I'll agree that for auto rentals, Budget is the best (still looking for someone who has successfully cashed in points for a vacation trip). That's mainly due to the fact that the other ones are really bad/nonexistent.

One beef: Budget seems to have taken away their 50% discounted awards for off-airport locations. Then you only had to spend $120 for a free day!

Another beef: You still have to pay all those lousy taxes on the "free" rental, so it's really not that good of a deal when your "free" day still costs you over $15 in some locations. No taxes at all from most free hotel nights and some airlines.

As for the best reward program out there, I would have to say that some of the hotels and Southwest Airlines are hard to beat.

With Southwest, it is possible to beat the system and get a free round trip after every 2 round-trips (usually 4 for booking online). In addition, having a Companion Pass lets you potentially double your free tickets, so it is possible to get 2 free round-trips after buying 2 round-trips. And that's a beautiful thing.

With Hyatt and Marriott, for example, you can get serious bonus points and cash back for buying gift certificates in advance and taking advantage of bonus periods. I'd say with Hyatt and Marriott I'm getting about 25 cents on the dollar for the year, and compared to car rentals, it's a LOT of dollars. I just wish I rented cars more often...

For some of my tricks, try these old posts:
Southwest http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum44/HTML/000040.html
Marriott http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum63/HTML/000219.html
Hyatt http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum60/HTML/000070.html

[This message has been edited by Tino (edited 09-27-2000).]