Earning airline miles with ‘2nd tier’ car rental companies

Last month I published a long piece on earning Avios points for car rentals.

In summary, whilst the ONLY partner for British Airways Executive Club members is Avis via the special avisba website, this is not your only option.

Iberia Plus has deals with Hertz, Sixt, Europcar and Budget – and you can transfer Avios points from Iberia Plus over to BAEC via ‘Combine My Avios’.  Iberia also has a partnership with Avis which may be more generous than the British Airways deal depending on what and where you are renting.

That only covers Avis, Hertz, Sixt, Europcar and Budget, however.

What happens if you need to rent from Alamo, Dollar or Enterprise?

Alamo

The obvious partner is Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.  As you can see here on the Virgin website, you will earn 1,000 Flying Club miles per Alamo rental.

The only other European / Middle Eastern airline they work with is Etihad – see Etihad Guest here.

A list of US airlines Alamo works with can be found here.

Dollar

Of all of the European and Middle Eastern airlines, only Emirates Skywards allows you to collect airline miles for a Dollar rental. You will earn 500 miles on rentals of under 30 days.

You can see details of this deal and their US and other partners here.

Enterprise

Finally, Enterprise – which, given their UK city centre network, is probably one that a lot of HfP readers have used.

Enterprise is well-known for not playing the mileage game at all.  It does, however, have a partnership with Air France-KLM and their Flying Blue scheme.  You can earn from 50 miles per day (that is sadly not a typo).