Almeria 2010

[El Gordo]

Confirmed the booking of the triple room. Free parking as well.

Saludos desde Almería

So EG did you sort out booking the hire car?? Do you accept cheques for our share of the car when we know how much we all owe you or would you prefer cash?

Simon asked me what time he needs to be round for a lift in LR Express - I said 4:00-4:10am. Does that sound okay to you Sweder??

Julie

Yes, I've booked the car. It mysteriously rose from 133 euros to 150 euros in the few days between first looking, and booking, but so be it.

The charge apparently includes insurance, but we'll have to check the small print when we get there. Additional drivers are variously described as free, or costing 1 euro extra, so that's confusing, but the charge is negligible. Main thing we need to be careful of is the petrol cost. The company is malagacar.com.

The most important part of the deal is:

The car will be collected with half a tank of fuel, which you will pay for (Between 25 euros and 40 euros depending the model). The car can then be returned empty. The price includes unlimited kilometres, fully comprehensive insurance with no excess, 16% taxes and 24 hours road assistance.

I don't like this way of doing the petrol because a) you can never be sure that the tank really is half full, and b) there's no way we can return the vehicle with an empty tank, so we always end up giving them the value of the gas in the tank. Added up, these amounts probably remove any price advantage over rival companies. Much prefer the full-tank-out, full-tank-back-in system. But anyway, I'm not going to get too excited about that -- we'll just have to try to ensure we don't leave too much petrol in the vehicle when we return it.

As for payment, we can sort it out whenever convenient. Nothing paid as yet. If I pay (no problem), I would prefer either cash or electronic transfer to my bank rather than cheques please. I'm not stressing about this, so don't worry just at the moment (but thanks for the thought).

As for lifts etc, I've decided to make my own way to the airport on Saturday because I think you'll have enough to worry about collecting the Brightonians/Lewesians at that time of the morning without adding me to the list. It's really no problem. As for the return, it seems that my dear wife will have already driven home in my car, so I've been instructed to get a train from the airport -- so no lift needed then either. Thanks for the offer though.

Hee hee. Starting to get excited now.