Car hire and car seats - quick question...

[tassis]

Hiring a car in France and need high back booster and rock a tot - should we just take our own? How do they count in luggage allocation?

Last time we needed big carseat for a 2 year old and paid a fair bit for what was, IMO, a heap of junk.

Any words of wisdom?

My experience of French hire care seats are also very bad. If possibble I would take your own. Whether they count as luggage allowance depends on each airline - you need to call them and ask.

I would contact the airline you booked with as they baggage allowance is different for each.

Most dont give an infant allowance FWIW and a buggy or car seat (prob one) would be allowed in parents hold allownace.

2 year old should have a child allowance. You do need to speak to airline to find out what it is.

I did hire an infant car seat one once in Spain and it was OK.

Hope you have a nice time in France.

Should go through as large items & not affect yor luggage allowance.

thanks everyone

it's easyjet or ryanair (forget which) so they're bound to want extra cash for them

need to get this nailed as dh is ITCHING to get carhire booked and i really resent paying extra for rubbish seats.

does putting carseats through the hold not risk damaging them?

Easyjet I was on & they didn't charge me, this was last Feb though.

Have a lovely time in France

Ryanair don't charge. We flew with them in Feb and it went free in hold and was fine

well that's sounding very positive, thank you all!

i'll phone airline in the morning and confirm

Hi Tassis
If you can take your own, do. If not, then check them fully before signing for them. We've used Hertz before and had no problems - where are you flying to as I think it often depends on airport....

aznerak...

you may not be able to see that a seat is damaged even IF it actually is

just to let you all know that i phoned easyjet a few mins ago and they assure me that carseats are free, put through the hold and not included as part of our baggage allocation

so we'll be taking our own!

I know this is an oldish one but I've got the same query so I'm bumping it!

Do you just put the carseat in as it is? Or are there special knacks to packaging it? I'm a bit nervous as I know how they throw things around, and solid as it is, it was bloody expensive!

do you still have the box it came in? We did have and so put it back in the box in the original packaging and wrote FRAGILE all over it. It then got taken to a special desk for fragile luggage rather than go via the belt. Once it's out of your site though you wont know what the hell is happening to it.

Unfortunately we never had a box for it. It was fitted at the shop and that was that!

I just recently brought back a carseat with me on my flight back from abroad and it did count as an item of luggage. I flew on Virign Atlantic but it's possible each airline is different so it's worth checking. I checked it in in it's box and got it plastic wrapped at the airport - many airports offer this service and it was great at keeping it protected. I was worried about checking it in but thankfully the combination of the box and plastic wrap kept it perfectly. I've seen on kiddicare.com a carseat travel bag that looks very useful if you don't have the box for your carseat and it's less than £10. You could always wrap it in some towels in the car seat bag to add to some protection during your travels. I'd bring your own car seat tho if possible rather than rely on car hire car seats personally even tho it's a pain to bring your own along since it's impossible to know if such car seats are in proper condition which could compromise their safety.