Saturday 26 January 2013

Salt Lake City - our featured destination

Tipoa Rental Cars Utah
Travelling to Salt Lake City on business or pleasure, remember to take with you your free Tipoa Rental Car APP. It shows all the nearby Tipoa Hire Car locations. If you are visiting the LDS Tabernacle or the nearby ski resorts of Snowbird and Park City, famous also for it's Sundance Film Festival, we have a conveniently located office for you. Download the Tipoa app from iphonecarhire.com

Sunday 20 January 2013

Car Hire Insurance Explained


Renting a car can be a daunting experience – language issues, local car rental laws, different driving rules, jargon and extra charges can all make life complicated. Tipoa Car Hire clarifies in this document some of the terminology used and offers useful tips on successful car hire.



1. Let’s start at the beginning...Choosing your hire car


There are plenty of car hire companies (suppliers) out there (e.g. Hertz, Avis), there are plenty of brokers out there (e.g. British Car Hire, Tipoa, TopAutoverHuur). In fact if you go to Google and enter some of the key search terms such as ‘car hire’, ‘car rental’, ‘cheap car hire’ you will be bombarded with plenty of options. Let’s start with the car hire companies (suppliers). These are the well-known international brands that we are all familiar with. Hertz, Alamo, Europcar, large multinational companies with a presence in most cities and airports. These also include local outfits, which own cars and operate them at the destination.

2. The Extras


Fuel
If an option, take the car with a full tank of fuel and return the tank with a full tank of fuel. Find out where the closest fuel station is when you collect the car so you know where to go on the way home. The reason that the rental company wants you to prepay for gas is simple. You will always return the car with gas in it. Nobody will take the chance of running out of gas by trying to run the tank empty.

Additional drivers and young/old driver surcharges
Think who will be driving the car and check the costs for adding an additional driver or more. An additional driver can usually cost an extra £3-£6 per day payable locally.
The minimum rental age is normally 21, though if under the age of 25 you are likely to incur an extra daily charge.

Child Seats
Infant/booster seats for children under 12 years are mandatory in most countries in the EU, so should be provided if requested.

Snow Chains/Ski Racks/Snow Tyres
If you are heading for the snow then think about all the equipment that you have and the size of car that you will require.

Late return fees
Check exactly what the late return fees are.

Mileage
Unlimited mileage tends to be the norm.

Excess Waiver
Excess waiver is the additional insurance that is sold to you at the counter when you collect your car to either reduce your excess in part or in total.

PAI (Personal Accident Insurance)
Pays out if you kill or maim yourself or a passenger.

Personal Effects
Covers your personal effects such as baggage if stolen from your vehicle.

3. Insurance Explained


What insurance is included and what is excluded is often the most difficult element to understand when hiring a car, so let’s make it simple.

There are a few ways to reduce your excess to zero

     a) Super CDW

     b) Damage Excess Waiver (DEW)

     c) Excess Insurance

4. Collecting The Car


You have just arrived at your destination and all you want to do is jump in the car and go. There’s a queue, you have the kids with you and the temptation is to just rush everything. It’s quite simple. DON’T.

Once you are in the car...

Familiarise yourself with the vehicle: your seat position, lights, heating, wipers, warning lights.
Visit www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/overseas/

5. Returning The Car


The same principles apply when returning the car. DON’T RUSH!

1. Take photographs of your rental car when you collect it and return it.
2. Try to avoid returning the car outside of normal office hours, as just leaving the keys means you have not gone through the full return process, and you are liable for the car until the car rental company opens the following day.
3. Inspect the car with a representative of the car rental company to ensure that there are no problems.
4. Wait for a printed copy of the final report.
5. Take photos of the car when you return it to show that there is no damage.
6. Check the seat pockets and seat wells for any items that you might have left in the car.
7. Finally keep the copy of the car rental agreement and any damage report until your next credit card statement arrives. That way if you need to claim on your insurance or dispute the transaction you will have the information to hand.

For more detailed information, please download our Insurance Brochure:



Source: Daniel Smith from Insurance4carhire.com
Follow Tipoa's travel writer Uxia Olsson's blog

Monday 7 January 2013

What did you do in 2012?

 

Why not visit some of the locations that made history last year, this year!

SEOUL


The music video Gangnam Style from South Korean PSY has been viewed over 1.5 billion times on You Tube and it is the site's most watched video of all time. PSY Summer Stand Live Concert  in Jamsil Stadium in Seoul was amazing.

NEW YORK

Hurricane Sandy struck with a vengeance on Oct. 29, 2012, causing unprecedented destruction as 80 mph winds and record storm surges wreaked havoc across the East Coast, destroying homes, leaving millions without power and claiming the lives of more than 90 people in the U.S. Many of the famous New York yellow taxis were submerged in floodwaters in the wake of superstorm Sandy.

It began by tearing through the Caribbean, making landfall at Jamaica on Oct. 24.

TIKAL

The Mayan's interpretation of history is embedded in their calendar, completed by priest-astronomers in the year 1479 and carved into the Aztec-Mayan sunstone. The Mayan calendar details long passages of time, including mathematical calculations so accurate that modern astronomers are at a loss to understand how a traditional people could arrive at them.

The Mayan fire ceremony held at dawn in Tikal on 21 December 2012, took place in the main plaza in front of the Temple of the Great Jaguar.

STRATOSPHERE

Felix Baumgartner stood alone at the edge of space, poised in the open doorway of a capsule suspended above Earth and wondering if he would make it back alive. Twenty four miles below him, millions of people were right there with him, watching on the Internet and marvelling at the wonder of the moment.

A second later, he stepped off the capsule and barrelled toward the New Mexico desert as a tiny white speck against a darkly-tinted sky.

LONDON

If Yorkshire was a country, as some of its more fanatical supporters might prefer, it would have finished 15th in the London 2012 medal table, just behind New Zealand but ahead of sporting giants South Africa, Spain and Brazil.

The London Olympics have left us with some incredible memories, and as the dust settles on what was a successful Games, it's time to look to Rio de Janeiro in 2016.