Though there are many stressful aspects of parenting teenagers, one of the most stressful issues is preparing your teenager for his or her first driving test. Studying for the written test can be incredibly stressful for a teen, especially since the material is incredibly dry, and the pressures of studying for school exams often complicate the situation. The driving test is also a big stressor for teens and their parents, and it requires an intensive amount of preparation over time. Though frustration and negativity are virtually unavoidable parts of the process of learning to drive, maintaining a positive attitude with your child and offering sound advice and support can make all the difference to their successful examination. (more…)
“Plays The Road” Smartphone App
Volkswagen have brought their car manufacture expertise into the world of smartphones and produced a brand new app called “Play The Road” which was actually intended just as an experiment and never meant to be release due to health and safety issues, so what is it? It’s an app that needed the help of electronic musicians Underworld, and the idea of it is that it picks a music playlist depending upon the style of your driving. (more…)
Van Hire With No Credit Card
Van hire isn’t as common as car hire in the UK however, we can arrange this in a number of locations and we do all sorts of deals such as no deposit and young driver van hire, however one of the questions we regularly get is can you do van hire with no credit card? As you may be aware car hire without a credit card is one of our most popular offers so we felt it would be ideal if we could do the same for our customers that want to get their hands on a van.
Majority of any kind of rental companies only take credit cards as a payment method, this is due to how easy it is to take payment whenever they need. This can prove problematic for some as many people don’t have credit card or just don’t like using one, myself included and its fully justifiable as it’s so easy to get into debt through regularly using the credit card. Therefor we need to look at an alternative payment method that was suitable.
We had an idea, everyone has a debit card! So we got to work and called all the van hire suppliers main offices in order to organise deals, eventually we managed to negotiate one. This came with certain conditions however in regards to the card. To find out if your card will be accepted at the location you wish to hire at, please contact us.
We can offer this service at several locations all across the UK, if you are interested in getting this then please call us directly on +44 (0)113 880 0748 or email us on sales@thealternativeagency.co.uk, please DO NOT book online as we can’t ensure that you get the right supplier.
Robert Gillespie
Having worked in the car rental industry for over 15 years, he really knows his stuff. Rob heads up our marketing department and as a keen traveller, always has a new location to talk about. Particularly if there is a golf course nearby.
Baby Seats For £1 Per Day
We’ve often written blogs about optional extras and whether you should get them from the rental companies or buy them yourselves and we’ve also done the same regarding baby seats. We advised people to go and buy baby seats on their holiday instead depending on the time they were hiring as baby seats as rental companies charged anywhere between £5-15 per day for the seat which quickly added up to the cost of buying one. (more…)
Traffic Congestion Adds Up
Statistics from TomTom have revealed that you may be losing a lot of time stuck in slow moving traffic through their traffic index. It’s also revealed some interesting statistics in regards to the most congested cities within the UK, Belfast is by far in the way ahead of everywhere followed by Bristol, Brighton & Hove, Edinburgh and London, other names in the list include Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool and Sheffield. A large amount of cities are showing increases in congestion on its last year’s statistics with only Edinburgh, Leeds-Bradford and Nottingham being less congested and everywhere else failing to improve. (more…)
DVLA Scrapping Counterpart Licences
Is it good news or bad? The DVLA have made their intentions known in regards to removing the paper part of your licence and plan to do so by 2015, straight away our thoughts as a rental company are that this could cause a major problem in regards to our industry. Often when people hire a car we have to do a licence check in order to make sure they have no convictions or too many points on their licence as we don’t want people voiding the insurance, this is an important safety measure that every car hire company worldwide has to take when someone doesn’t have their counterpart. (more…)
Top 5 Winter Sun Holiday Destinations
People tend in winter to head off skiing, or to somewhere cold just to get in the mood. There’s a few of us however that enjoy escaping the cold weather and going somewhere warm for the winter, so where are the best places to escape to get a nice bit of sun in December? We have compiled our Top 5 Winter Sun Holiday Destinations to share with you guys and give you some ideas.
Top 5 Winter Sun Holiday Destinations by Indigo
#5 Cape Town – South Africa
It’s in another hemisphere to the UK, meaning warmth! Cape Town boasts an amazing scenery, great beaches and fantastic places to wine and dine with fabulous local food. The city in South Africa is popular no matter the time of year but it’s a fantastic place to consider for winter due to its lovely warm climate, perhaps the best part of the holiday would be the fact there would be no jet lag! Cape Town is in the same time zone as the UK.
#4 Sydney Australia
Sydney is Australia’s most famous and largest city and the capital of New South Wales. Sydney offers a lot of spectacular driving routes, one being the Grand Pacific Drive.
This spectacular drive does through the Stanwell Tops, the winding Sea Cliff Bridge and also has glamorous views of the golden beaches that Australia is known for.
#3 Paphos – Cyprus
Even in the coldest months you will find yourself out in a t shirt and shorts bracing the warm weather. Paphos is a city right on the coastline of the Mediterranean in Cyprus, enjoy the fantastic beaches, warm ocean and beach side restaurants this winter. Paphos won’t let you down, it’s everything you expect!
#2 Tenerife – Canary Islands (Spain)
Summer all the time, all the Canary island destinations are popular in winter including Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and so on but Tenerife just edges it and not just because its flag looks like the Scotland one. Tenerife is one of the only places in winter you can kick back in your swimming trunks and in the distance see the tops of mountains covered in snow, you get that winter feeling even without meaning too!
#1 Miami – Florida
With more than 800 miles of beaches and world class attractions, Florida is one of the places you must visit at least once in your life time.
Miami is one of Florida’s top attractions, due its famous beaches, legendary resorts, world class shopping and historic landmarks.
Miami, among other things is a business hub and leader in media, entertainment arts, commerce, finance and culture leading to its nickname ‘Capital of Latin America’. Miami was also rated Americas Cleanest City by Forbes magazine.
Getting Used to the Difference
There can be many wonderful cultural peculiarities when you visit a new country for the first time, most of which you probably wouldn’t have thought about before you arrived. Many of these things are associated with seemingly bizarre eating and drinking habits, all of which are perfectly natural to the locals, after all- the people of Sweden have been eating fermented herring for generations. One such thing that a visitor can find him or herself unused to when they visit a new place is the direction of traffic. (more…)
New Qashqai – Lighter, Cheaper, Better
Nissan are set to release the new popular Qashqai in February 14` and the prices are actually slightly higher than the previous model starting at £17,595 for the petrol model. However the Qashqai does eventually work out cheaper as it’s in a lower BIK tax band due to its CO2 emissions, the diesel model also works out even cheaper in BIK tax saving you more money on a yearly basis, and after the big reveal last week the Nissan Qashqai looks to be a major competitor in the market. (more…)
Top City Car Skoda Citigo
The Skoda Citigo launched as recently as 2012, and in its short time has collected quite a few accolades and they are beginning to tally up. It won Auto Express Car of the Year and Best City Car by What Car and Auto Express and the superb car as received yet another. Great reviews all around, structured by a cheap buy new price and having low emissions have all turned in the favour of the Citigo.
The car does have negatives however from some critics but I think their arguments are irrelevant, most people claim that the Citigo either isn’t attractive or the engine is too low powered. I don’t understand it being labled as too low powered, the hint is in the name it’s a Citigo, if you still didn’t get it I was hinting at City Car, you don’t need to reach high speeds in traffic which is what it was designed for. The other saying that it’s not attractive, cheap cost effective cars that get you low emissions often aren’t the best of looking because the money is saved elsewhere and for good reason.
Regardless the award the Citigo received was the Sunday Times award of “Top City Car” which is just adding to Skoda’s trophy cabinet and judging by the popularity of this model they should be looking at increasing their cabinet’s size. This is what the judge of the Sunday Times had to say about it, “we chose the Škoda because we judge it to be the best value, a more important consideration in this class than any other. It is fun to angle around city streets, and its lively engine heightens the entertainment.” Another Sunday Times reporter said “we’re delighted that The Sunday Times has bestowed its top City Car honour on the Skoda Citigo. It’s a car that perfectly embodies Škoda’s philosophy of delivering high quality products with attractive designs, at extremely affordable prices.” Comments I’m sure that Skoda will cherish.
Skoda have made somewhat of a comeback and are now a major player in the car industry, they’ve had a few recent successes such as the Fabia, Rapid, Octavia, Superb, Yeti and the Roomster. They are beginning to make a fantastic name from their selves with all the recent vehicles being a real success.