To ask you to help me sort this holiday nightmare!!

[CantKeepCalm2]

I’m sick with worry over this and unable to sleep as a result.

My husband, kids and I are going on holiday to Spain in just over a week. We are going to Alicante but to keep costs down, I booked flights to Madrid as I saw the train looked cheap from there to Alicante. I think the airport is half an hour from the train station in Madrid but thought with the train being cheap, we would hopefully be able to figure out a shuttle bus or something that might take us.

Fast forward to now and the train prices have sky rocketed. I was really silly not to book at the time, but I didn’t expect the markup to be quite so extreme.

I came up with a plan b. Hire a car in madrid to drive us to Alicante on arrival day, and same again on departure day. I’ve booked this all but have now realised we are going to have issues as neither DH or I have a working credit card. Long story short but we moved from the UK to another European country and when I lost my credit card, i tried to cancel it on my husband’s app and accidentally cancelled his card. I tried to resolve this with the bank but they couldn’t deal with me as I wasn’t the main card holder. On top of that, I have a pin block on my credit card as a result of getting the pin wrong 3 times. Again, this has been a nightmare to sort as the bank wouldn’t deal with me and my husband has been rarely home due to his work (military).

Anyway, after booking the hire car a couple of days ago, my husband was able to call the bank. Unfortunately it’ll take 10 working days for his new card and the pin should arrive 3 days later, so this doesn’t help with our hire car. They advised me I could go to an ATM and sort my pin. I tried that today but to no avail, the ATM here didn’t have a “pin services” option. And I’ve been thinking, surely I can’t change my pin anyway since I don’t know the pin to begin with.

We can cancel the hire car and receive a full refund up to 48 hours before the trip. If we do that, it’s going to cost us loads getting the train, plus I haven’t figured out a way to get from Madrid airport to Madrid train station. I can’t change the flights because direct flights will cost us an extra £1000 at least and I can’t afford that. What do I do? I’ve really messed this up badly and know I sound like the most disorganised person. I’ve just massively dropped the ball on this one. 😢

Also, just to clarify, I can’t change flights. The flights to other airports from where we live all come in at almost £1,500.

Can you just go into the the bank and get a new pin? I think in the UK they always send it out to you but in Spain with a Spanish CC they just gave DH a new pin over the counter.

Trains, do not attempt coach; it is a very very long ride. AVE trains are fantastic. First time I took the AVE Madrid to Alicante I did not even have time to read my magazine. Very fast and reliable.

Have you got travel insurance, just in case flight gets cancelled or anything? If you do then I think your plans seems fine - if you don't then I'd get some

OP have you tried Bla Bla car.es? It's a car share service. Would get you to Alicante for about 18/24 Euros per person. I live in Madrid and regularly make this journey and advertise my car all the time - pays my petrol.

Do you have checked in luggage? If not then that sounds reasonable

@SmallElephants yes, we have checked luggage. Do you think it’ll be too tricky lugging it around with us until the later train?

If you're going to a villa it'll likely have a washing machine - could you manage with just the small hand luggage case allowance each then swap to Alicante flights? It might work out cheaper taking the hand luggage case & less faff at the airport when you arrive.
We're mid way through just under a month in Spain with only hand luggage cases so it is doable but depends on ages of DC etc

For the extra £19 quid I'd go for the semi-flex ticket.

Hotels can sometimes sort your transfers more easily/cheaper and add them to your bill.

It's called Excess Insurance. Without it the car hire people will request a holding credit card, in the renters name of €1000 to €2000. The standard hire includes the normal insurance. The Excess costs about €10 per day.

Do not use anyone but the known car hire companies. Avis/Europa/Hertz..... You will regret it otherwise.

This is way too complicated. Find a hotel and have lunch or a meal there and ask reception to hold your bags for you. We did this recently as we were in France in such hot heat we needed air conditioning while waiting a few hours for our flight.

Ask your bank to send a PIN reminder?

We had this problem with hiring a car a couple of years ago in Corfu and realised too late we didn’t have a credit card. Frantically ordered card but wasn’t going to arrive until too late (card actually arrived but not the PIN!!!). My advice is to check the hire car company small print as it turned out we were able to take out some insurance they offered which basically meant we didn’t need a credit card to cover any damage costs (as the insurance covered any damage that may occur). It was an extra £90 I think which was annoying but at least we got the car and it all worked out fine.

I've never heard of it being as much as £3k! its usually £250 or £500, have you checked if there is an extra insurance you can pay for to reduce the excess or checked other rental companies, as £3k is ridiculous.

What about getting one of your family to book the hire car with their credit card?

@Vikinga the main driver must have the credit card in their name.

Whereabouts in Alicante are you going? it is not the same to be in central Alicante, than maybe going to Javea, or one of those towns that belongs to Alicante but are 100KM away from the airport? If you are not right on Alicante, you need the car, and therefore you need to work out a way to pay for the extra insurance with a debit card.

Another option is to arrive by train. Where are you flying from? There are trains from Paris, which by the time you've done the journey you are describing, would not be much slower. Are you flight tickets changeable in any way?

I hired a car with Wiber (Malaga) and although I had paid on a credit card, when I got to the pick up place, I was given the option of paying for their all inclusive insurance there (which I did on a debit card) and as a result, they didn't need to hold any money on my debit card.

Could you try them?

She doesn't live in the U.K., so is presumably not flying from there.

If you decide to do the train option, I would just get a taxi from the airport to the station. You are arriving on a Saturday in the middle of the midday heat. The roads will be empty and for the sake of a few Euro, it's not worth trying to navigate the trains.

*I mean trying to navigate the local trains. I'm obviously not suggesting taking a taxi all the way to Alicante!

Haven’t read the thread.

we had a similar panic flying to France, booked the hire car but DH doesn’t know his pin & it didn’t arrive in time. We just paid on debit card, it wasn’t an issue.

Bit difficult on a 30th July, considering it's at least 4 people with luggage. Most people heading from Madrid to Denia and surrounding that day will have a car full as they are going for the holidays