Firefly car hire at Girona airport

[Sue]

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[Sus]

I normally travel from St Pancras and have been getting tickets around £100, as long as you are a bit flexible with timing, the ticket price is not so bad, I don't think that it will ever be as low as some budget airlines but I much prefer to go by train. The other advantage for me is that I like to break the journey in Paris to have lunch with friends or go to an exhibition and then take a later train on to Perpignan. I also recently discovered that there is an overnight option from Paris to Perpignan and a special compartment for women travelling on their own, haven't tried it yet but I love travelling on overnight trains and it is next on my list.

[martyn94]

I normally travel from St Pancras and have been getting tickets around £100, as long as you are a bit flexible with timing, the ticket price is not so bad, I don't think that it will ever be as low as some budget airlines but I much prefer to go by train. The other advantage for me is that I like to break the journey in Paris to have lunch with friends or go to an exhibition and then take a later train on to Perpignan. I also recently discovered that there is an overnight option from Paris to Perpignan and a special compartment for women travelling on their own, haven't tried it yet but I love travelling on overnight trains and it is next on my list.

Don't wait too long: they will be scrapping all but two night sleeper services quite soon (including the Perpignan service, but they plan to keep the one to Latour de Carol): they lose money by around €100 a head. It's a long time since I've done it, but there's a special pleasure in putting your head down at night in Austerlitz and waking up to the light down here. Though perhaps not today, and the sleep in the middle isn't guaranteed if you're as tall as me ( which is not v tall).

[Sus]

Sorry to hear that they are planning on stopping the overnight service and maybe not surprising as it is quite reasonably priced!

[martyn94]

Sorry to hear that they are planning on stopping the overnight service and maybe not surprising as it is quite reasonably priced!

I doubt if it has been used much apart from Australian kids with rail passes for twenty years. I bought the odd ticket back in the day from French Railways in London. Before it was all computerised centrally in real time, they just had their own preset ration of places: you generally got a compartment to yourself, except in August.

Needless to say, there has been some kickback against the proposed closures from local pols, and these things don't happen quickly in France. You've probably got a year or two.

[Ariègeoise]

I've used the Latour de Carol service a few times now (to Foix) - it's a brilliant way to travel, for around 30 euros if you get advance 'Prems' tickets. Lovely to lull yourself to sleep to the gentle juddering of the train. Certainly not just Aussie kids - all sorts of people of all ages (and lots of them).

The only problem is that on that service at least, there are no announcements to say that you've reached such and such a station so you have to rely on waking yourself up and noticing which station you're at ... not easy at 5.30 in the morning!

[harleybin]

I normally travel from St Pancras and have been getting tickets around £100, as long as you are a bit flexible with timing, the ticket price is not so bad, I don't think that it will ever be as low as some budget airlines but I much prefer to go by train. The other advantage for me is that I like to break the journey in Paris to have lunch with friends or go to an exhibition and then take a later train on to Perpignan. I also recently discovered that there is an overnight option from Paris to Perpignan and a special compartment for women travelling on their own, haven't tried it yet but I love travelling on overnight trains and it is next on my list.

I still wish they'd come down in prices.
Interesting the ovenight option, must give it a go sometime.

[martyn94]

I normally travel from St Pancras and have been getting tickets around £100, as long as you are a bit flexible with timing, the ticket price is not so bad, I don't think that it will ever be as low as some budget airlines but I much prefer to go by train. The other advantage for me is that I like to break the journey in Paris to have lunch with friends or go to an exhibition and then take a later train on to Perpignan. I also recently discovered that there is an overnight option from Paris to Perpignan and a special compartment for women travelling on their own, haven't tried it yet but I love travelling on overnight trains and it is next on my list.

I still wish they'd come down in prices.
Interesting the ovenight option, must give it a go sometime.

As I said above, don't hang around for the night service. The Govt have confirmed that they are going to drop almost all of them (barring Latour de Carol via Rodez in our part of the world). They have however invited private operators to bid to take them over. This is a wholly cynical manoeuvre: the spokesman for Thello (who run the Paris-Venice sleeper) said, paraphrasing, that you'd have to be out of your mind.

See here
http://www.lindependant.fr/2016/04/01/t ... 178864.php

[Alyssa]

Hi Kate, I thought I had better tell you of my experience with Firefly car hire at Girona airport! Hertz has closed their office at Girona airport and opened a firefly office instead(owned by hertz). I have booked a car through firefly for Easter and presumed that since they are owned by Hertz that none of terms and conditions would have changed! although legal steroids https://legalsteroids.best/ for bulking and cutting How wrong could i have been! They now don't allow you to take one of their cars across the border to France! They don't offer insurance outside Spain for any countries other than Portugal or Gibralter! I can't believe it and will now have to cancel this booking and lose 50 euros I think! The thing I find so irksome is that when you book car hire through the Ryanair website the banner at top is for Hertz firefly and thrifty! Nowhere does it say that there is a difference in terms and conditions between any of their companies!!! Grrrr! I thought you might want to make the forum aware!!!

Thank you for your info on your experience with Firefly