I always put my Avis rentals on my Lufthansa M&M card. Rental does not have to be in conjunction with a LH flight and you get 500 M&M points. LH also frequently runs promos for a 2500 point bonus. I got this bonus two times this year for a total of 6000 miles for two rentals.

Good info here. 50 miles/day just hasn't cut it for me (can remember back to the days of 1,000 DL miles/rental). To add further insult, some companies are trying to turn it into a profit center with the per-day "service charges" instead of just passing on the 6-cent tax.

Also bogus are the double- and triple-mile coupon deals, as those require codes that almost always lock out the use of other, better coupons to reduce the rate or provide a free rental day.

The only deal left that might sway a purchase decision for me is Hertz for 400 Korean miles. And I probably never qualify if they go by the book, but if you plunk it in on the website the credit usually goes through automatically.

I think it'd be more valuable at this point if car companies just exited the FF business and had more generous loyalty programs of their own for free rental days. Alamo's defunct True Blue seemed the closest thing I've seen to that.

Certainly not my experience. I mainly use Avis, and sometimes Hertz, and in these cases, miles have appeared promptly in my VS account, and on occasion (promotions) BA and KL.

I also was annoyed at the paltry 50 miles a day (plus the dumb FF tax) so I started putting my "miles" on my Hyatt Gold Passport. Apparently there's no tax on hotel points. And I was getting 250 points per rental, which is like spending $100 at Hyatt to get that many points. There was a double points deal earlier this summer w/Avis. Downside: it takes forever for these points to post (Do I blame Avis or Hyatt?)

I signed up for Virgin's FF program and got a number, but since I didn't take a flight yet did not receive the top secret Avis rental code. Does anyone have it here? I have been too lazy to ask/search on the Virgin board

You don't need the Virgin code. I use other codes and get the miles.

If you want to use a Virgin code, try Z333300 for Avis. I don't think the rates are great - around the same as you would get with other airlines - so you might find other codes better value.

I use Air Canada for my car rental miles.
Alamo® Rent A Car
Avis®
Budget
Hertz
National Car Rental®
Thrifty Car Rental®

All the above I get 500 miles per rental. Actually, I put Thrifty on GlobalPass for 500 miles per rental.

It all adds up!

You may also want to consider 500 Marriott points for Hertz rentals.

WN's 0.5 credit (and there are often double credit offers) is worth more than 500 miles. It's 1/32nd of a free trip.

I do the Qantas 700 miles/rental...whether it's 1 day or 100 days....you can take AA flights with these miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

After reading this information I set up a Virgin account and asked Avis to credit my miles there. 1000 per rental seemed too good to pass up. Alas I got but 500. They did post though and quickly. I personally have never had issues with Avis miles posting. I have sent them various places including: UAL, NW and Starwood.

If 500 is the standard for Virgin I think I will switch to Lufthansa cince I am UAL Premier. Hopefully I can snare some of those Lufthansa bonuses mentioned above. Does anybody know how often they extend the bonuses?

Last promo that LH ran went form Feb. 1 - Sept. 30, 2003. Bonus was only good for rentals in Germany for this promo but I know they have had other promos with worldwide rentals. I got a total of 5k for two rentals while in Germany this year. Looking at my LH statement, I also got a 2500 bonus from Avis twice last year but I do not remember what the promo deal and rules were.

I recently began directing my Avis rentals to BA... so far none have posted, although avis.com advises the miles request has gone through. Can anyone tell me the normal window for BA miles to post from Avis?

1,000 miles is the standard for Virgin. At least, it is for Avis and me.

Could you be on a contracted rate offering the lower amount?

If you actually want the airmiles to appear in your account without havng to contact the comapny several times you might want to avoid Alamo. I'm still trying to get miles from a July and September rental. Carefully asked the clerk each time if my airmiles account had been entered as I handed them my airmiles card so that they could check it against their records. Oh yes sir it is.
Yeah right!

------------------
"A day without Points/Miles is like a day without SUNSHINE"

How do you know the difference between a contracted rate and a non-contracted rate? I use a variety of AWD numbers to get the best rate.