Triangle Trip

Most major car rental companies allow you to choose from earning airline miles, hotel points or their loyalty points. I have never been a huge fan of earning car rental points because they generally expire after one year. In addition, I lost about 10,000 points when Budget decided to end their PerfectDrive program without notice. In order for you to earn the hotel points, some hotel requires you to book the hotel with your car rental. Booking hotels on a rental car site makes me nervous and complicates the points earning process. Hence the best practice is to choose airline miles as your reward on all your car rentals.

For every car rental day, major car rental companies will give you 50 airline miles. However, the car rental companies do not tell you upfront that they are passing on what they called “Frequent Flyer Service Charge” or “FF Surcharge” to the renters. This means you are paying US$0.50 per rental day to earn 50 airline miles, making each airline mile = $0.01. A penny per airline mile is not that bad value wise but there is a way to get around it.

To avoid paying the US$0.01 per airline mile surcharge on your next rental car, you should choose American Airline miles as your reward. Hertz and National Car Rental do not apply the Frequent Flyer Service charge or (FF Charge on your Hertz bill) if you select AA miles as your reward. For all other airline programs, Hertz and National will charge you US$0.50 per rental day.

Since we are talking about rental cars, I would like to pass along to my reader the following: National Car Rental is offering triple airline miles for car rentals from April 29 to June 25, 2009. Here’s a list of National’s airline partners. With the National triple mile offer which will give you 150 miles per rental day on most airlines, paying the US$0.50 per day is not so bad.

For those of you don’t know, Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS) was the first airport to implement the multi-airline check-in kiosk.  You no longer need to find your airline at the airport, find any open kiosk that is working.  All LAS check-in kiosks are integrated with all carriers flying in and out of Las Vegas McCarran.

The first thing you pick on this kiosk is the airline, and from there it behaves like the normal carrier kiosk.  This is great for people who don’t need to check in baggage because you can go to any kiosk.  No longer will you need to go to your airline.

LAS multi-airline check-in kiosk

The real big advantage is these multi-airline check-in kiosks can be put anywhere in the airport.  Not only at LAS airport, these airline check-in kiosks can be put anywhere around town.  We found airline check-in kiosks at the central rental car building.  And even better, there were several multi-airline check-in kiosks at the Las Vegas Convention Center — North and South.  For those leaving direct from the Las Vegas Convention Center, or wanting to check in the 24 hours in advance to get a better seat, they can check in at the Convention Center.

If you know of other multi-airline check-in kiosk locations, please feel free to comment.

I have flown Alaska Airlines a number of times but do not have a Mileage Plan account. Since Alaska Airlines’ partners are across OneWorld and SkyTeam alliances, I usually bank my airline miles with either American or Delta whenever I fly Alaska Airlines. If you have Delta Medallion status, Delta also gives you bonus miles when you are on an Alaska flight – unlike Star Alliance partners. Unless you live in Seattle or Portland, I don’t see any value in managing another mileage account.

Once you decide to bank your Alaska flight on one of their partners, you should always keep a copy of your Alaska Airlines ticket stub. Alaska Airlines does not always send your flight itinerary information to its partners. Alaska Airlines has failed to send Delta and American Airlines my flight information which led to me filling out multiple missing credit forms. Delta and American both require ticket stubs as a proof of flight in order to give you mileage credit. A credit card receipt or email itinerary from Alaska Airlines is not good enough. To save yourself the hassle of dealing with missing mileage credit (which is yours) from an Alaska Airlines partner, make sure you keep the Alaska Airlines ticket stub the next time you board an Alaska flight and are banking on a partner airline.