floydbloke

After all this time, got back from our trip yesterday.

Overall no issues with Cathay, would fly them again depending on plane type (see below).

Flights were on-time, IFE works well and reasonable selection, food was pretty good.  Service was professional and efficient, but  not particularly wartm and friendly.  I found this to be the case wi…[Read more]

Haha, truth be known I haven’t read any of them.  It’s just a site I came across linked to by a facebook post about the 15 busiest air-routes in the world.  More of trivial interest rather than useful.

Received another apologetic, grovely email from them offering 50% off my next rental with them.  Their PR department is pretty efficient.

I still don’t have an answer to my original query though.

Their Executive Relations manager responded overnight.  Thanking me for contacting the MD and saying they will investigate, and to contact him directly if I have any further questions (with a firstname.lastname email address rather than a generic mailbox).

9 days on, nothing from the ‘appropriate department’.  I’ve sent them a sh*ttogram saying I’ve booked with Hertz and they’ve lost a customer to the competition, cc’d in the Europcar MD for the UK.  I doubt very much that it will change anything but it makes me feel better.
I’m still genuinely curious what that exception statement means.  It mu…

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That nudge prompted a response, here is their latest:

 

Thank you for your reply. 

We have sent your query to the appropriate department as we cannot find any information about this subject. They will answer you back directly. 

We apologize for any inconveniences this may cause.

that has come from their reservations email address, who I was a…[Read more]

Which again strengthens the case for the customer to take photos or video when collecting the car.

I’ve not heard of/read about any ‘made up’ damage claims by the rental companies here in NZ.  maybe that’s because  the base-rental price of the vehicle still makes them money, even for the cheaper operators.  Whereas in UK/Europe it has got so pr…[Read more]

Yes, I do intend to do that, regardless of having bought the SuperCover.

There’s a thread on FlyerTalk where a Hertz manager has fronted up to ask questions and in one of the posts just about admits to the incentives I mentioned

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10150737&postcount=91

Although that thread is very old now, things…[Read more]

Yeah, I must admit that’s the most anxious part of our upcoming trip. Hopefully for every bad experience you read about there are hundreds of good ones that don’t get written about.  I like to think I’ve done my homework, planning for the worst, hoping for the best.  There are things that we simply can’t control – like the rental firm running o…[Read more]

Prompt response from Europcar, but not overly helpful yet:

‘We cannot see such specific message on the website. The first sentence “Translation is managed in the ETM.” makes reference to the time zone (Elapsed Time Meter). The second sentence seems to be referring to the charges of another extra, whichever is next to it. ‘

They then ask for the…[Read more]

No great rush, so we’ll see if they come back with anything.  If not I’ll certainly try and get in touch in some other way as you suggest.  Here’s a couple of screensnips.

This came up linking to Europcar through the Accor loyalty website.  Get no such thing if I do it through europcar.co.nz (all screens are very different), but the price is…[Read more]

Yep.  Zopiclone, glass of wine (just one), eye mask, earplugs and noise-cancelling headphones for me.

Reading other travel forums there appear to be mixed views on this.

I’d venture to say that it is not customary but is becoming expected, as the photo in your post above suggests.  Could this be a results of increased numbers of American tourists perhaps in recent years, who are used to tipping at home so automatically do it when on holiday?

I…[Read more]

Nothing too exotic sadly.  Just hopping between PPQ (or WLG with the frequent cancellations) and AKL

Agreed.  I like the ‘worry-free’ zero-excess option from Thrifty, and it’s reasonable value for money with an AA membership.

Once or twice a year I tend to do a WLG-AKL re-locator from Budget.  On those occasions I spend $35 on a couple of days domestic travel insurance to cover the excess (wearing the risk described in my OP).  Significantly ch…[Read more]