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Post by Big Blue on Oct 2, 2024 15:21:00 GMT
We're off on holiday over the October / November half term. Gatwick use the ridiculous dynamic pricing strategy for the car parks and the short stay was £242 at the weekend (for our chosen dates). Today it's already down to £228. Waiting to see how daring I can be on their pricing before I bite the bullet. Yes: we could get cabs but we land at stupid o'clock at night and I'd rather get into my nice pre-warmed car for the 45 minute journey home.
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Post by Martin on Oct 2, 2024 15:44:22 GMT
We're flying from Heathrow at the same time, off to Malta for a week. It was booked a long time ago so was only £133 for the week and you can cancel at any time for no fee so easy to switch if it got cheaper, although I've looked a couple of times over the years and it has only ever been more expensive closer to the time.
Why is Gatwick so expensive? When I was looking at the end of July 25 (so into school holidays), T3 short stay was only £185 for 16 nights and that was the most expensive option. Not needed in the end though as we'll be collected from home.
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Post by racingteatray on Oct 2, 2024 20:16:40 GMT
It is very random.
We've booked four days parking at South Terminal for an upcoming long weekend and it was £85 for short stay, which was a fair whack cheaper than a taxi there and back. We would normally take the train but our outbound flight is at 7am and the return one lands at 11pm.
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Post by Big Blue on Oct 2, 2024 20:41:07 GMT
Why is Gatwick so expensive? As they are a client of ours I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it’s because they’re grasping bastards. |
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Post by LandieMark on Oct 2, 2024 20:42:35 GMT
Newcastle is a fortune these days and they have just made all the roads surrounding the airport a red route.
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Post by Boxer6 on Oct 2, 2024 20:53:36 GMT
Newcastle is a fortune these days and they have just made all the roads surrounding the airport a red route. Not familiar with that, and probably showing my ignorance here .. .. what are red routes? |
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Post by LandieMark on Oct 2, 2024 20:58:33 GMT
No stopping at any time.
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Post by Andy C on Oct 2, 2024 21:23:57 GMT
Birmingham airport has also gone through the roof. Last year it cost about £80 to park my mums wheelchair car for the weekend in car park 5. This year it was about £180. We was going to park at one of the local stations (free if you get the train) and travel one stop to Birmingham international, but she managed to get dropped off and picked up in the end.
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Post by Boxer6 on Oct 2, 2024 22:23:36 GMT
Ah. Do they have the red/double red lines in the gutters? |
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Post by LandieMark on Oct 3, 2024 6:45:21 GMT
Ah. Do they have the red/double red lines in the gutters? Those are the ones. |
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Post by LandieMark on Oct 3, 2024 6:45:31 GMT
Ah. Do they have the red/double red lines in the gutters? Those are the ones. |
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Post by Alex on Oct 3, 2024 6:53:27 GMT
Why is Gatwick so expensive? As they are a client of ours I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it’s because they’re grasping bastards. Our business uses Gatwick short stay parking a lot and it really has ramped up in price since Covid. Clearly taking advantage of all the extra demand. No way round it though unless you don't mind using the long stay car parks and slumming it on the bus. Alternatively is there not a local taxi firm who can drop you off and pick you up. That's preferable to leaving your car in the Gatwick multi story. |
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Post by alf on Oct 3, 2024 8:24:13 GMT
Heathrow short stay or pod parking is often an acceptable premium in my experience, I've hardly ever used Gatwick short stay as the prices are insane. They are also - short and long stay - often next to impossible to find spaces in. I've been in groups of cars driving round and round in circles in long stay a few times with no spaces left. Not at all stressful when late for a flight...
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Post by Tim on Oct 3, 2024 8:33:37 GMT
I've been lucky in that all of our flying in recent years has been from Edinburgh or, only once, Glasgow. For the latter there's a cheap car park at the airport (I can't remember how much it was but as it hasn't left a 'mark' it can't have been awful). Edinburgh can be expensive at the airport but there are a number of cheaper options - there's a park and ride at Dunfermline and another at Inverkeithing with free parking and dedicated airport buses. Alternatively there's a cheap direct bus from Dundee and as I have a parking pass for work the parking there is also free  |
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Post by johnc on Oct 3, 2024 10:31:13 GMT
Glasgow and Edinburgh multi-storeys at the airport are much more expensive than they used to be. 2 weeks used to be about £89 and it's now about £149. However when we were flying to San Francisco last month we had to get a connecting flight from Edinburgh to London at 5.55am. I considered getting the train through the day before and staying the night in an airport hotel - that was c£350 for 3 of us so I just booked the carpark instead and we left the house at 2am.
I always prefer to have the car in any case, especially when we get back off a long flight and just want to get home.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Oct 4, 2024 6:13:09 GMT
Newcastle is a fortune these days and they have just made all the roads surrounding the airport a red route. I don’t know why more people don’t make use of the 15 minute free drop off and pick up area in Short Stay 2. |
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Post by LandieMark on Oct 4, 2024 7:29:57 GMT
Because people are generally lazy. I used that car park in May and it was decent value for a week away.
The actual drop off car park is a total rip off.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Oct 4, 2024 7:35:00 GMT
Because people are generally lazy. I used that car park in May and it was decent value for a week away. The actual drop off car park is a total rip off. I have no sympathy for anyone that uses the paid for drop off point when the free drop off point is only 100m further away. |
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Post by Big Blue on Oct 7, 2024 10:24:42 GMT
Gatwick short stay down to £200 for my dates today. Still haven't bitten.....
Getting closer to two cab fares (return one in the small hours).
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Post by racingteatray on Oct 7, 2024 10:56:45 GMT
There is no rhyme or reason. The airport whose parking I find to be routinely absurdly expensive is Stansted.
Like I say I just paid £85 for four days short stay at Gatwick South, which seemed absolutely fine.
Certainly compared well to £95 for three days short stay at Heathrow about a month ago (which is still most likely cheaper than a taxi there and back).
I will only ever park short stay - it needs to be walking distance to the airport - I am not someone who rocks up to airports 2hrs early and therefore cannot risk the shuttles being unreliable.
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Post by Martin on Oct 7, 2024 16:18:57 GMT
On the subject of dynamic pricing, I booked a small/cheap car for Malta as I’ll be surprised if we do more than 100 miles in the week and is was £224. I looked again yesterday and I could get the same car for £123. Free cancellation via the booking agent, so I cancelled and booked again. I then looked at the one I’ve booked for February and that was just under £100 cheaper, a much smaller % saving but well worth a couple of mins work cancelling and re-booking.
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Post by Big Blue on Oct 15, 2024 15:09:30 GMT
£155 today. That's only £50 more than the long stay and pretty much the price of two return cabs for 4 with luggage. So I shall bite the bullet and not look at pricing again.
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Post by Martin on Oct 15, 2024 16:08:25 GMT
£155 today. That's only £50 more than the long stay and pretty much the price of two return cabs for 4 with luggage. So I shall bite the bullet and not look at pricing again. Sounds very reasonable. I changed my mind on the car hire for Feb half term again…. Cancelled the car I re-booked (Maserati Gracele) and used the saving plus a bit more to ‘upgrade’ to a silly V8 truck which is way bigger than we need but achieves the ‘when in Rome’ brief better than a 4 cylinder mid size SUV. |
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Post by racingteatray on Oct 15, 2024 16:42:36 GMT
On the subject of dynamic pricing, I booked a small/cheap car for Malta as I’ll be surprised if we do more than 100 miles in the week and is was £224. I looked again yesterday and I could get the same car for £123. Free cancellation via the booking agent, so I cancelled and booked again. I then looked at the one I’ve booked for February and that was just under £100 cheaper, a much smaller % saving but well worth a couple of mins work cancelling and re-booking. That seems good. Four days' use of a Cupra Leon in Sardinia was £150 from Avis - we covered about 350kms. And I have just paid Avis £100 for four days' use of a "Peugeot 208 or similar" from Malpensa for an upcoming trip to northern Italy. |
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Post by Martin on Oct 15, 2024 17:12:39 GMT
On the subject of dynamic pricing, I booked a small/cheap car for Malta as I’ll be surprised if we do more than 100 miles in the week and is was £224. I looked again yesterday and I could get the same car for £123. Free cancellation via the booking agent, so I cancelled and booked again. I then looked at the one I’ve booked for February and that was just under £100 cheaper, a much smaller % saving but well worth a couple of mins work cancelling and re-booking. That seems good. Four days' use of a Cupra Leon in Sardinia was £150 from Avis - we covered about 350kms. And I have just paid Avis £100 for four days' use of a "Peugeot 208 or similar" from Malpensa for an upcoming trip to northern Italy. Yes, really good. It’s only a Hertz group E as we won’t be travelling too far, I’ll be amazed if we do much more than 100 miles in the week. It’s a small island, the airport is 5 miles from the hotel and getting around by boat is the best option in the Valletta / 3 Cities area. We went in September last year and a similar size car was £330, I don’t know what’s changed other than it being a bit later in the year. |
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