What's the link between rocketing car hire prices and inflation?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just when you thought that you could book to go back in the water.

As if sorting a holiday, ensuring the country you want to go to is okay for long enough to get there, or dodging quarantine roulette wasn't enough, now car hire inflation is biting.

In a sign of the inflationary times, the cost of renting a car has rocketed to about three times the price of last year and it's being blamed on the semiconductor shortage.

How can a lack of computer chips drive up costs so substantially at the car hire desk?

And what on earth has this got to do with the price of a bag of crisps?

On this week's podcast, Georgie Frost, Grace Gausden and Simon Lambert look at holidays and inflation and the points where supply and demand are intersecting to create very odd scenarios, plus Simon expands on his crisp-based inflation explanation.

Also on this week's podcast, Grace investigates unpaid Dartford Crossing charges that spiralled into a £3,000 bill and Simon looks at what happens if you want to give your house to your child and whether that's an inheritance tax risk.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to This Is Money Podcast. I'm Georgie Frost. Stand alongside me and editor Simon Lambert. Today is Consumer Affairs expert Grace Gawston. And coming up, as we take the final tentative steps out of lockdown. Expect plenty of disruption head for travellers. You can still bag a bargain on flights if you fancy it, but watch out as you could be hit in the pocket elsewhere. Car hire, it's on the rise.
0:22.6	As is, inflation.
0:24.0	Rubbish for savers, but how long is the situation going to last?
0:27.3	Simon gives us an economics 101 using a bag of old crisps.
0:31.7	Grace is back on the case.
0:32.9	This time, it's a massive Dartford Crossing bill,
0:35.7	and a reader question about gifting homes and inheritance tax.
0:39.1	Don't forget you up to date with all the latest breaking money news.
0:41.7	Just go to this ismoney.co.com.uk.
0:43.6	Or download the app. But first, finally, you can travel abroad.
0:49.6	The restrictions have been eased. The flights booked. The apps downloaded. The test taken.
0:53.2	Masks at the ready. My God, this is really happening.
0:56.3	The flight lands, you are standing at the car high desk, the kids are screaming, but never mind, you can almost taste the foreign sun gleaming off the tarmac outside.
1:04.3	And then, wham, you're hit with a massive car hire bill, three times higher than normal.
1:10.5	And Simon, this isn't just a one-off
1:12.6	issue is it did you like my build up there I was trying to get the sense of being away you know
1:18.6	you have you know there's the sense of drama that built throughout that introduction it was
1:23.9	almost unbelievable thanks I think it was possibly akin to the feeling you get in a penalty shootout that we're not going to talk about.
1:34.3	Yeah.
1:34.7	But the disappointment is, one thing I would say is if you've gone to all that effort to manage to get abroad,
1:41.1	don't go get your car sorted only at the car hire desk.
1:46.2	Ideally, you have booked this car before you've got there.
	...

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