Aideen Finnegan

Would you recommend somebody take out insurance anyway, even though they might have booked through a tour operator and they might have consumer rights via that?

So the next one that is a particular bugbear of mine, because I have been burned before by some total scam artists and I am talking about car hire.

Now, let's assume you do need it.

I know you wrote recently about, you know, you should examine whether do you actually need the car or will paying for taxis daily in a cheaper country, you know, still work out less expensive than renting it?

But I actually happen to be going to a very rural part of Italy this summer, which I'm very excited about.

So we'll definitely need the car.

And in my experience, some of those companies will try and take you for an absolute fool.

So what should one look out for?

Well, you've actually, you've raised something there.

You should use a credit card for that, shouldn't you?

Because if you use your, a lot of people have their debit card and they might pay for things on Google Pay, you know, in their digital wallet and all that kind of thing.

But you're snookered then if they take it off your debit card.

It's so hard to get that money back.

Oh, I really hate car hire companies.

When I went to Spain once before, I had paid for the car and this operator said, when you get there and they tell you you need insurance, you don't.

So I went and said this, but of course, like, there's a language barrier as well.

And they're saying, well, you can leave here today, but we'll be putting this block on your car.

You know, so they have you by the ghoulies.

You wrote in the Irish Times last week about 28 ways that you can add hours to your life in the context of holidays.

And one of the things that I thought was very interesting is that you should always drop your baggage when there's a human being doing the check-in.