Thumbs down:People wishing to hire a car over the Christmas and New Year period will have to fork out up to three times more than they would expect to pay at other times of the year, a survey by Consumer Choice, the magazine of the Consumers' Association of Ireland (CAI), has shown.
The CAI's annual survey of car-hire costs, published in the most recent edition of the magazine, looked at prices for hiring the cheapest cars available from Dublin Airport for two weeks prior to the Christmas holidays and during the holidays.
The survey found that prices for car hire from Dublin Airport double and, in some cases, even treble over Christmas and New Year.
Bubbly trouble
Thumbs down:Unusually high demand for large bottles of premium bubbly is likely to lead to a shortage this Christmas, experts are predicting.
Wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd is considering setting up a waiting-list system for customers who want to buy magnums and jeroboams of champagne. The company has seen sales of all champagne double in recent weeks, and the shortage of larger-sized bottles of bubbly is due partly to their increased popularity in the UK.
Production of these larger bottles of champagne has not increased in recent years and now lags behind the greatly increased demand, according to Berry Bros & Rudd.
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