I am a member of DC in Australia, now living in Vietnam. I am travelling to the USA in late November and want to change points for drive days. Any suggestions for which company I should use? Can't seem to find a rate to convert points to car days.
Similar redemptions may be possible through other transfer partner airlines, but this will get you started. If you do elect to redeem for a car rental investigate carefully if the credit card you use to pay taxes and incidentals will provide any insurance coverage if you are not using the card to pay the full value of the rental.
Why? It costs nothing to join, and there is no requirement to fly on AA to earn or redeem miles.
But isn't there now a limitation at AA that you have to have 25k in your account before you can redeem for stuff other than flights? (I seem to remember them instituting this sometime in the past year or so, but don't remember the details.)
Programs: AA 2MM Perpetual Platinum; HH Gold, SPG Gold; All Major Credit Cards
Posts: 5,172
Quote:
Originally Posted by sdsearch
...AA that you have to have 25k in your account before you can redeem...
Correct, but I don't see any restriction that these miles could not be transferred in from Diners. The OP asked about a "10 day" car rental and this would require more than 25,000 miles.
"Tisn't worth it to convert DC points to a free car rental. For every dollar U input, U would receive maybe 10 cents or so of value.
DC USA offers conversions at fair rates to almost all hotel programs. If DC would somehow let U access the US benefits, U could do well with free hotel rooms.
__________________ Best comeback line to, "Who asked you?!" is "Who said somebody asked me?!"
Another important point to consider, for someone coming from overseas, is what insurance is covered. The insurance on US rentals can easily be more than the rental itself, on a 10-day rental! It thus makes a big difference whether using points/miles will get you a rental with all insurance coverages or not. If it does, then >25k for a 10-day rental might still be worth it. But given that you can rent (without insurance) a car at most US airport locaitons in the US for 10 days for less than the cost of a deep discount domestic US airline flight in economy, >25k miles for a 10-day rental with no insurance included seems like a poor deal to me.
