This one is a no-brainer: you are traveling, so you probably
need to stay somewhere and rent a car. Make sure you tie your stays and rentals
into your preferred frequent flyer program. Almost every hotel and motel chain
has some frequent guest program, even the budget motel chains like Red Roof or
Super8. To get airline miles, you usually need to join the hotel's own program,
and then set up their program to give you miles in your airline program,
instead of giving you hotel points for free nights.
Some hotel chains work more simply – at check-in, you can
present your airline frequent flyer card and ask for miles, without having to
join their hotel program.
The Hilton family of hotels has the best deal, although
their lowest-priced brands, Hampton Inns and Hilton Garden Inns, are still more
expensive than the budget motel chains. Hilton HHonors program has what they
call "Double Dip" – you can earn both hotel points for free stays,
and airline miles in almost any of the major programs, at the same time. Hilton
now includes Conrad, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hampton, Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites,
and Scandic in their program along with their flagship Hilton Hotels brand, giving
you many opportunities. The somewhat higher price for Hampton Inns or Hilton
Garden Inns compared to Super8 or Best Western is often offset by the free hot breakfast
and high-speed Internet access they offer. Plus you also can transfer Hilton
points into airline programs, so you could be getting miles from both the
Hilton miles and the Hilton points.
For car rentals, all of the major companies offer airline
miles with most major airlines. Usually you get 50 miles per rental day. But to get the most miles, look for the
special promotions on the airline websites. Very often, Hertz, Avis, or
National run special offers where if you book with a particular promotion code
or coupon (found at the airline's site), you get double or triple miles, or 500
mile bonuses.
Add it all up, and for a typical one-week vacation trip, you
might get 2000 miles from your flight, but also 500 miles from a car rental
with promotion, 500 miles from a hotel, and perhaps another 500 from later
transferring hotel points back into air miles. That’s 75% additional miles on
top of your flight, without even trying hard!