Earn 9,999 Delta SkyMiles With 1-Day Car Rental
If you collect Delta SkyMiles like I do, here is a peculiar offer from Delta and Avis/Budget. You can actually earn 9,999 bonus miles for making a single car rental:
Now through August 1, 2008, you can earn 9,999 bonus miles on your next rental placed through delta.com (maximum of 3 bonuses total per customer on both Avis and Budget. [...] To qualify for this promotion, you must make your Avis or Budget rental reservation through delta.com with your SkyMiles number. [...] Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other AWD number, promotion or offer.
I guess it is to promote getting a car rental from the Delta website. Just make up a flight to the airport you want to rent from, you don’t need to book a flight at the same time. With flights these days costing so much, using frequent flyer miles has become a better deal again. If you value your miles at a conservative penny per mile (30,000 miles = $300 ticket), then this is like earning a $100 bonus for a 1-day car rental. If you needed to rent a car anyways, you probably just got a a free rental! If your city has cheap rates, you could theoretically even rent a car for no reason and still come out ahead… You can repeat 3 times until 8/1.
A Better Credit Card For Delta Regulars
You may not know that you can get 1.25 Delta Skymiles per dollar spent with the Starwood American Express Card, which is 25% more than the 1 mile per dollar from the regular Delta Airlines – Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card (which a lot of people I know have) and even has a lower annual fee.
However, if you fly with a partner a lot on Delta it may be worthwhile to upgrade to the Delta Platinum AMEX because you get a free companion ticket voucher each year. Again, with rising ticket prices this voucher is very valuable. I just used one of these vouchers (via my parents) to travel cross-country for a wedding in November, and they didn’t make me buy an overly expensive base ticket – it was the lowest price shown online. Saved me nearly $500!
Finally, if you have Membership Rewards points from American Express lying around, you can currently get a 20% bonus on transfers into Delta Skymiles. So 1 MR point = 1.2 SkyMiles until 7/31.
Find more in Deals & Offers, Travel | 7/7/08, 4:04am | Trackback
July 7th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Its been pretty tough to book 25k skymiles tix with decent flights/dates lately, and with the industry problems and reduced inventory (FF and otherwise), I think the appeal of the airlines miles game might not be what it used to be.
That said…this might be worthwhile anyway. Especially if you take the prepaid fuel purchase option and then siphon out nearly all of it before you return the car.
With that plan in place, you might be able to the 9999 miles for about $15.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Not sure if Delta Miles will be worth much soon – Delta is adding a ‘surcharge’ to all Skymiles flights of $25 domestic/$50 Intl on Aug 15. That’s probably just testing the waters, after American added a $5 ‘ticketing fee’ for online airmiles redemption. In addition, they’re rolling out a ‘multi-tiered’ redemption system (read no seats available). My guess: by next year, not only will no seats be available, but massive ‘fees’ and ‘surcharges’ will make the miles mostly worthless.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I wonder what “advanced reservation required” means…
Me like it
Tom, that’s literally milking the cow
July 7th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Looks like you must rent the car at an airport….where the rate is 2-3 times higher than at a non-airport location. Still might be worth it, though, if getting these points will prevent my existing points from expiring in December.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I tried this and am not sure that it was successful. I went on Deltra.com, scheduled a “flight” for my travel dates and approximate times, selected the flights and then at the bottom, sent to add a rental car.
I selected the Avis, chose the model and proceeded to the next page where it asked me for my Skymiles number, eitc etc and credit card, that I supplied.
I then cautiousioulsy his continue. The car has been added to my itinerary, but I do not see how you consumate the rental reservation without actually reserving the flight, which of course defeats the whole purpose.
Has anyone successfully navigated this procedure and do you have any real assurance or feeling that you will end up with the can and the 9,999 Skymiles.
Thanks for any help!
July 10th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Follow-up to earlier posting:
There is no need to Plan or Book a flight to take advantage of this offer.
1. Go to http://WWW.delta.com
2. Go to “Skymiles” tab, click and sign in with your Skymiles account number and password.
3. Go to the “Planning and Reservations” tab on top left of screen.
4. Look for and click on “Car” in the “drop down” listing.
This should take you directly to this URL.
http://trip.delta.com/car_searches/new
Right on this page it says Earn 9,999 Miles with a rental of Budget or Avis through Delta.com” Just enter the information for your car rental dates, other required information and follow through to confirmation. Your card should not be charged until you pick up the rental.
I strongly suggest logging in with to your Skymiles account to make sure you get the bonus miles. I plan to call Delta and confirm the reservation AND the bonus miles.
Dave Kinney
July 15th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
What airport did you reserve from? I don’t see Avis or Budget as options in des moines, pittsburgh, or at O’Hare.
July 15th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I found some at DTW (Detroit) for $45 for a day. Do I actually have to show up to get my car for this to count? It seems like buying 30k skymiles for $135 is a really good deal.
July 16th, 2008 at 6:38 am
I made a reservation for next week. The confirmation email came from iseatz.com and didn’t show my SkyMiles number. I called Delta and they have the reservation under my SkyMiles number but said I should confirm it with Budget when I pick up the car. It seems like the reservation is going through three different systems (Delta, iseatz.com, and Budget) so there is the potential for information to be lost in translation.
I also wondered about not picking up the car, but I think if you don’t then your credit card might not be charged for the rental?
July 16th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I reserved from Charlotte NC. Airport.
Dee,
There are easier and less expensive ways to keep miles from expiring.
Remember, using or redeeming miles usually counts as “Activity” and extends you point expiration date.
IE
1. Donate 1,000 points to charity
2. Most allow you to redeem a small number of “Miles for magazines” or Newspapers. I just used about 800 miles at one of the Airlines and sighed MY BROTHER up for a couple of magazines (to avoid the junk coming to my house!).
3. Go to their “On line Mall http://skymilesshopping.com, register, then buy something you already intend to buy or need, for example from Home depot. At one of the airlines, I just bought a $25 HD gift certificate with free delivery to extend expiration date.
4. Get a No annual fee Mileage card for each Airline. Make at least one charge a year, or whatever. Even if you get a card with a fee, you just call up after it shows up on your bill and ask them to waive it or lower you to a no fee card ( usually 1/2 mile per mile spent that still meets your needs for this purpose).
As indicated earlier, the most efficient way to get miles on Delta is the American Express Starwoods Rewards Card (SPG) 1 1/4 mile for each $ spent with a relatively low fee. This is generally regarded as the best all around rewards card going.
5. Just bite the bullet and buy 1,000 miles.
Good Luck!
Dave Kinney
July 17th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Thanks, Dave K. I didn’t know about skymilesshopping.com . I will keep it in mind for next time. As it turns out, I will actually need the car. I realize I am paying a bit more to rent it at the airport but I am okay with that.
Dee
July 27th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Hello,
There is another way to avoid mileage expiration. Go and register at skymiles dining http://skymiles.rewardsnetwork.com/
Just go to the restaurant participating in the skymiles program atleast once in two year to make sure your miles won’t expire.
August 6th, 2008 at 7:37 am
Update – rented the car on July 23. The 9999 bonus points were posted to my SkyMiles account on August 3.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Followed all the steps, rented the car on 7/14, still haven’t seen the miles show! Called Delta, they referred me to Budget. Not sure if I’ll ever see the miles. Any advice?
October 1st, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I followed all the steps too, rented car on 7/18, still haven’t seen the miles show either!! I haven’t called Delta yet, was going to send a copy of email confirming reservation but need to know who to send it to. I’m afraid if I send to Budget, they will only credit me for 50 Delta Skymiles per day instead of the 9,999 miles. Is this a scam??