I am a regular car renter, but seldom fly. Until the end of last year, I would get 500 miles per rental on USAir at National, regardless of flying on the same day. Since the 1st of the year, USAir requires a flight within 24 hours of the rental for credit.

Because of this change, I began to seek out better millage programs from rental companies. There are still a few good ones, but not many.

I joined Canadian Plus FF program becuase they offer 500 miles per rental at National with no flight need. While I live in the US, their membership in the OneWorld alliance should make those miles useful.

As a general rule, domestic US carriers offer either 50 miles a day or 1 or 2 miles per dollar spent on car rentals. Northwest and USair offer more miles 250 or 500, but in almost all cases require a flight on the airline within 24 hours of rental. USAir's web site gives the following caveat to rental car mileage. "All car rentals require a US Airways or partner airline flight within 24 hours. "

The deals for miles on rentals with not flight, at this point, seem to be on the foriegn carriers such as British Air and Canadian Air.

British, for example, offers 500 miles on leisure rentals (non contract discount) with a number of Rental agencies (Hertz, Avis, Alamo, Others?).

As mentioned, Canadian offers 500 miles with National and also with Alamo. Not sure of other agencies.

Another alternative worth considering is getting Marriott rewards points with Hertz. They offer 1000 Marriott points with each leisure rental. If you collect 30,000 points they can be exchanged for 10,000 miles on most domestic US carriers (10,000=2000miles and 20,000=5000miles). This results in 333 1/3 miles for each rental with greater back end flexibility of where the miles go. In addition, the miles can be transfered to the big US airlines.

I would encourage you to check out the web pages of your preffered car rental and airline programs. They should be helpful in find the right path to earning the most miles in the place you want them. Hope this was helpful.

good hunting.

------------------
__________________________________________
Two wrongs may not make a right, but three lefts do.

[This message has been edited by BLADE (edited 06-07-99).]