SUMMERWATCH

Expensive car rentals, overpriced toast and other ripoffs south of the Border leave Northerners sceptical, writes Conor Pope.

A reader recently returned to Ireland for a week from his home in the US and was more than a little dismayed at the cost of renting a car. He found a compact car through the travel website expedia.com and, while the initial price he was quoted was an eminently reasonable €128.39, the final price, once insurance and petrol were factored in, climbed to a whole lot less reasonable €358.12.

"This includes getting a full tank and being told to return the car empty which is not an easy thing to do," he writes. He was also penalised €69 for bringing the car to a different airport from the one he had rented it from. "The equivalent cost for a similar car with gas, insurance and different return point in the US is about $185 [ €137]," he says.

Coincidentally, another American-based reader contacted us last week after being similarly shocked by car-hire prices here, although her circumstances were substantially different.

"My friend and I booked a car for 10 days for about $650 [ €482] this summer," she writes. They picked up the rental in Dublin airport and had what she describes as "a slight accident" on the first day. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the rental company was unwilling to give them another car, so they went to a different company which charged her €750 for 10 days. "They saw us coming," she suggests.

They certainly did. We had a look online and a Ford Focus can be rented for seven days, collecting from Dublin airport, for as little as €145. It is absolutely essential to shop around, as within five minutes we got five quotes for the same car ranging in price from €145 to over €300. We couldn't find anyone charging close to what our reader was asked to pay, however. By pre-booking and pre-paying very significant savings can be made.

Staying with high costs coming out of Dublin airport, last week's complaint from a reader who paid €2.99 for a litre of milk in the airport's departure area prompted Dave Downey to get in touch. He suggests we do a whole article on the high costs of the airport.

"Once you go through security they have a captive audience and can charge what they like for food and drink, €1.80 for two slices of toast being one of the worst examples," he writes.

And the final word on electricity charges in self-catering accommodation goes to Elaine Cassells. On holiday in Co Kerry recently, she was asked to pay through the nose for electricity. The house in Killorglin cost her €899 for the week "but just to out-do last week's reader, we were charged €70 per week for electricity. At that price we decided to do all our washing and drying (every cloud and all that), so at least we came home with clean clothes," she writes. To confuse matters, the owners of the property did read the meter she says, "but then promptly ignored the reading".

She worked out the reading from a neighbour's bill and reckoned that when all was said and done her family had run up about €14.33 in electricity during their stay. "How do they get away with it?" she asks.

A restaurant employee in Belfast says he hears about rip-off prices in the Republic "all the time" where he works. "Tourists from all over the world say that Dublin in particular is just so expensive. They get the feeling they are getting ripped off. When they get up to Belfast everything seems easier and cheaper. But we will get there soon enough, then the whole island can join in the big scam. We will be united then for sure," he suggests.