Keeping car at the airport

We use Plane Parking at Alicante, they charge approx €300 per year for secure parking, when your going back to Spain you book on line tell them your car reg flight number and flight times when you land you ring them and they meet you in the drop of Carpark at the airport and you collect your car. We pay an extra €75 per year and they will transfer the car between Alicante & Corvera if required, you get a free car wash they can carry out ITV & servicing at extra cost never had any issues in 3 years we've been using them.

Phil.

Used Plane Parking for 12 years now never had any problems.Prices etc on the link below.

If your car is properly maintained there should never be any starting problems.

https://www.planeparking.com/

Thanks for the info 

Check out that you can get proper insurance at a decent price. I have been looking to do the same, but for a car left in the UK, and because it would not be parked at a residential address the online websites grind to a halt - especially when I put in that we are not UK residents and have Spanish licences.

It is never worth lying to an insurance company as any policy would be invalid, so in the event of a claim (worst case scenario you knock down and injure/kill a person) they would decline it, leaving you with possibly many thousands to pay out.

I'd be interested to hear from anybody else's experiences of this - particularly in relation to costs...

I've also been thinking about this, as we've just bought a villa - initially as a holiday home and then to retire to in 5 years time (health & finances permitting!).

We will be coming over once a month, plus probably 4 longer holidays; and we tend to pay approx. 20 euros a time for car hire (and proportionately more for longer trips); so I'm expecting 500-600 euros over the year.

If we bought a car, we would pay 300 euros per year in airport parking, as suggested, which would only leave a difference of 300 euros per year - which would need to cover road tax, insurance, ITV, servicing, depreciation, repairs, etc.

Obviously the comparison changes if you live here permanently.

The situation and sums are even worse for those of us living here. As well as the costs of buying and running a car in each country, there is the cost of parking to take account of. Even if you just have a car in Spain car hire is fiendishly expensive in the UK, so a month’s holiday can cost around £1000 for a small set of wheels.

Unless you are very careful on how long you are out of the UK it sounds like you might be close to spending 183 days in Spain, in which case you will be tax-resident, which does not fit well with everyone’s finances.

We're looking for airport parking at Alicante too from March. After looking at prices and reviews on around 20 airport parking companies, Ecoparking (http://www.ecoparkingalicante.es/es), at €250 for the year, looks good for us. We've opted for a transfer service, rather than meet and greet, as there were several reviews saying some drivers raced around in cars, didn't brake for speed bumps and had no respect for the cars they were driving.

PeterC - unfortunately, our holidays will only add up to about 60-70 days in Spain, so we're well under the tax-resident mark.

I understand the comparison to UK car hire costs, which are very high.

However, my comparison with 'living here' (in Spain) is that you then have ownership costs, but nil hire costs - i.e. you're not hiring a car at 5 -10 euros per day (= 1,800 - 3,600 euros per year).

So ownership costs of road tax (50-100 euros), insurance (c.300 euros), ITV (50 euros), servicing (c.300 euros), plus the airport parking charge (300 euros) are still lower than the car hire costs mentioned above (depending on depreciation & any repair costs). And this, presumably, makes the airport parking cost an attractive economic option for residents - whereas for non-residents like myself, car hire still remains more cost-effective...

Poppy as I said we've never had any issues with Plane Parking defiantly no damage to our car the delivery driver inspects the car for damage with us and you both sign to confirm no damage and within 5 minutes we are on the motorway, with Ecoparking you will have to wait for a mini bus to transport you and maybe join a que to wait for your car but that's only our experience others may have different views on Plane Parking.

Phil.