Award winning airport parking company APH with over 35 years of operating experience is offering tips to ensure air passengers can avoid parking pitfalls at UK airports. The guide is intended to provide a clearer path to parking and help passengers avoid unauthorised operators. Here,TripReporter offers a preview of the APH airport parking guide.
Ensure It’s Not Too Good To Be True
Reputable operators invest large amounts of money to ensure customers’ cars are safe; from having well-maintained transfer coaches to 24-hour security staff, these are all areas rogue firms skip to maximise profits at the customers’ expense. So, if customers are tempted by a fee that significantly undercuts the prevailing market – it’s likely they will end up paying the price in other ways.
Choose Park Mark-Approved Car Parks Where Possible
The Safer Parking Scheme is a national standard for UK car parks that have low-crime and measures in place to ensure the safety of people and vehicles. A Park Mark is awarded to each car park that achieves challenging standards.
Choose a Gatwick Approved Operator For Meet and Greet
Gatwick Airport runs an Approved Operator Scheme to ensure passengers can leave their car with confidence when using meet and greet services at the airport. This is a vital tool to help avoid passenger’s cars being left on public streets or unprotected wasteland.
Check out genuine reviews
Looking at how previous customers rate a parking company is a great way to gauge how reputable it is. However, make sure reviews are genuine and are curated by an independent, external site, such as TripReporter These cannot be tampered with by the car park operator and passengers should make sure that reviews contain negative as well as positive reviews.
Check The Company Physically Exists
Make sure the website has a Contact Us section that displays a physical address for correspondence – and not just a registered office. Customers should also consider entering the address into Google Maps and clicking the Streetview option to see just how real it looks.
Search Companies House For Information
The government offers a free service allowing customers to search its Companies House Database of registered companies. This can provide customers with a company’s information such as how long a business has been established and a list of its directors.
Trust Experience, It Tells A Long Story
Customers should not underestimate the power of experience if they want to find a safe and secure space for their vehicle. It’s likely a firm that’s been operating for decades has remained in business because of returning customers and word-of-mouth recommendations
Nick Caunter, Managing Director for Airport Parking and Hotels (APH) says, We understand how easy it is to be attracted to low prices, but for any parking services described as ‘Meet & Greet’ it’s important to note that the low price comes with a huge risk. When provided by a reputable operator, ‘Meet & Greet’ parking is a premium service, so we’d urge consumers to look very carefully at the tips in this article before they decide to entrust their car with anyone offering a price that looks too good to be true. The full guide can be found at APH
