Hire cars & car seats

[ornellaia]

We are going to Spain with my mum in a couple of weeks, she has booked a hire car but her original booking did not include any car seats (we weren't planning to go with her). I asked her to add the seats onto her booking but she is grumbling about the extra cost and says Monarch just told her we should take our own seats. DC are aged 6 & 5 and have high-backed boosters - I didn't really want to take them on the plane because the back bit separates from the seat bit and I didn't want to lose half a car seat, or have them damaged by being thrown about. My mum also said that car hire seats might not be in the best condition. Are hire car company seats any good or do you normally take your own and are they OK in the hold?

Mine survived fine packed in a suitcase with clothes.

crikey tabulahrasa how big is your suitcase? Or maybe we just have massive carseats

I've only used one hired car seat and it wasn't great. Mucky, not well padded and looked very old.

Since then we've always taken our own. If yours come apart they may fit in a case or large travel bag, if not we use car seat bags. We've got some from Kiddicare and some from Sunshine kids.

Car seat bags - why have I never heard of these? Thanks Iwish I've just ordered one

Trunki car seats

They will only give you regular booster seats, so best taking your own

Covert into backpacks

We hired a car in Tenerife last year and also hired a high back booster for ds who is 4. When we got to the office they didn't have any. They had a pile of stage 1 and 2 seats. They all looked really old and the straps were all twisted. There were no fitting instructions and the staff would not fit the seat. We ended up using a normal booster as I couldn't work out how to fit anything. However we went to France and hired a seat which was fine. Trunki sell backpacks with a booster seat in which I'm thinking of buying now he's a bit older.

I looked at the Trunki ones but read that safety wise they're not much use. I'd prefer them to have the high-backed booster for side protection rather than just a little seat. I'm hoping both seats will fit in the bag I've ordered, the airline will apparently carry car seats for free so that seems the best option at the moment.

The trunki ones are just an alternative to what you will get from the car hire, just a booster seat.
I have never known any carhire co. to have hbb.

Great if you can take your own

At home they have high backed boosters but We have the trunki ones for holidays and they are good. They are quite high for a normal booster and have a seatbelt adjuster on to hold it in place (dc are 7 and 4)

Not all car hire places do high back boosters. We have isofix so can't really take them with us!

Not particularly massive no, because they come apart they fit in better than you'd think and they're not heavy either.

My suitcases I mean, obviously I have no idea about your carseats, lol

We have a pair of these: easycarseat.com/ which have paid for themselves several times over. Blowing them up and deflating them in airport car hire car parks always amuses me.

They're also handy when we find ourselves needing to give another child a lift for some reason.

My DD is younger than your DCs but we hired a car seat in France with Europcar a couple of months ago. It was awful - really old, almost impossible to fit and really hard to tighten the straps. We managed to make something OK out of it, but I would definitely take our own in future.

We always take bubblebum inflatable car seats, its always a lottery with hired car seats .....

I have just bought a Trunki seat from Amazon for £27....almost exactly the same price as a weeks hire would cost. At least you know what you are getting then too