Over the years there have been some timeless trip reports published on forums and blogs. One which comes to mind is "8 bottles of Dom from LAX-BKK on SQ in F." It might just be the funniest trip report every published on the internet. Well, last week someone joined FlyerTalk with the handle 37rentals, and…
Continue reading: The Guy Who Rented 37 Cars In 2 Days
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Amazing! As you say: Always one step ahead. Though in this case, SAS/Avis sort of dropped the ball on the terms of the promotion.
I love the ominous "You will pay for this." Well, yeah, that's kind of the point. And so will SAS. Handsomely - especially at 5,000 miles per rental.
Brilliant and funny. Guinness Book of World Records needs to know about this one!!
I sooo would have loved to join him driving back and forth and racking up miles for my EuroBonus account
Hopefully he paid for those employees lunch or dinner or bought them a bottle of wine or something. Not that it is required, but it sounds like they made this go a lot more smoother for him! Genius idea though. Maybe its just because its america but I would never attempt anything like this. I would envision myself dropping a grand only for the parties involved to find some loophole not to award the points!
Good to know that you are still an avid FT reader, even though you claim that you don't.
What's truly awesome is how the Avis employees streamlined it for him with one vehicle! Great thread.
I think the point is every such loophole exploitation system may give the perpetrator his reward but creates cost on the system disproportionate to the reward accrued to one person. In this case waste of employees time as well waste of time for the real car renters. Not to say the waste of an airline seat and hotel for real travelers. Most of these loophole exploitation systems work because the people in the system are not as malevolent as the perpetrator. It would have been easy for avis employees to screw the guy if they so wanted.
"creates cost on the system disproportionate to the reward accrued to one person"
Sure. Tax loopholes work the same way. The difference is that there is an entire industry (accountants) that has been set up to help people and companies find and exploit those loopholes, and it is considered completely legitimate - whereas, for some reason, miles-maximizing behavior is considered illegitimate behavior by a "perpetrator" who is "malevolent".
Oh, and the other difference is that tax loopholes hurt *everyone* and take forever to fix (if they get fixed at all) because of how slow politics is and how many powerful vested interests control it - whereas miles loopholes hurt only the entity offering the miles, and that entity can act rapidly to close such loopholes.
Say what you want, but when it comes to moral standing, I'll take 37rentals over the likes of Enron, Goldman Sachs, etc any day.
Some guy who posted on flyertalk about 6 transpacs in 6 days was particularly memorable.
😉
While it is fun to share your story with others I would prefer to keep silent about it. Who knows if Avis will try to block him somehow because of the publicity. The goal would be to fly under the radar. Avis might tighten the terms and conditions of their promotions to prevent abuse.
It was a time limited offer and you had to book by June 31. 37 Rental did not post about until the deal was dead.
Hertz Delta promo maybe 5 years ago was far better. 7500 miles per rental with no limit and no requirement to even take the car from the parking lot. Finally finished using those 2 million ish miles last year.
Whoa - tell us more about how you did it. To get 2 million miles you would have had to rent 267 times. If you spent $50 on each rental, that would have been $13,000+ - seems kind of steep even for 2 million miles. Or was each rental much less than that?
Was this one of Luckys early exploits? Or just somebody also using the Lucky name?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileage-plus-pre-merger-closed-posting/548987-six-transpacs-five-days-help-me.html
Sure it wasn't budget doing the delta promo? If not, budget had the same. Rent an suv, get 7500 delta miles. Reserved 20 in one weekend, got to airport and agent asked if I just wanted to do all 20 at once, without taking the cars. Sure!
$18 after taxes for each rental was the best part
Got about a million miles in next couple of weekends before they shut the promo down.
Perhaps I should write about the time I got 1.6 million topbonus miles from Holidaycheck 😉
I am re engaged with this sport after this funny post. I don't know how you do it Lucky. I get burned out! Oh yeah I travel hack for a family of 5.