In Plaza Tutti Frutti, bar Shiva has now become ‘Babel’.
And news of a bit of sneakiness going on (also referred to as ‘scams’ by several dissatisfied customers in the past couple of days) with a few of the larger car hire firms.
What we are hearing now, and two people mentioned this just today, is that people who, as usual, booked their car hire well in advance are suddenly being told that their bill will be DOUBLE the originally quoted figure. Basically, pay up or no car. There are even reports of some people’s (prior/advance) bookings just being cancelled.
The economic crisis has seen some car hire firms suffer losses (compared to last year) of up to 80% in some cases and this has meant insufficient liquidity to upgrade their fleets or purchase new vehicles. Many have been borrowing cars from dealers as an interim measure.
The smaller, local firms do not appear to have suffered as much as some of the ‘big boys’ and local prices are still pretty reasonable.
The best advice for people who booked car hire well in advance of their holiday, and are probably quite naturally assuming that all is okay, should check to see if the booking is still valid at the price originally agreed. Saves a bit of last minute heartache!