Which program give maximum miles for car rentals?
 

Lately I have been getting a mere 50 miles a day for car rentals credited to my DL and UA FF accounts.

When in Europe I recall having gotten 500 miles per rental (even for one day rentals) on my LH account when renting from Europcar. Obviously I can't do that in the U.S. Or can I?

Which FF program gives 500 miles per rental (or more)?

Thanks in advance for your replies. Hopefully this should prove useful for many other people as well.



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-Otto

Avis always gives me 500 miles per rental to my BA account, and runs frequent double and triple miles promotions.

Virgin Flying Club offer 1,000 Virgin miles with most car rentals.

This easily beats the BA bonus offers as (i) the BA bonuses often don't post (there is a thread in the BA forum about this) and (b) even when they do, they rarely match the VS regular offer.

Does a Virgin flight need to be taken in association with that car rental?

Qantas gives 700 miles per rental outside of Australia for Avis/Budget/Thrifty/Hertz.

No, not in my experienceas a UK member - I normally use Avis.

This is from a spreadsheet I try to keep up to date. Slashes between two numbers mean either/or, usually based on car class or some other distinction. Other slashes, number/word, can be read as "per". In the one case where we have both, 1/2per$ means "one or two points per dollar spent".

This chart is not comprehensive, not necessarily up to date, and should be verified by your own homework.

Legalistics aside, the winners are Virgin (VS) as mentioned above, and Lan Chile (LA). BONUS: Both of these can xfer into HHonors points, making those orphans useful. In transferring to HH, the transfer rate of SA makes it equal to VS.

Warning: MX will NOT transfer non flight miles to HH.
[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 09-27-2003).]

Wow! What excellent advice. FT at its best! Thanks everybody!

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-Otto

[This message has been edited by OttoGraham (edited 09-27-2003).]

It's also interesting to compare how many rentals it takes to score a free trip. My vote then goes to Southwest, where a mere 32 rentals gets you a free trip in the US; fewer if you catch double miles promos.

When you use an airline that gets you only 50 miles, it will take 500 rentals to get a free trip.

JP

I don't know if it is still the case, but when I was in Germany and rented a car from Sixt through their "Handy-Service" (mobile phone hotline), I would get 3,000 LH miles for each rental, which was GREAT http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.

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Please have a look at my round-the-world travel blog and leave some comments - thanks :-).

Thank you Roger and Rut Dog! Top down for a Virgin sounds good to me. Do you have a link for that program Attorney28?

I have found that most of the car rental companies' European offices routinely try to cheat you out of your car rental miles. The only one I have ever had to post without a lot of hassle was Budget from the UK. Same in the Caribbean.

Thanks for the great list, Rut Dog. It will serve as a valuable reference tool.

KL gives 500 miles n Avis rentals. No flight necessary. I think AC also gives 500 miles per rental. Only the U.S. airlines are down to 50 miles/day. I am not sure it's even worth bothering with the tax the car rental companies are charging at least in the U.S.

The tax paid at National for AA or NWA miles
is only 6c/day, not the 50c as per other airlines.
mike



[This message has been edited by MIKESILV (edited 10-02-2003).]