Indigo Car Hire > Blog

No Credit Card Or Deposit Needed In Corsica

March 17, 2014 France Offers Comments Off on No Credit Card Or Deposit Needed In Corsica

Just to the south east of mainland France is the French island of Corsica. The island is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Mediterranean with several people from all over the world visiting the island each year. There are quite a few airports in Corsica but we have aimed to secure deals for one of the busiest airports, Ajaccio which has the full name of Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport.

Here at Indigo Car Hire we are always aiming for ways to find new deals and alternative to ensure that people can hire when they go on holiday. Two of the major problems people find when it comes to hiring a car are that you must have a credit card and the deposit which can sometimes range up to 3,000 Euros in extreme occasions, which just isn’t affordable.

We are happy to announce that we have managed to arrange two deals at Ajaccio Airport, we can allow for a debit card payment option and no deposit….

No Credit Card – This deal ensure that you have an alternative payment option of being able to use a debit card, there are three restrictions in regards to which debit cards are accepted and which aren’t.

No Deposit – We are extremely happy with this deal, we can ensure that there is an absolutely zero deposit when you get a car from us at Ajaccio, however you do need to ask for this prior to booking the car as we need to suite you with the particular supplier we arrange this deal with.

If you are interested in getting a rental car in Corsica without having to use a credit card or pay a massive deposit then please contact us directly so we can arrange this for you with the supplier. You can call our friendly reservation agents on +44 (0)113 880 0748 and they will guide you through the rental process.

Read more

The Out Of Hours DVLA Check

March 14, 2014 Car Hire Tips Comments Off on The Out Of Hours DVLA Check

When you hire a car in the UK and live within the country yourself then you are required to bring your counterpart in order to be given the vehicle. As you may imagaine, several people have lost or misplaced their counterpart and the solution is fairly simple, the car rental company calls the DVLA on your behalf in order to get all the details required. The only issue with this however is that you can only check with the DVLA during opening hours.

If you arrive at the desk when the DVLA is open then the car rental company will call them, you do however have to pay a fee of about £10 as the call is a premium call which you will need to fund.

The DVLA is open from 8am to 7pm Monday – Friday, on Saturday 8am to 2pm and on Sunday it’s closed. This of course can be an issue so to counter this we have come up with a solution; one of our suppliers will allow you to hire a car without your counterpart as long as you sign an indemnity form. It can be quite a confusing process but we are happy to explain it to you before you book. We will always ask if you have a counterpart and try identify this as an issue before you book, just in case however please let us know that you don’t have your second part of your licence so that we can either make sure the rental company contact the DVLA or we arrange an out of hour alternative.

We realise that it can be quite tricky to get your head around and but if you are arriving out of DVLA hours we assure you there is a solution. Simply call our experienced and knowledgeable reservation agents on +44 (0)113 880 0748 or email them at sales@thealternativeagency.co.uk and they will help find a solution for you.

Read more

Planning A Trip For Easter?

March 14, 2014 Spain, Travel Advice Comments Off on Planning A Trip For Easter?
easter holidays

Easter is rapidly approaching and there are many deals out there for easter holiday breaks, both long term holidays and short term breaks. This is often very costly much like all holidays so its essential to find the best deals possible when searching for them and get the best possible value you can. I will take a look at some of the best valued holidays short term and long term in both the UK and Overseas to try find you the greatest value easter break.

Haven Holidays (UK – Long Term 7+ days)

Haven holidays offer holidays at various locations throughout the UK, for easter there are bookings for 7 days and above available at most of their locations. These self catering holidays include various facilities such as Swimming pools, Sports & Leisure and live shows. Haven are offering easter breaks starting from £359.

Bluestone (UK – Short Term 3 days)

Bluestones are offering specific easter breaks in timber lodges with activities for children and families, and with the lodges fitting up to 14 people there is room for everyone. Exclusive easter activities are offered to you as well as some great restaurants and a live circus. The price is starting from £259 for 2 adults and 2 children.

Centerparcs (UK – Short Term 4 nights)

Comfort stylish lodges with tons of different sports and activities like swimming, golfing, and fitness to take part in its the perfect little holiday to get away for a few days at an affordable price. A 3 bedroom lodge is £279 at the lowest price suitable for up to 6 adults its a decent price.

Casa Holidays (Spain – Long Term 7+ days)

Casa means simple house. Its often the simpler things in life that are better, the beautiful sunny spain may be a better option than the UK. These self catering holidays offer you a variety of different houses to go each beautiful pieces of architecture. These holidays are available from around £700 per week which includes the ferry price to get there.

Château du Baffy (France – Short Term 3-4 days)

On the edge of the small village of Colombiers and close to the seaside this is a great getaway for an extremely affordable price. The beaches are superb and the town is a nice little historic town, beautiful to look at. Their lounges also overlook the sun terrace and gardens giving the whole place a nice feel. These holidays are priced for around €139.00 for 3 days with bed and breakfast per room.

Read more

New Location & New Deals At Sangster Airport

March 13, 2014 Car Hire Offers Comments Off on New Location & New Deals At Sangster Airport

Located just 3 miles to the east of Montego Bay, Jamaica is Sangster International airport, one of the largest airports in the Caribbean. Although it currently only gets around 3.3 million passengers a year, it has capacity to reach 9 million passengers a year. The airport is seen as the gateway to the Caribbean as its one of the most popular airports for tourists arriving into Jamaica, the other main airport is Norman Manley International Airport located in Kingston.

Being one of the main airports in the whole of Jamaica, car hire at Sangster Airport is very competitive and busy. There are however a few problems with car hire in general no matter what location you are wanting to hire, one is the payment method which tends to be credit card only, another is the deposit which often is too high for most as you need to have the available balance for the rental and the deposit which can be as high as £3,000.

Therefore we felt we needed to try arrange a deal in order to counter these issues, eventually after some searching we managed to come across two deals to counter act both of these issues.

One of the offers we have managed to arrange is that we can allow for car hire without a credit card, the new payment method we can now accept is either a Visa debit card or a Mastercard debit card. There is however two other restrictions in regards to which type of these specific cards can be accepted, so if you want more information on this then please click this link.

Another deal we have managed to arrange means that you can reduce your deposit from $750 on small vehicles, for this you need to contact us directly to get the full details as it is specific to this location, and just to top it all off we also have large 12 seater vehicles available to hire.

If you are interested in getting some great deals at Sangster International Airport then please contact our experienced reservation agents as they need to arrange these deals with the suppliers specifically. You can contact us on +44 (0)113 880 0748 or by emailing us at sales@thealternativeagency.co.uk and we will be happy to help answer any questions you may have.

Read more

Car Hire In Budapest For Young Drivers

March 12, 2014 Car Hire Offers Comments Off on Car Hire In Budapest For Young Drivers

We have just got off the phone with a supplier in Budapest, and have some great offers for our customers. Budapest? I hear you say..

Yes, Budapest is one of the largest cities in Europe and a huge favourite for tourists from all over the world. The vast majority of travellers to Budapest are in the under 30 bracket due to its busy nightlife, although it has some beautiful sights.

Younger travellers are the subject of the offers that we have in Budapest as it can get very expensive if you are under 25 and want to hire a car in Europe. Well not anymore, this supplier has given us some very special offers for us to pass onto our customers.

Under 25? No Problem..

We can offer car hire to people of 22 years and above with NO ADDITIONAL CHARGES, some comapnies charge upwards of £15 per day if you are under 25 but not if you nook through Indigo.

Under 22? Thats Ok Too..

We can also offer rentals to those of you under the age of 22, in fact providing you are over 17 and have held a full clean licence for 12 months we can arrange a vehicle for you. There is a small daily surcharge of €6 EUR but this is much lower than any other young driver charge that we are aware of.

If you would like more information about our deals in Budpest or would like to make a booking then please contact us by phone, email or online chat. We are happy to help.

Read more

Krakow Airport Car Hire Without A Credit Card

March 12, 2014 Car Hire Offers Comments Off on Krakow Airport Car Hire Without A Credit Card

John Paul II International Airport Krakow Balice or more commonly known as Krakow airport is a main international airport that is located within the village of Balice just on the southern part of Poland. The airport gets around 3.7 million passengers a year that pass through its gates from destinations all over the world, making it a very popular destination for car hire.

Often people find one of the main issues with car hire is amongst other things the payment methods that you have to use majority of the time is a credit card. We wouldn’t be Indigo Car Hire however if we didn’t managed to arrange some fantastic deals, and this is no exception.

The deal we have managed to arrange means that you can rent a car at Krakow Airport in Poland with a debit card. There are however some restrictions in regards to which debit cards can be accepted. To check if your card meets the restrictions, please contact our team directly.

If you are interested in getting a car at Krakow Airport but don’t have a credit card then don’t worry as we can help, however to get this deal you must contact us directly so we can deal with the companies at the airport specifically as majority of the companies located at the airport do not allow this deal.

You can contact our experienced and friendly reservations team on +44 (0)113 880 0748 or email them at sales@thealternativeagency.co.uk in which they will get right back to you and answer any questions that you may have about car hire in general or car hire without having a credit card.

Read more

How to survive a long car journey with kids

March 12, 2014 Car Hire Tips, Fun Stuff Comments Off on How to survive a long car journey with kids
Travelling With Kids

Lets face it, kids can often be hard work especially when going on a long car journey. The familiar phrase “Are we there yet?” can often get irritating when its repeated by children what feels like a million times. Children’s attention span is not the same as an adults so in order to avoid this you need to keep them entertained. There are a few of ways to keep children entertained in a car whilst on long journeys, here are some of our favourites.

In-Car DVD Player

This is a simple concept in which a small screen goes in the backseats of your and plays dvds, it all depends how many and which DVD’s you get of course but the best thing to do is stock up on as many as possible. This option is quite expensive but great if you travel regularly as its a long term solution.

I Spy

Great little time waster, playing eye spy with kids keeps them surprisingly entertained for a little while, and it costs nothing. However it can become tedious and the kids can quickly get bored of the game but it will buy you a possible 30 minutes.

Backseat Bingo

Print off some bingo sheets, bring some pencils and put some numbers in a hat. Not too difficult to prepare and kids can be entertained with a small game like this for hours at a time, every games different even bring along small prizes which will make them want to win more making the game more popular with them.

21-Card Game

Often called hit or twist its a great game and all you need is a pack of cards. You can also play different games with cards but the most simple is probably 21, it will also keep the children entertained for a good amount of time as its quite competitive.

Board Games

Some board games are good to bring in the car as long as they dont contain too many small pieces that can easily be lost due to a bumpy ride, there are tons of board games kids can play like draughts or battleships.

Hangman

Hangman is another great game that keeps the kids guessing, it can keep them entertained for a good while as you can change the word and different things that will keep them enticed.

Or for the modern families among us, how about downloading a few games onto your tablet or mobile. If allowed, my son will spend hours trying to get a minnion to run and jump over obstacles or get a racing car around the track as fast as possible.

Read more

Travel Insurance, Have You Checked The Small Print?

March 12, 2014 Car Hire Tips Comments Off on Travel Insurance, Have You Checked The Small Print?
Travel Insurance

Many of us associate the small or fine print in any agreement as the bad stuff, the information they don’t want us to read. Although they insist that we tick a box to confirm that we have read it.

With travel insurance, this isn’t always a bad thing, infact it could save you a lot of money if you know exactly what your policy covers.

As we grow as a company we are starting to se more and more enquiries from long haul travellers from Asia, Australia and the USA. Many of those travellers are coming to Europe for a while, usually 2-3 weeks and therefore they ensure that they are covered with insurance.

Many travel insurance policies also cover other elements of your trip, especially Car Hire Excess. This is a brilliant way of keeping your rental costs down to a minimum, all rental companies nowadays will offer you an additional insurance product, Super CDW, Excess Protection, Zero Excess Policy or Deductable Cover all of which are the same product and usally cost between £7 and £15 per day of rental and the costs can easily mount up.

Large numbers of people who are not aware of what they are already covered for will take out one of these policies for extra peace of mind, knowing that if they are involved in an accident then they will not be liable for huge repair costs.

So, we have 2 great tips for you:

  1. When buying travel insurance, dont just pick the first one you see or the cheapest of the lot. Actually look at what is covered as it could save you money in the long run.
  2. If you already have some kind of Car Hire Excess protection in your travel insurance policy, you should consider whether you actually need to purchase additional insurance at the rental desk.

We are here to offer advise on this or any other car hire related subject, so if you have a question please pick up the phone, chat with us online or email us on sales@thealternativeagency.co.uk.

Read more

Locations For A Perfect Picnic

March 11, 2014 Fun Stuff, UK Comments Off on Locations For A Perfect Picnic
Picnic

With the great weather we had at the weekend I took a trip to Golden Acre park in Leeds for a picnic with the kids.

I have never seen so many people in my life, everyone had had the same idea and we couldnt even get parked unless we wanted to walk a mile to the entrance. So we ended up walking round Yeadon Tarn and had a lovely day, it did get me thinking though, where is the best place for a picnic?

Picnics are great on a warm sunny day, impulse decisions to go enjoy a nice lunch on a grassy green hill with a beautiful view. England offers some great places to picnic with its vast country sides and its lovely views. Here are some of the prime locations to debate whilst planning where to travel for your lunch out.

Brimham Rocks, North Yorkshire

A great location for picnics with grassy areas all around the balancing rock formations. Popular with climbers and picnic goers its known as natures playground, full of fun balanced with relaxation.

Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire

An old abbey destroyed through the rein of King Henry 8th when he ordered the dissolutions of monasteries, today a world heritage site next to a beautiful river and various grass lands a great picnic location with a mesmerizing view of the abbey.

Avon Valley Adventure Park, Bristol

Great picnic for the family a grass area with loads of activities and fun parks to climb and adventure very popular with kids it’s a great place to take them if you want to keep them entertained for a few hours.

Wellington Country Park, Berkshire

A massive 350 acres of park land in a quiet and tranquil location with several play areas, toddler areas and activities like climbing walls it’s another hotspot popular with the children. Specific areas for BBQers and picnics alike

Ragley Hall, Warwickshire

A huge lakes with various wild lives around the area, picnics are regular on the outer grass of the lake as the view is tremendous. Popular with couples it’s a nice and sedate location, great for a bit of peace and quiet.

Somerset House, London

Somehow doing the impossible it deflects from the hussle and bussle of London life, the museum and fountains in the courtyard make for some lovely sites. Nice benches adequate for a picnic. If you live in London it’s a great place to go to have a bit of freedom from all the people and traffic.

Brownsea Island, Dorset

A great peaceful island famed for being the birth place of Scouting and Guiding. A thriving natural habitat you can follow in the footsteps of Lord Baden-Powell, a perfect place for anytime of the year.

Clywedog Valley & Trail, Wrexham

A 7-mile stretch great for walkers, dotted with picnic spots through the trail great for stopping and relaxing. The place is also dotted with several parks and museums; there is absolutely no danger of getting bored whilst walking this trail.

Read more

Cross Border Travel: USA To Mexico

March 11, 2014 Car Hire News, USA Comments Off on Cross Border Travel: USA To Mexico
cross border car hire

Cross Border Travel: USA To Mexico is quite a confusing subject for car hire companies in general. Cross border travel within the US is fine but it gets complicated when you want to go to Mexico. We got a question on our live chat recently that asked if we can permit travel from Mexico to the USA, unfortunately we can’t as no car rental supplier will allow us to do this. We wanted to look further into this however to see if there was anything we can do.

Strangely, we can allow for you to pick up a hired vehicle within the USA (North America) and drive it to Mexico as long as you bring it back to the USA after your rental period. So Cross Border Travel: USA To Mexico is possible only if you’ll bring the car back to USA.
Confusingly however you can’t do this the other way around, if you pick up a car in Mexico you will not be allowed to drive it into North America.

CROSS BORDER TRAVEL: USA TO MEXICO comes with a charge

Cross Border Travel: USA To Mexico with a car hire comes with a charge. There is one supplier who will allow us to do this and they charge a daily fee of $31 on top of the price of your rental.
This also must be paid on a credit card as debit cards will not be allowed for this kind of travel. The car groups are also restricted to groups A, B, C, D, E, F and G.

We realise how confusing this question is so if you have any questions then please contact us directly on +44 (0)113 880 0748 or email us at sales@thealternativeagency.co.uk and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. We also will find you the best deal available inclusive of the cross border fee; we will take everything into account and try find the best OVERALL cost suited to you.

Read more
Get a quote

An duo lorem altera gloriatur. No imperdiet adver sarium pro. No sit sumo lorem. Mei ea eius elitr consequ unturimperdiet.

Get Quote

Archives