add it you're stuck with their pathetic basic package.

Why UK tour operators are allowed to continue to sell dangerously low car insurance which could end up in traveller's bankruptcy is beyond me

tui/destinations/i...a?vlid=tbextra

[Libbyimo]

You can add insurance on the extras page gold or platinum I think , very expensive!

[Gasman66]

OP
Can you book a "Flydrive" instead of flight only, which then gives you ATOL package protection, and the option to pay just a deposit (instead of the full cost of "Flight only" with no ATOL protection up front) then not bother to with TUI car, but get a fully insured one from DFCH or similar ?

[mick]

Originally Posted by Gasman66

OP
Can you book a "Flydrive" instead of flight only, which then gives you ATOL package protection, and the option to pay just a deposit (instead of the full cost of "Flight only" with no ATOL protection up front) then not bother to with TUI car, but get a fully insured one from DFCH or similar ?

See more...

I believe you can as that is what the lady I alluded to earlier did. Only done a fly-drive once with BA and that was deposit only and came with an ATOL certificate.

Don't know our Spring 2021 dates yet but in a weak moment I looked at dummy booking for a fly-drive with Virgin. They can offer flights in advance of VA. They wanted £3,800 for two PE and a full size car for 4 weeks (after upgrading the insurance)

Been mortgage free for a few years - no intention of taking out a new one just for a holiday.

Mick

[stevekath]

If flydrive is cheaper than flight only, book the flydrive and just don't collect the car. We did this last year and made our own car booking via Alamo Brits. There was absolutely no comeback, we bypassed the Tui reps at Sanford and went straight to Alamo to pick up our self-booked car.

[Florida virgin]

Flight only price £750
Fly drive price £919

So £2253 for flights and £2755 for fly drive - so £500 more but no insurance - that's crazy.

[mick]

Originally Posted by Florida virgin

Flight only price £750
Fly drive price £919

So £2253 for flights and £2755 for fly drive - so £500 more but no insurance - that's crazy.

See more...

I guess that 95% of DIBB regular hirers always take the insurance included so long as it includes CDW with no excess and $1m SLI.

A handful of Dibbers choose to save a few pounds (their decision so it works for them) by taking out their own separate one in the UK.

About a year ago a (non-regular ) Dibber posted his independent policy and it took me 5 minutes doing a word search to see that it EXCLUDED SLI. Policy may have been toilet paper for all the use it was.

Mick