FF Points for Car Rentals

[Kauai Kid]

Please explain how I use my FF points to rent a car.

Never have done it. Just keep saving them in the remote possibility I'll get a free flight to Hawaii.

Mahalo,

Sterlling

 

[GeorgeJ.]

Sterling, which airline(s) do you have miles with? It's fairly easy to do with both United & American. Go into the FF sections of the website for the airline you want to use and keep clicking under redeem miles until you get to hotels/cars rather than flights. I've used miles for hotels but not yet for cars. It looked to me like it wouldn't be a bad deal for a one-day rental when rates are high (like $100+ per day) but you'll use a big chunk of miles for a week...My guess would be 40-50,000 miles for a smaller car for a week. Not exactly a great deal. But 5,000 to save $100 on a one-day wouldn't be bad. It looked to me like you'd be stuck paying cash for any taxes/fees, would could still add up to a big chunk of change (this week I paid $140 for a 2-day rental in Houston...$45 per day for the car and $50 in mostly fees and maybe $10 of that actually in tax)

 

[gwenco]

I just booked MSP using Delta miles

I do believe United and Delta are the only ones where you have this option. I rented an economy car for 4 days and had to use 21500 miles. The guesstimate through Orbitz was $145 for the alloted time and car size.

 

[Kauai Kid]

Mahalo to you both.

Sounds like for 2-3 weeks I wouldn't have any points left if I used them for car rentals.

Going to Maui for 3 weeks in Mar 2013 so first priority will be to see if I can get FF tickets from Texas to Maui.

Not holding my breath: Only managed one FF flight to Hawaii in ten years.

Most of my miles are with American. They have changed schedules so the earliest we can get to Lihue is 730 pm so it looks like we will be flying United or US Air from now on. 730 pm arrival means we wouldn't get to Princeville until 9-10 pm.

Sterling