Take Your Car Seat With You When You Travel

A recent article in the Guardian Newspaper, following on from research TravelSupermarket.Com showed that parents can actually be charged up to £80 per week for including a car seat in a hire car when you are hiring a car abroad yet a lot of airlines actually allow you to check in a car seat at no extra cost when you are travelling with a small child.

This is a ludicrous amount of money to pay for car seat hire, especially when you have no guarantee that the car seat you have hired will be suitable when you get it. We have heard disastrous tales of parents who have arrived at the car hire kiosk to find their 7 month old baby has been allocated a stage 2 car seat or another mother who arrived to find a dangerous crack in the side of the car seat. There have also been tales of parents arriving out of office hours at the airport only to find that the car seat has not been left for them, and when you do receive it, there is no guarantee that the seat you have been provided with has not been in a crash with a previous user.

Most parents insist that they don’t want to take their car seats with them when they travel as putting the car seat in the hold may damage the seat that they need to use when they return. However, we would suggest that if you don’t want to risk your usual car seat, why not use the money you would have spent on hiring a seat and buying one before you leave, saving you money and giving you peace of mind. A lot of the same merchants that bring you great travel cot offers also provide car seats with the same discounts and promotions, so take a look at our offers page and see how simple it is.

With airlines now being discovered to be charging a baby on your lap more than an adult ticket price, and with confusion over what you can and can’t carry on the plane for your baby, the rule of thumb is always to make sure you have fully investigated the rules and regulations of your specific airline and find out what you are and are not entitled to when travelling with a baby. These rules are changing all the time, so even if you travelled with the same airline last year, don’t assume the guidelines will be the same, talk to a customer services representative and get the low down before you travel to make sure you have a happy and safe trip with your child.