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So I booked a BA Holidays package last year for a trip this summer to the USA. Needed to change the car hire booking and noticed that the rental prices had fallen.
Called up BAH, a helpful as ever agent got on the case. First proposal was to keep the same class of car for two more days, price for the new booking was £83 lower but I would need to pay a £100 change fee so net outlay £17. No issue there, but then I asked about getting a bigger car.
Given the basket case that is car hire pricing, a much larger car was now even cheaper and because we were extending/upgrading the booking, BAH said they would waive the change fee as well as reducing the overall cost by £40. Our new route sees us driving further so with 5 adults in the car, the upgrade makes even more sense. Now, admittedly there is a catch because the small bus I have reserved will struggle to get 20mpg, but the agent was an absolute delight and BAH delivered the goods yet again. Really can’t say enough good things about them. And if you’ve got a booking like this you might want to play around with the reservation.
Depends on the location and length and date. All mine have increased, some dramatically.
Here’s a 6 day one I’ve been tracking for mid June. Look how low it dropped late March and then shot up
8/3 £278
24/3 £281
25/3 £244
27/3 238
2/4 £264
15/4 £303
22/4 £315
25/4 £317
27/4 £300
29/4 £291
3/5 £300So I booked a BA Holidays package last year for a trip this summer to the USA. Needed to change the car hire booking and noticed that the rental prices had fallen.
Called up BAH, a helpful as ever agent got on the case. First proposal was to keep the same class of car for two more days, price for the new booking was £83 lower but I would need to pay a £100 change fee so net outlay £17. No issue there, but then I asked about getting a bigger car.
Given the basket case that is car hire pricing, a much larger car was now even cheaper and because we were extending/upgrading the booking, BAH said they would waive the change fee as well as reducing the overall cost by £40. Our new route sees us driving further so with 5 adults in the car, the upgrade makes even more sense. Now, admittedly there is a catch because the small bus I have reserved will struggle to get 20mpg, but the agent was an absolute delight and BAH delivered the goods yet again. Really can’t say enough good things about them. And if you’ve got a booking like this you might want to play around with the reservation.
Interesting data point! I booked in a car rental last year as part of a BAH booking to the US (out NYC, in BOS). Presumably I need to call up to find out the new prices?
Interesting data point! I booked in a car rental last year as part of a BAH booking to the US (out NYC, in BOS). Presumably I need to call up to find out the new prices?
The prices you can see for car only on the BA website are broadly indicative (the agent confirmed this) but there are some variances. I had an idea what the car only charge was when we booked so figured I’d get out about square extending the stay and paying the change fee. I just didn’t expect their logic of me upgrading the booking meaning that there would be no change fee – and a £40 discount!
But easy enough to call up – although I feel I had an advantage in knowing where I was starting from.
@davefl – have you checked there’s no daftness in play with the car hire group? We’ve gone from a Jetta to a Tahoe.Nope, this is a class C Corolla equivalent, I check the same car each time and I make sure it’s consistently Avis, not Budget.
It also varies between Avis being cheaper than Budget at some sites with 5 avios per £ vs 2 per £. Then at some sites it’ll only rent you a Budget brand even though the site has Avis as well.
If you go via other parts of the Avis site (not the BA portal) you can get completely different rates and Avis cars.
I posted a thread under the car hire topic the other day showing wild inconsistenices across the various parts of the site on the same day.
Same happens with flight prices. I had a ‘watch’ on a Delta flight for 2 months, one day it dropped by $110, next day it was back up to the normal $295.
Out of interest, with a BAH for flight and car, can they just reprice the car element, or do they “start again” with the whole package? A couple of months ago I tried to add a hotel into a flight and car BAH but that meant re pricing the flights which had gone up considerably. Thank you for flagging anyway – I will give them a call later.
Thanks for that, not BA holidays but just saved $63 across a couple of Hertz bookings.
Out of interest, with a BAH for flight and car, can they just reprice the car element, or do they “start again” with the whole package? A couple of months ago I tried to add a hotel into a flight and car BAH but that meant re pricing the flights which had gone up considerably. Thank you for flagging anyway – I will give them a call later.
This is surprising. A couple of years back I had a flight time change so moved one night of the stay from downtown NYC to JFK, with no issues – price came down a bit but that was all. Obviously different circumstances but on this booking they simply repriced the car element.
It also varies between Avis being cheaper than Budget
Agent was also impressively on point here, noting that I had an Avis preferred number on file so didn’t want to move me over to Budget. The cars with BAH were a shade more expensive when I first booked, but being able to sit on the money for so long with interest rates where they are has more than covered the extra.
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