Airport parking - recommendations please

[SaintGeorgeasaurus]

Hey ho, no one wants to talk to me in chat, too busy discussing trolls and gardening tonight

In the vague hope that someone will trip over this thread in the next week or so if I put it in travel....

Holiday in August, trying to arrange flights etc and need to weigh up choices.

Best option at the moment is to drive to airport (last yr my brother drove us) which means we will need secure parking.

There seems to be a big choice. Do I need to just look for the cheapest or does that mean the car really won't be very secure? Are the shuttle buses reliable or would we better off with on-airport/walking distance parking?

Flights will be Manchester or Leeds/Bradford. At the moment Manchester is looking cheaper but the parking charges might be the clincher.

Recommendations please.

TIA

Message withdrawn

Cheers YG, I shall take a look at them.

Manchester anyone?

We used a shuttle bus service (an overnight hotel stay and shuttle bus next morning and on return) to Manchester airport and i wouldn't recommend it to anyone!

The service to the airport was fine, but coming home it was a nightmare. They didn't send a bus because they said it was off-road, so they sent a taxi instead. The taxi was 2 hours late and when it arrived, it was a normal car. We had two adults, two children, a buggy and three suitcases, needless to say they wouldn't fit in the car. Dh had to go in the taxi (leaving me with two very tired children who had already been hanging about for two hours) to get the car from the hotel and come back and pick us up. Grrrrrrr.

Not recommended.

Try holiday extras .com they do onsite and offsite parking

Thank you.

bluenose, do you know which company that was by any chance, so I know who to avoid? Sounds like a nightmare.

Not sure SaintGeorge - it was a couple of years ago and booked through the travel agents. I'll try to find out for you ...

Thank you.

We did Manchester parking last October - terrible. We thought we had booked to park at Manchester airport, as it said onsite, but turned out to be in Withenshaw.

On returning from holiday, everyones bus came and went for other car parks and we were waiting for over an hour. Just about to phone them (this was at 2.00am) and another driver turned up for a different carpark and said he would take us as he had passed us 3 times.

Think we paid about £43 for a 8 days parking. I would definitely do a meet and greet next time.

yes, at Manchester, as it is so big, you do need to get the 'on site' parking bookings - I have lots of times and there's never been any problem. Littley bus comes each 20 mins as I recall. The Wythenshawe on is a real PITA, yes, I hear also.

Don't know about Manchester but when we went abroad from Gatwick we used valet parking and it was worth every penny (only 40 quid more than off site, and we were gone 3 weeks).

2 minute walk to departures and we were back in our car and leaving the airport 45 minutes after landing!!!

Absolutely brilliant.

Pan - that was the bugbear though, when we booked online, we opted for onsite parking which leads you to believe you are actually at the airport not 4 or 5 miles away.

A friend of mine lives round the corner from the airport and she will happily undercut any company.

Cheers everyone.

The 'cheap' ones seem to be in the region of £45. I am thinking I maybe should avoid these, I suspect cheap for a reason going by comments on here.

Next level is £60-£80 which seems reasonable and some do meet & greet.

They seem to be roughly the same for both airports, so I am thinking that the cheaper flights at Manchester are going to be the winner.

Oh decision, decisions. A cheap week in the caravan seems so much easier

I do like flying from Leeds Bradford as we can then park at Mum and Dads and get a lift there and back.