NEC show offers 2026: how to judge the Auto-Sleepers, Auto-Trail and Marquis deals

A show offer looks simple on the poster and fiddly in the small print. At the Motorhome and Caravan Show at the NEC in Birmingham, 13 to 18 October 2026, Auto-Sleepers, Auto-Trail dealers and Marquis Leisure are all attaching free packs, cheap gearboxes and cashback to orders placed during the week. Some of those offers are worth thousands of pounds to the right buyer. Others are worth less than the headline figure or add weight you cannot spare. The figures below are what Auto-Sleepers and Marquis Leisure published on their own pages, and what the dealer Elite Motorhomes listed for Auto-Trail, as of 10 October 2026. The only way to value them is against the van you would have ordered without them.

What is on offer

Auto-Sleepers

According to Auto-Sleepers' show-offers page, the deals apply to orders placed between 13 and 18 October, either through participating dealers or at the NEC, and they cannot be exchanged for cash. There are two show offers and one separate anniversary deal.

• Free habitation air conditioning, which Auto-Sleepers values at £2,000, on new 2027 Fiat motorhomes and campervans, excluding Active and LXV models.
• On Active campervans, free Comfort and Tech upgrades it values at £3,090, including 100W solar, a 100Ah lithium battery, Wi-Fi and double-leaf suspension.
• Separately, Auto-Sleepers' anniversary page offers the automatic gearbox (£3,400) and alloy wheels (£995), together worth £4,395, for £65 on LXV models, on orders placed from 1 September 2026. Auto-Sleepers itself says payload drops by 45 kg.

Auto-Trail

Auto-Trail's own show page says offers run throughout the event, but it gives no amounts or terms. The same page puts its stand in Hall 8, stand 8.30. The detail comes from a dealer: Elite Motorhomes published a list on 9 October 2026.

• Adventure: free Premium Pack (£1,395).
• Expedition Van: Premium Pack (£1,395).
• V-Line Sport: £1,200 cashback or discount.
• Excel and F-Line: Drivers Pack (£2,195).
• Imala: Media Pack (£1,395).
• Frontier: Truma Aventa Comfort roof air conditioning (£1,950).

Because that list is a dealer's and not Auto-Trail's, treat it as a starting point. Ask the dealer you are buying from to confirm each item in writing, and ask whether the offer is funded by Auto-Trail or by the dealer, because that affects whether another Auto-Trail dealer can match it.

Marquis Leisure

Marquis Leisure's October show-offers page lists the following.

• Benimar Primero: a £95 pack worth over £8,400, including a Fiat automatic.
• Benimar Primero Lite: a free pack worth over £1,800.
• Benimar Tessoro: a £95 pack worth over £10,100, including a Ford 165bhp automatic.
• Benimar Mileo: a £95 pack worth over £12,500, including a Fiat automatic and a 4,400 kg chassis.
• Mobilvetta Kea, K.Yacht and Kea Kompakt: prices held at 2026 levels, plus a pack worth over £4,000.
• Panama: a pack worth over £2,000 on selected models, and a free awning worth over £1,100 on the P/12 SE AWD.
• McLouis Fusion (2027): a pack for £95 including the 140bhp automatic.

A free pack is worth what you would have paid for it

A pack valued at over £10,100 is worth over £10,100 to you only if you would have ticked every box on the options list. If you wanted the automatic and nothing else, the value of the pack to you is the price of the automatic, less the £95 you pay for the pack. Everything else in it is kit you now own and carry, which is pleasant but not money saved.

The method is short. Get the full contents of the pack in writing. Price each item from the maker's own optional-extras list, and ask the dealer for the weight of each one if the list does not give it. Cross out anything you would not have bought. Add up what is left and subtract the pack price. That figure, not the poster figure, is what the offer is worth to you.

Worked through on the Auto-Sleepers LXV deal: if you wanted both the automatic and the alloys, you pay £65 for £4,395 of options, a saving of £4,330. If you only wanted the automatic, the saving is £3,400 less £65, which is £3,335, and you carry the alloys regardless. Both are large sums. They are just different sums, and only one of them is yours.

Cashback needs one more question. Elite Motorhomes lists £1,200 cashback or discount on the V-Line Sport. A discount comes off the price before any finance is calculated, so it also reduces interest. Cashback paid after delivery does not. If you are financing, ask which you are being offered and when the money moves.

Free kit still weighs something

Auto-Sleepers deserves credit for publishing the number: the automatic and alloys on the LXV cost 45 kg of payload. Every other item in every other pack has a weight too. A roof air-conditioning unit, a lithium battery, a solar panel, uprated suspension and alloy wheels all add mass, and on a van plated at 3,500 kg every kilogram of kit is a kilogram you cannot put in the garage or the water tank.

Payload is the maximum authorised mass (MAM, also called MTPLM or the plated weight) minus the mass in running order (MIRO). MIRO is the standard vehicle plus a 75 kg driver, fuel at 90 per cent and whatever water and gas the maker says it counts, so read the maker's own definition before you do any sums. EU type-approval rules allow the actual mass in running order of a motor caravan to differ from the declared figure by up to 5 per cent either way. So ask the dealer for three things in writing: the weight of each item in the pack, the revised payload with the pack fitted, and the maker's running-order definition. If the van then cannot carry the people and luggage you intend to take, the pack has cost you more than it saved.

When a pack changes the plated weight

The Marquis Mileo pack includes a 4,400 kg chassis. Marquis lists the standard 2027 Mileo, with its manual gearbox, at 3,650 kg, so the van is over 3,500 kg with or without the pack and the rules below apply either way.

Licence

A category B (car) licence covers a motor caravan with a MAM of up to 3,500 kg. Over that, you need C1. If you passed your car test before 1 January 1997, your licence already carries C1 as an acquired right, and it lasts until your 70th birthday; from 70 the licence is renewed every three years and keeping C1 needs the renewal by post with a D4 medical each time. If you passed on or after 1 January 1997, you have category B only, and driving a 4,400 kg motorhome means applying for provisional C1 entitlement (forms D2 and D4, with the medical completed by a doctor), then passing a theory test and a practical test in a suitably heavy vehicle. Anyone who passed during 1997 falls under the on-or-after rule.

Vehicle tax

This one runs the other way to what people expect. A motor caravan over 3,500 kg revenue weight is taxed as a Private HGV, tax class TC10. The 2026 to 2027 rates on GOV.UK are £177 a year for a motor caravan over 3,500 kg (Private HGV, TC10) and £375 a year at or under 3,500 kg with an engine over 1,549 cc (TC11). So a van over 3,500 kg is £198 a year cheaper to tax than one at or under it; the Mileo is over 3,500 kg at either plate, so the pack does not change its tax. Check the live rates on GOV.UK before you quote them to anyone.

Speed limits, London and insurance

The motor caravan speed limits turn on unladen weight, not plated weight. At or under 3.05 tonnes unladen you keep car limits; over 3.05 tonnes unladen the limits are 50 mph on single carriageways and 60 mph on dual carriageways, with 70 mph on motorways. A 4,400 kg chassis does not automatically put a van over 3.05 tonnes unladen, so check the unladen weight on the V5C or the certificate of conformity rather than guessing. In London, a motor caravan over 3,500 kg falls under the Low Emission Zone (Euro VI) rather than the ULEZ. And tell your insurer the plated weight, because it can change the quote.

The upside is real: Marquis lists the 4,400 kg Mileo with 1,110 kg to 1,269 kg of payload, against an estimated 400 kg to 519 kg at 3,650 kg, which is exactly the problem the previous section describes. Just make sure the licence in your pocket matches the plate on the van.

How to compare the deal properly

1. Two on-the-road prices in writing. One with the offer, one without. Then price the same van yourself from the maker's list price plus the options you would have chosen. If the three numbers do not line up, ask why.
2. Delivery date. Ask for the expected build and handover window for a 2027 model ordered at the show, and whether the price is fixed at order or can rise before delivery.
3. Deposit terms. How much, who holds it, and whether it is refundable if the delivery date slips or the specification changes.
4. Finance. The APR, the total amount payable, the deposit required, and whether the show offer depends on taking the dealer's finance. Compare the total cost of credit with a quote from your own bank.
5. Part exchange. Get your old van valued separately, so a strong-looking pack is not being paid for by a weak trade-in figure.
6. Held prices. Marquis says Mobilvetta prices are held at 2026 levels. Ask what the 2027 price would have been, so you can see the difference in pounds.
7. Terms on the order form. Pack contents, item weights, revised payload, delivery window and price protection all belong on the signed order, not in a conversation at the stand.

If a salesperson cannot put the offer on the order form, you have not been offered it.

Bottom line

None of these offers is bad, and several are worth a great deal to the right buyer. An automatic gearbox for £65 or £95 is a lot of money off something many people would have paid full price for. Free air conditioning or a lithium and solar upgrade is useful kit. But the value to you is the sum of the items you wanted, less the pack price, less whatever payload and licence consequences come with it. Do that arithmetic at the kitchen table before the show, take the written quotes home rather than signing on the stand, and, as long as the written terms run to 18 October, the offer will still be there on the last day of the show.