Other Car Rental Programs (ie. Alamo, Enterprise) - What's a good return in using miles for car rental?

I'm thinking of renting a car from ANC for 6 days.

So far, based on what I can find, the best value I can get for a paid reservation is about $480.

I also checked and it will be 28.5k miles to book a reservation through my MileagePlus. The fine print seems to say that the normal taxes are included, but 'additional' fees may apply (not sure how much they will work out to).

I will also have to fork out about $60-$90 more for young driver fee.

So that means $400 value for 28.5k miles redeemed. Is it a good idea to use miles in this case? 25k miles gets me a domestic return flight, but of course there's the opp cost of miles forgone for that flight.

Assuming you don't save up UA miles for international Y or C tickets I actually think that's a pretty good value. I have not had much luck finding 25k mile domestic Y saver awards on United. If I'm lucky I can find a ticket for 37.5k miles for tickets in the $400-500 range. Plus, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

looks like they fluctuate a tonne too.. the lowest i can get now for the same reservation is 35k miles :S

Taxes in ANC are 29.11% plus $6.50 per day. You'll want to factor that in to your value equation, since some (although not all) agencies do charge tax on award rentals.

I am a Delta SkyMiles member. 2 years ago I used 41,890 miles for 16 full days of rental (including tax). I walked away not shelling out one penny of cash. I am looking now, from the same location and almost same exact dates (just 2 years later) for a 19 day rental instead of 16 days and Delta wants 72,150 miles.

If you can get any rental under 2,700 miles/day you're in a great position but 3,000/day is still ok. IMO 3,500 plus is way too much.

This doesn't seem worth using miles for. My wife and I did a 3-day car rental from Entrprise, starting in ANC, via Costco Travel. Base rate was $8 a day for the lowest-level car. Total for the whole thing was $51 after all the taxes and airport fees.

Neil