Airmiles question--how many points for things like car rental?

[coastgirl]

I just checked the Airmiles site and see they have Alamo cars "from 210 points a day". What does THAT mean? If I wanted something like a mid-size in Feb., would it be anything close to 210? What about things like park passes or hotel nights? If I have to spend as much as I'd spend for a flight, I tend to think it's too much.

And do they have extra fees on these other rewards the way they do with flights?

We got the BMO AM MasterCard for AM points but then they increased the number of points you need for flights...a year and a half since we last used points and I've only accumulated about 3000. <pout>

I was reading the Airmiles thread and getting excited, but here in the Maritimes we only have Sobey's offers, and I'm lucky to make 20 pts a month. (Have occasionally earned 100 or so at Lawton's but I don't spend that much at a drug store.) Oh, I have to order some winter boots from LLBean, I can do that through AM Shops I guess...

 

[tribus121]

You can get a Gift Certificate from Alamo Rent A Car USA it is usually a better use of airmiles because you can use discounts like those found on Mousesavers. 3000 airmiles would get you $ 400 usd in gift cards that you use like cash on your car rental

 

[DisneyRookie2007]

We'll be paying more attention to accumulating Airmiles from now until our next trip in 2012.

We'll be purchasing gifts cards with our BMO Airmiles Mastercard for groceries @ Sobeys - and then presenting our collector card when making purchases - that way we can double dip the points - not to mention perhaps some of the bonus airmiles for certain purchases.

We've always used a President's Choice Mastercard and use the points for free groceries @ the Superstore - but never put those savings aside for vacation use.

So I'm hoping we'll accumulate enough Airmiles to at least get some free park tickets or something along that line.

 

[ykmom]

We live in Yellowknife and really have no where to accumulate miles so most of ours come from the bmo mastercard and our bank account. It's a slow process but helps out occassionally.

 

[caisland]

Only 3 gift certificates can be used so 1- $200 and 1- $100 would be the most. We used $200 twice. post with your reservation

 

[CanadianPaco]

We have rented with Aeroplan and it is so easy. You booked right throught the Aeroplan web site - no problems what so ever. I find Airmiles far more fussy - coupons and such. This year, we will have made 2 WDW trips each with 1 week car rentals. I managed to save enough points for each free car rental.

 

[ChisJo]

I don't find using points worth it! For instance, we were looking at flights to Florida with aeroplan, and return was 25,000, with flights averaging $700 at the time we want to go. We also looked at renting a car, and an economy car was 38,000 points for the 8 days we were there. However, when I look online and enter discount codes, the car costs around $150 for the same time. I wouldn't want to use my points for that. I don't know if air miles is any different, but i would be careful and do some research.

 

[CanadianPaco]

I booked a midsize car with Avis over Christmas for 30 000 points. Same car in August for 22 000 points. Points required will vary but it works for us. There is no way I could get a car rental over Christmas for $150.

 

[Susan R]

Great idea about buying Sobey's gift cards with your Airmiles credit card...I must remember this! I have a Airmiles MC as well but I tend to use my American Express Airmiles platnum card to buy everything and then pay the balance off every month. It takes some planning and budgeting to do this but it really works out well. I also tend to buy my gas at Shell, my drugstore is Lawtons, grocery's at Sobey's and I just found out that Michael's Crafts is giving airmiles now It really adds up! I gather well over 1000 points a year (enough for Gold status) and this helps with discounts on flights.

Susan

 

[RainbowsMist]

I just checked the Airmiles site and see they have Alamo cars "from 210 points a day". What does THAT mean? If I wanted something like a mid-size in Feb., would it be anything close to 210? What about things like park passes or hotel nights? If I have to spend as much as I'd spend for a flight, I tend to think it's too much.

And do they have extra fees on these other rewards the way they do with flights?

We got the BMO AM MasterCard for AM points but then they increased the number of points you need for flights...a year and a half since we last used points and I've only accumulated about 3000. <pout>

I was reading the Airmiles thread and getting excited, but here in the Maritimes we only have Sobey's offers, and I'm lucky to make 20 pts a month. (Have occasionally earned 100 or so at Lawton's but I don't spend that much at a drug store.) Oh, I have to order some winter boots from LLBean, I can do that through AM Shops I guess...

As for airmiles and park passes:

https://www.airmiles.ca/arrow/RewardsProductList?a=true&selectedCategoryId=cat700026

I used mine in 2007 for our Sea World passes...like you said living in the Maritimes it takes soooooo long to get that balance back up ..especially when I only use it at Sobey's

 

[Kat&Dom]

For me, I find the best value with airmiles is to use them for Park Passes. We are planning on a Disney trip in 2011 with my best friend and her family. I was able to get a 5 day adult Disney ticket, 7 day child Disney ticket, 1 day SeaWorld adult ticket, 1 day Universal adult ticket and 1 day Universal child ticket over the past 6 months. It helps so much with all the Safeway and Shell promotions. For the Disney tickets, it was around 2,000 airmiles for each. For SeaWorld, it was 650 airmiles and Universal was around 700 airmiles per ticket.

I am hoping to be able to save up enough airmiles to get SeaWorld tickets for them (2 adults & 1 child). They live in BC and are trying to collect enough airmiles for the trip too but since we already have all our tickets, I thought I would try to see what I can do for them. We will be staying in a 3 bed/3 bath timeshare condo so no cost for accomodation for them. If we can get all the park passes with airmiles, we just need to save up for flights and spending money!

 

[Zife]

I was actually looking at this the other day. For a flight from St. John's, NL to MCO, it's 2675 AirMiles pp for when we're going. The flight for the same time is $636 pp (before taxes, etc which I'm pretty sure AirMiles will charge you anyway). That's 4.2 Miles/Dollar.
For the car rental, the cheapest possible would be 2520 AirMiles, through Alamo (12 days). I currently have a booking with National for $295.89, all in. That's 8.5 Miles/Dollar.
I've never compared anything else (park tickets, other rewards), but simply comparing Car Rental and Flights, you get a much better deal with Flights.

 

[coastgirl]

Yeah, I know you usually get a better return on flights. Still, we spent a long time to save enough points to fly with Airmiles, and ended up paying almost as much in taxes and fees as we'd have paid all-in flying from NH. (We paid $800 taxes and fees for four "free" tickets, and I'm flying us all from MHT--MCO in Feb for less than $1100 US.) And I'm trying to keep costs down for this trip (when I definitely don't have enough points for airfare), so it may save us a couple hundred short-term.

 

[tia_michelle]

we just cashed in 1850 airmiles PP for fights from bc to disneyland and

just under 5000 air miles for suv rental for 12 days in anahiem :0) OUCH! (alamo).