Always read the fine print!

Here it is almost the middle of March and other than inquiries and airline reservations we have not moved ahead much. Part of this is our schedules being so hectic, and part it the need to look over the itinerary now that we have added one day at the front of the trip and 4 additional days at the end of the trip. Want to make sure we have planned for the time we want to have a rental car and not be stuck somewhere needing to travel across country at the last minute.

This post is about rental cars. I've been doing a lot of searching for the best prices and thought I had found a deal. Yesterday when I went to check the reservation again I realized that the car I was looking at was a manual. I can drive a stick shift, I'd just prefer not to. As I dug deeper in the "more info" on the site, I realized that the reason this rental cost was so good was also because the CDW was not included. That can run anywhere from 14 to 19 euros a day. For a 24 day rental like ours, that's a pretty penny.

So back to Thrifty.ie and I think we'll be getting something very small to save some money. So at this point we're looking at a Nissan Micra, or something similar. Sounds really, really small. We could upgrade to a VW Golf for about another 75 euros. We'll see.

I've used Thrifty before and it was just fine. In fact, compared to the other major car rental places their prices are better than the rest. Just when I thought I had a deal. Make sure you read the fine print! :)

I also get the feeling it's going to be totally packed with our luggage.

Only good news

I know the title here sounds like something momentous might be happening, but we are moving closer to all that we had hoped for in this trip, short of moving to Ireland :)

Since we are using airline points and credits we are at the mercy of the availability of seats on the airlines and trying to coordinate 2 different airlines on the same days can be pretty tough. We're flying to Chicago first and then on to Dublin. As it was yesterday morning the only way we could even be close with the two flights was to fly into Chicago on June 21st and fly out to Dublin on June 22nd arriving on the 23rd.

By just a fluke, American Airlines opened up some seats for airline points yesterday evening on the 21st! So now we will just transfer from Midway to O'Hare without an overnight stay. I was excited that I might get to see some Chicago friends, but not sure that will happen now. By making the flight all in one day, we get an extra day at the front end of our trip. Always a good thing.

We did have to work a little and purchase a few points to get the return flight we wanted. Considering that 90% of the flights were free, that was nothing to worry about. So now we'll be in Ireland for 4 weeks. And our flights back are all in one day, with just the airport transfer in Chicago. This next weekend will be the start of reservations for some of the specific locations that we know where we want to stay. Now that we have the extra day at the front and have added 4 extra days at the end, we need to make some adjustments to the itinerary.

Imagine, we have to think of more places to visit in Ireland! As if that will be difficult. We have already decided to spend a few days on the Antrim coast. That way we won't be rushed and can enjoy all the beautiful Antrim coastline and find those little hidden gems that most people don't know about.

So all in all only good news for this weekend and trip planning. :)