Air Canada always offers 500 miles per rental with Alamo, Avis, Budget, Hertz, National & Thrifty. Only Hertz requires rental in conjunction with air travel.

IMHO this is one of the better features of Aeroplan.

~off topic alert sounds~

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP

Anyhoo, this was enough to make me join the Flying Club, and switch my Budget profile to credit my new VS account. Should only take a year to earn a free ticket on car rentals alone!

what exactly the "flying club" rate?

- Special flying club or retail rate (1000)
- Corporate or local rates (500)

I assume it is similar to a "full fare" is that accurate?

Edit: I can't get the VS reward travel site to even tell me how much reward travel costs... I have plugged in city pairs until I'm blue in the face... I try EWR/LHR from 0 to 500,000 miles and get "no results found"... same thing for everything I've looked it...

can the miles be used for US domestic travel on their partners like America West or National?

[This message has been edited by EWR-COflyer (edited 03-22-2002).]

500 bonus Delta miles from Dollar Rent a car in addition to the standard 50 miles per day. Rent a full size or larger car for 3 or more days. Valid Feb 1 to May 22 at participating locations. Ask for promo code DL500 at the time of the reservation.

Promotion footnote mentions 50c per transaction fee for frequent flyer mile taxes.

Absolutely !!.

Not only is it the strongest asset of Aeroplan (especially now with all the other cutbacks), but with a short-haul AC reward available at 15,000 (12,000 to higher memberships and sometimes 'on sale' even Basic Aeroplan members), one can get a free trip from let's say Montreal to Chicago or the Carolinas with a minimum of only 30 car rentals (not even considering the fact that AC Aeroplan also has had 1,000 per rental promotions in the past).

In comparison, if one were collecting only 50 miles per day for another frequent flyer program, then they would need to rent 400 times !!!! to reach the first award available generally at 20,000.

The above comparisons are for 1-day rentals.

However, even if one was renting for let's say 5 days at a time, with AC Aeroplan it would still take 30 rentals and with others at 50/miles per day equaling 250 miles per rental, it would take 80 rentals to reach the first regular redemption level.

So, Aeroplan, don't ever lower the miles/points offered for car rentals. Ya hear !

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Got points ? Got smiles !

EWR-COflyer,

The 1000 point rate seems to be anything you book without a CDP number, including freedom rates, website promos, etc. Everytime I've used a CDP number or had my company book the rate, it's been 500 points.

Are you sure?

My copy of the "non-airline partners" chart (07/2001) shows only 300 points per rental (150 if contracted rate) with Avis, Europcar, Hertz and Sixt; nothing with Budget or Dollar.

(Of course, I'm Europe-1, so your mileage/pointage may differ.)

Edited to add: Apparently KLM has changed since that chart was printed. I just checked their website and it does show 500 miles per rental (250 if contracted rate). Thanks for the information!

[This message has been edited by Counsellor (edited 04-05-2002).]

I just tried to using my Virgin Atlantic Flying Club # to earn miles with AVIS. Their computer didn't recognize the Flying Club (VS) code, but did accept the Virgin Freeway Miles code. What is Freeway Miles?

For a rental last week with Hertz, I didn't have any problem entering my VS FF #.

I believe Freeway Miles is the former name of Virgin Atlantic's mileage program (my old card says "Freeway").
More to the point, according to Avis telephone rep, the Avis designator for Virgin Atlantic is "VF" (NOT VIRGIN ATLANTIC'S AIRLINE CODE OF "VS"). She found it listed as Virgin Atlantic Freeway Miles. So will try "VF" and my Virgin Atlantic frequent flyer number on my next Avis rental. (I had given up on Virgin and been using my BA number for Avis rentals.) Can anyone confirm that they have had miles posted using the "VF" code with Avis?

Air Canada with Hertz rental and many other companies require a flight. They wanted a copy of boarding pass last time when I requested the miles.

Also, they are SLOW and inconsistent to post. One of them took 6 months! Good luck on trying to get a free short haul tickets from flying as someone suggested.

I assume that you are referring about me http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Actually, Hertz has always requested flights in conjunction with a rental for frequent flyer miles. Buggers.

So too bad for them, I use any National location with never a problem, and Avis airport locations also give miles without the need for a flight.

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Got points ? Got smiles !

what's the cheapest an aussie has found a rental in australia for with one of these virgin flying club car rental partners?

if you look around hard enough you can find one day rentals for less than US$20/day.

For this, 50,000 miles only costs US$1,000.