zakami

I used to collect points for Hertz #1 awards, but I found them to be pretty useless, specially since they expire in 2 years. Given that I am President's Circle, those free day coupons you get for every some rentals are usually more than enough for me. I usually rent on weekends for personal rentals when rentals are usually very cheap (and there is always a coupon). So now I have decided to collect miles Virgin Atlantic (I think you get the most our of them) specially since I can combine it with Hilton's double-dipping even though I have never flown Virgin. I am curious as to what other people do. Do you collect #1 points or airline miles? If airline miles, then which one?

UALOneKPlus

This has been discussed several times here before.

I believe most collect the points.

The petty amount of miles you get is almost not worth the fee you have to pay every rental.

The points work out far better for me.

zakami

You get 1,000 miles per rental with Virgin. Don't think that is too petty?

Bazz

If it's for a day or two, yes 1000 VS miles is okay, but if you rent for two weeks you still only get 1000 miles, that is not so good. Yes I know I could break the rental down into several shorter rentals, but the hassle of doing that is too much to contemplate.

------------------
Bazz
Still Flying

[This message has been edited by Bazz (edited Feb 03, 2004).]

UALOneKPlus

This sounds almost too good to be true. When I was getting UA miles, I got 50 miles per day. What a scam.

Are you sure you get at least 1,000 mile per rental? If so that's a friggin' deal.

Edit: according to this website, it is 1000 miles per rental period. So it's good if you do short rental periods, I guess.

[This message has been edited by UALOneKPlus (edited Feb 03, 2004).]

Beckles

Southwest Airlines, 32 rentals/HHonors stays to get a free ticket to Vegas that would run me roughly $320 otherwise ... so each rental/HHonors stay gets me $10 worth of value.

Virgin may have a similar or even better value, but it would take longer to earn enough for a trip on them.

pinniped

The key to Hertz #1 Awards is whether you have a need for 1-day, standalone rentals. Those are the rentals for which Priceline doesn't provide much help and for which most cheap rates and promotional codes don't work. I actually use a few of these a year, so Hertz #1 Awards is VERY valuable for me.

I figure a standalone one-day rental the way I use them is worth $50. (Like I said, I use them where normal promo codes don't work well - I've done downtown SF, downtown Denver, and the Hilton Hertz location on Waikiki Beach in the past few months - so $50 for a Taurus isn't all that unusual.) Therefore, I value the points at about 8 cents each.

Since I value Marriott Rewards points at about a penny each, my breakeven point is about a $60 rental. Cheaper rental: Marriott points. More expensive rental: ZE1 points. A typical weekly business rental for $175-200 yields about $15 in reward.

zakami

Yes, I got 1,000 VS miles for a 1-day rental that cost me $13.52 including tax.

Southwest is a thought. I suppose I could redeem it for award certificates and then sell them on eBay. I have no use for SouthWest since they don't go international and I don't like to fly them.

[This message has been edited by zakami (edited Feb 03, 2004).]

Stefan Daystrom

You can't "redeem it" for award certificates, and the you phrased the above doesn't like you know how the Southwest program works. Southwest credits (0.5 per rental) are automatically applied to your Southwest Rapid Rewards account, and when you reach 16.0 credits WITHIN 365 DAYS of the first credit (or half-credit) you AUTOMATICALLY get an award certificate which is good for one year. But if you go a year only earning 15.5 credits or less, you get absolutely nothing. So if you're not already earning Southwest somewhere else where it makes more sense than anything else (like Hampton Inn, where you also get 0.5 RR credit per stay but only 100 miles per stay with any other airline), you better do at least 16 Hertz rentals a year or else all you put toward Southwest will be lost.

Also, Southwest is changing toward electronic awards (rather than the paper ones that were so easy to sell on eBay) and it's not clear whether it's going to be as easy to sell them on eBay in the future as it has been now.