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‘I booked a petrol hire car but was given an EV instead'

‘I booked a petrol hire car but was given an EV instead'

Times16-07-2025
✉ I rent cars abroad about four times a year, usually with Hertz. On a recent trip to Corsica I booked a small manual petrol car but was only offered an electric vehicle on arrival. Unfamiliar with EVs and Corsica's charging infrastructure, as well as the true range of the car, I felt forced to pay extra to upgrade to a petrol car. I understand that fuel type isn't always guaranteed but this seems to be a growing issue. Do any major rental companies guarantee petrol/diesel cars? For my upcoming Hertz booking in Crete, the confirmation doesn't mention EVs. Can I assume I'll get the fuel type I selected?Owen Warnock
Bigger rental companies won't guarantee petrol/diesel cars even if you get a note put on your booking specifying that you don't want an EV. Hertz, for example, said it could not guarantee a 'specific make, model, transmission or fuel type'. The best way to get what you want is to book with a reputable smaller, local company, which will have a smaller fleet and more personal service. In Crete try the highly rated Anna Cars which can guarantee no EVs because it doesn't have any (annacars.gr).
✉ On May 31 I was on a Ryanair flight to Stansted, coming home from a hen weekend in Biarritz in the south of France. I couldn't check in online due to a visa check issue (I'm Canadian), so I planned to do it at the airport. But when I finally got to the desk, I was told the flight was overbooked and I'd need to wait and see if any seats were freed up. In fact, six passengers, including another girl in the hen party, were left stranded, with zero support (when we rang Ryanair we were just told to go to a check-in desk but there were none of its staff there to help). The other hen and I had to find our own way home via Bilbao and this involved a two-hour night bus ride, a £120 airport hotel and a £200 flight. Ryanair has since made it near impossible to claim the compensation I'm legally owed. Its forms don't allow overbooking claims and I've had irrelevant replies to my complaints. Can you help?Jessica Pearce
You and your fellow hen had a miserable experience but, as is so often the case, human error is to blame for your inability to claim compensation. A Ryanair spokesperson said your flight was not overbooked but a smaller plane had to be substituted for operational reasons: 'As a result, a small number of passengers were unable to travel on this fully booked flight. Regrettably, when informing Ryanair, the third-party ticket desk agent at Biarritz airport failed to include this passenger's details and as a result this passenger did not receive the email required to submit her EU261 compensation claim. A member of our customer service team has since been in contact to further assist this passenger with her claim.'
✉ My husband and I would like to take a trip to celebrate my son turning ten next year. We're flexible on when we go (Easter or summer) and my husband wants to take him to the theme parks in Florida, as his parents did with him when he was ten. I can't think of anything worse. Could you suggest a trip/route that would balance out the crowds and noise, experiencing more of Florida? I'd like to see the Keys and the Everglades. We have a budget of up to £15,000 for us all for up to a fortnight.Katie Pratley
Audley Travel could tailor-make this trip for you, starting with five nights in Orlando — three nights at Drury Plaza Orlando, in the Disney Springs area, and two nights at Loews Sapphire Falls Resort at Universal Orlando — with Disney and Universal tickets included. (You could make your theme park experiences slightly less painful by buying skip-the-queue passes which at Disney are called Lightning Lane and at Universal Express Pass, and should be invaluable during the school holidays). Then escape the madness by flying down to laid-back Key West for three nights at Oceans Edge Resort. You could add a kayak or snorkelling tour to explore the crystal-clear waters.
Next, pick up a hire car and drive about two hours to Marathon, between Key West and Key Largo. Don't miss a visit to the brilliant Turtle Hospital, which should be perfect for your ten-year-old (turtlehospital.org). You'd then have a two-night stay at the gorgeous Isla Bella Beach Resort before heading west to Naples for three nights at Naples Bay Resort and an airboat tour of the Everglades. A 14-night trip like this during next year's Easter holidays would start at about £15,000 for the three of you, including flights, car hire, theme park tickets and hotel stays sharing one room, room-only (audleytravel.com).
✉ I'm travelling to Peru with my daughter in January. She'll be on a work trip so I thought I could go on my own to Cusco and Machu Picchu but I can't find a travel company that will organise a three-day trip with a small group and guide. Any ideas?Marie Thompson
It's essential to book this Machu Picchu trip as soon as possible because permits to visit the site in January sell out quickly. The local operator Alpaca Expeditions has a two-night tour that also includes exploring Cusco City and the Sacred Valley and involves lots of walking but no trekking. It starts at £513pp, including two nights' B&B (based on sharing a room, single supplement £110), guiding, permit and entrance ticket and transport, and the company warns that because flights to Cusco are often cancelled, you should aim to arrive in the city at least two days before your trip, which will also allow you to acclimatise to the altitude (alpacaexpeditions.com).
✉ We're three friends in our late sixties who take a short break together every year. Our next choice is Vienna. Can you recommend the best area of the city for us to stay in? We're interested in historical sites, museums and city parks with the occasional shopping trip thrown in. Also, is the city easy to get around?Melanie Lloyd
Vienna is a brilliant choice for a short break. It packs a huge cultural punch, is very walkable and, mercifully, doesn't suffer from the overtourism of so many European capitals. Stay in the compact First District (or Innere Stadt) and you'll have the Hofburg Palace, St Stephen's Cathedral and the Vienna State Opera, as well as high-end shopping streets like Kärntner Strasse and Graben, on your doorstep. The large and lovely Stadtpark, home to the golden statue of Johann Strauss, is here too. For a taste of the city's imperial Habsburg past, stay in the small and central König von Ungarn, which dates back to the 17th century and has 44 elegant rooms, a glass-roofed courtyard and vaulted restaurant where you can sample a schnitzel. B&B doubles (or twins) start at £255 in September (kvu.at). The city's fast and efficient public transport is another of its high points and a 72-hour travel card costs £14.50 (wienmobil.at).
Have you got a holiday dilemma? Email traveldoctor@thetimes.co.uk
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Twisting along roads flanked by cherry trees, granite boulders, vines and wildflower-flecked pastures, I wind down the windows and breathe in the pure air of Portugal's remote, historic Beira Interior region. The motor is silent, the playlist is birdsong and occasional bleating sheep; all is serene. 'This is easier,' I say to myself with a smile, recalling my previous attempt to visit the Aldeias Históricas – a dozen historic hamlets bound by a 1995 conservation project – using woeful public transport. Revisiting this unspoilt pocket of Portugal, 155 miles (250km) north-east of Lisbon, near the border with Spain, is going to be effortless in an EV. And, best of all, the transport doesn't cost me a penny. An hour before, I arrived in Castelo Novo, a four-hour train ride from the capital, and currently the sole hub of the Aldeias Históricas's Sustainable Urban Mobility Scheme. 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From the largest rocky outcrop, where the castle's crenellated walls rise, the Mondego valley's panorama is endless. Other than an airborne paraglider and a man hawking hand-carved magnets in the car park, there's not a soul in sight. I walk a stretch of slabbed Roman road that once linked Mérida in Spain to Braga, north of Porto, and remember why I adore these villages. History is bite-size, hushed and unhurried, the antithesis of my home in the Algarve. After a brief drive, I park up and plug in outside the medieval defences of the most populated aldeia. Founded in the ninth century, handsome Trancoso hides behind hefty, turret-topped walls that have witnessed royal nuptials and numerous skirmishes. Today, walking beneath weathered porticos and streets lined with hydrangeas, it feels like the calmest place in the world. As does Solar Sampaio e Melo, a palatial 17th-century guesthouse – repurchased by a descendant of the original owners in 2011 – with an honesty bar and a pool shaded by turrets. Following a late breakfast of sardinhas doces, Troncoso's sardine-shaped, almond-stuffed sweets, I make for Marialva. The satnav states 30 minutes, but with back-road detours to gawp at giant granite mounds around Moreira de Rei, I reach the massif-mounted castle well after lunch. Occupied by the Aravos, a Lusitanian tribe, then the Romans and Moors, this was a crucial site for the advance of the Christian Reconquista. An old chap in a checkered shirt sits hammering almonds from their shells outside his home. I buy a bulging bag for €7 and gobble a handful inside the semi-ruined citadel, where Bonelli's eagles soar and cacti reclaim the stone. The flavour transports me to my Algarvian childhood holidays, when I'd hide from the sun (and my parents) under almond trees. For a second, it feels like Portugal hasn't changed in 30 years. Perhaps here, far from the coast, little has. The journey to Castelo Rodrigo is filled with awe, particularly around the craggy valley sliced by the Côa river. Just upstream is a unique collection of rock art etchings from three eras – prehistory, protohistory and history – and Faia Brava, Portugal's first private nature reserve, co-founded by biologist Ana Berliner, her husband and others. In 2004, the couple renovated Casa da Cisterna into a boutique guesthouse, and on its wisteria-draped terrace, Ana welcomes me with sugared almonds and fresh juice. I enquire about Faia Brava (Ana guides guests on excursions to the reserve and the prehistoric rock art) and whether they're concerned about tourism growing. 'These small villages benefit a lot [from tourism] because there aren't many people living here or many opportunities, so people are moving to the big cities,' she tells me. 'If you retain your people, and your young people spend those days living here, it's very good.' As I poke around the castle ruins, I mull over how the Portuguese writer José Saramago described Castelo Rodrigo in Journey to Portugal (1981): 'desolation, infinite sadness' and 'abandoned by those who once lived here'. I'm reassured that Ana is right. Lisbon's tourism boom has created Europe's least affordable city for locals. Yet, in these hinterlands, the right tourism approach could help preserve local customs. Unlike most of the aldeias, Castelo Rodrigo was founded by the Kingdom of León. It became Portuguese when the 1297 treaty of Alcanizes defined one of Europe's oldest frontiers. Reminders of Spain linger, such as the Ávila-style semicircular turrets and ruined Cristóvão de Moura palace, constructed under the Habsburg Spanish kings. Portuguese locals later torched it. With no charging station in Castelo Rodrigo (work is under way to expand the project to other villages, including the installation of chargers and the opening of new bases with additional cars in 2026), I drive to Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, the modern town below. At Taverna da Matilde flaming chouriço scents the dining room, and the pork loin – bisaro, an indigenous part-pig, part‑boar – is perfect. I sleep like a prince at Casa da Cisterna. Breakfast is a casual, communal affair of buttery Seia mountain cheese and pão com chouriço, followed by a quick stop at Castelo Rodrigo's wine cooperative to collect a case of robust Touriga Nacional (tours and tastings €18pp). In Almeida, a star-shaped military town, I roam the grassy ramparts before continuing south. Swallows soon replace eagles, and granite fades into gentle farmland. I breathe in the silence, standing by Castelo Mendo's twin-turreted gate. It feels like the world has stopped. I tiptoe across the ruined castle keep and am transfixed by the endless panorama of olive groves, cherry trees and occasional shepherd's huts. In search of coffee, I step into a dimly lit stone room below a sign that reads D Sancho. Inside is an old-world retail marvel. Photos of popes, boxes of wine, retired horseshoes, mounds of old coins and 'mystery boxes' that I'm tempted to spend a tenner on. A hunched woman with a smile gifts me a shot of ginjinha, the local cherry liquor, and signals me to sit with her on the bench outside. We don't speak, yet I somehow feel a connection to her land. I buy a bottle in the hope of taking that feeling home. My final stop, Sortelha, comes with high expectations – Saramago promised a perfectly preserved medieval town. Hulking walls cradle a 16th-century cluster of stone houses dominated by a castle that crowns an outcrop. Almost on cue, fog and showers shroud it all in mystery. I retreat to O Foral, where plates of bacalhau (salted cod) are bathed in pistachio-hued local olive oil. Parking back in Castelo Novo with a panic-inducing 7% charge showing on the dash, I am grateful to return the keys, and use the time before my lift to the station to survey the Knights Templar's former domain from the 12th-century castle. Stopping outside the red door where Saramago reportedly once stayed, I ponder how he would describe these villages 44 years later. Hopefully, he'd recount that, for the traveller, timeless magic remains, but those returning and reviving have vanquished any melancholy. Complimentary EV rentals of one to three days can be booked online at reservations open about 75 days in advance. For details of the 12 Aldeias Históricas, visit

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