My first trip to Florida consisted of buying a UK Fly drive deal. The idea of fly drives being; if you bought a flight you got the hire car thrown in free. On the surface it appeared a fantastic deal.

We arrived at Orlando airport and was transported by bus to the off airport site to pick up our holiday auto. When we eventually arrived at the desk, the amount to secure the car in extras such as insurances seemed excessive. I now realised that the free car was in not anyway free. I had known there would be insurance to pay but did not comprehend it would be this much.

After a great holiday I arrived home to compare my extra charges to normal hire charges and sure enough, there was very little difference between the extra insurance charges as a fly drive against had had I booked and paid for the hire car separately.

I vowed I would never buy a fly drive again and source my own car separately to ensure I could take advantage of any deals going, for when I would return to the States. This is exactly what I did the second time. We did not pay any more than taking a fly drive; we also got the car we wanted at the price we could afford.

There was one similarity though, in that every time you Visit Florida the person at the car hire desk will try to sell you an upgrade. Normally they offer 2 upgrades for the price of 1. We had ordered the right sized car for our party so we did nit take him up on his offer.

By the third trip, this time to Miami it was time to put everything I had learned from this holiday autos game, to get the best deal possible. We ordered our car online as usual, the difference being, we ordered the smallest and cheapest car available including insurance. When we arrived in Miami we go th customary trade up sales talk, but this time we said we may consider it if the price was right.