Anyone use https://carhotel.useaamiles.com/ Car rental rates may not include some taxes, service charges, deposits or other additional fees.

Funny they don't give you an estimate beyond the miles?

I'm flying to OAK or SFO (unto UC Berkeley) and wanted to compare

Do any other carrier redemption cover the rental completely?

I would not suggest using AA miles for car rentals. I did it last year and was surprised by the amount cash I had to pay when returning the car. (This was a full month rental, so perhaps the fees will be more reasonable on a shorter rental term.)

I like being able to use miles for hotels, but definitely not for cars. On the couple occasions I did, I was shocked at the additional fees, and I was disappointed at the complications when needing to make an adjustment to the reservation.

I think miles for car rental is a waste, concidering that there are still other out of pocket fees that you need to pay, besides, you can find cheap rentals via other alternative methods. Hotels, is a better use of miles, more so if you have a high elite status as they offer discount to EXP.

I would not ever use miles for a car rental, for a reason that nobody here has mentioned: most credit cards include some kind of protection if you damage the car, which lets you avoid purchasing the "collision damage waiver" offered by the rental car company. However, on every credit card I have ever had, this coverage is only provided if the entire cost of the rental is charged to the card.

That means that if you pay for the rental in miles, and the taxes and fees (which others have mentioned may be quite substantial) with your credit card, you essentially have zero protection. A colleague of mine once rented a car with miles, hit a post in a garage, and found out the hard way when he was liable for the entire cost of the repairs, since he had declined the damage waiver. Of course, you could purchase the damage waiver, but that will set you back $20/day or so.

By the way, it's also usually a terrible cents-per-mile redemption, in case you need any more reason not to do this.

I'll second (or third) the hotels-only use. It is as straightforward as it seems, with the only downside being that one does not get stay credit and (usually, and by policy) no elite perks from a chain in which one has status. We use this for one-off hotels frequently.

Cheers.

Old thread, but does anyone know if calling in will allow for greater hotel inventory relative to the useaamiles.com website? Currently you can only search locations by airport code, but for properties that are not near a major airport this is rather useless. For example, I am currently looking at hotels in the Duoro Valley of Portugal.

American AAdvantage Miles is NO WAY to rent a car. One Hertz Lux Sedan for 7 days out of Bangor International, right now, 8/23/2022, will cost you $918.85. Book the same exact Hertz car, same airport, same number of days with AAdvantage miles and it will cost you 70,200 MILES ... PLUS ... $1,579.73. It's unconscionable. Always check out renting directly from the rental company ... NOT American Airlines. AA will gouge you with miles "used" and then double the cash cost (virtually) and pass that along to you as well. NEVER rent a car with AAdvantage miles. It's the biggest rip-off in the airlines industry ... And that's saying something.