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Virgin Atlantic have teamed up with Avis to offer a potentially very lucrative promotion when renting a car.
Here’s the deal and how – taken to the extreme – you can earn four return tickets in First Class on ANA.
The Deal
- Book your car rental with Avis from January 1 to February 28, 2018 and drive away any time before June 30, 2018 with a bonus 5,500 Flying Club miles.
- Direct link to offer.
Key Details
- Earn 6,000 miles for rentals of two days or more. (500 miles for rentals of two to six days plus bonus 5,500 miles).
- Bonus Flying Club miles awarded on all rentals taking place in North America, Canada, the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
- Valid at all participating Avis locations in the regions listed above.
- Reservation period: From January 1 to February 28, 2018.
- All rentals must begin by June 30, 2018.
- Entitlement: Valid on rental car group C and above for a minimum of two days and maximum rental of 28 days. (Rental car group C is Intermediate, so this offer won’t work for Economy and Compact rentals.)
Quick Thoughts
Earning 6,000 miles on a two-day car rental is extremely generous. The Frequent Miler Fair Trading Price for Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles is 1.00cpp, making this offer worth $60.
If you wanted to take this offer to the extreme, you could earn enough miles for four round-trip First Class ANA flights from the US to Japan.
There are 163 days between tomorrow (January 19, 2018) and the end of the promotion (June 30, 2018). That means you can fit in 81 two-day rentals by the end of the promotion, assuming that concurrent rentals wouldn’t earn more than one set of 6,000 miles.
81 * 6,000 = 486,000 Flying Club miles. That’s enough for four round-trip ANA First Class flights, or 40% of a trip to Necker Island.
If you do plan to take advantage of this offer – even if it’s not to this extreme – don’t forget to make your reservations by February 28.
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I only made one reservation. Price was good, insurance included (although I’m not sure how insurance would play out, the deal seems to be targeted towards Brits).
Anyway, I just checked and 6500 points posted to Virgin Atlantic!
Also notice the cancellation policy:
You may cancel your booking free of charge at any time before the reservation date and time shown in your booking. However if you do not cancel your booking and fail to collect your vehicle within 24 hours of the pick up time, a fee of €40, £40 or 60CHF* will apply. (*depending on the country of rental and exclusive of any applicable VAT). Please see the full booking terms and conditions at http://www.avis.co.uk for full details of the cancellation policy.
Does the receipt for the reservation in the US come in USD or GBP?
Did you already receive 42K miles? If so, how fast were those miles posted? Thanks!
The terms say the reservation must be completed before June 1st.
But when I try to book a car for end of March it says “Sorry, reservations for more than 27 days are not available on the offer you have selected. Please try an alternative Special Offer. We apologise for this inconvenience. (GB-GB-E0038)”
Which is unfortunate. I have earned over 42K Virgin Atlantic miles since this came out.
Well, even better, I decided to use Avis prepay option which brought down the total price to 55 GBP. But unlike my previous prepay option on avis.com, this time I actually received a prepaid voucher and they charged my credit card only $72- that’s below market currency conversion (55.08 x1.41 = $77.66.
The prepaid voucher states:
Rental Location Los Angeles, International Airport, 9217 Airport Boulevard Date of Issue 16 FEBRUARY 2018 Date/Time of Rental 27 February 2018 15:00 Date/Time of Return 1 March 2018 15:00 Car Group Group C (eg Chevrolet Cruze) Amount 55.08 GBP Credit Card Code CM Credit Card No. XXXXXXXXXXXX8002
Voucher includes Local Tax (TAX) Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) Additional Liability Insurance (ALI) Vehicle Registration Fee (VRF) Unlimited Mileage.
That’s pretty damn good for a two weekday rental with full coverage. Avis.com would charge me $110 without coverage. I still think this is some kind of “mistake” rate. But I believe the wording in this voucher makes my rate ironclad.
Also it just occurs to me that if someone does need insurance coverage, it would be more cost effective to book through a foreign airline which usually quote the rate with insurance included.
I just made a reservation on Flying Club page. The rate seems to be much lower than avis.com. I thought It should haven’t the other way round. I booked a midsize for 2 days at LAX 2/27-3/1. This is what I got:
Rental price: 60.58 GBP (about $85) Your quote includes: Local Tax (TAX) Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) Additional Liability Insurance (ALI) Vehicle Registration Fee (VRF) Unlimited Mileage
The Avis US site has the following: Base Rate $80.00 Mileage: Unlimited Rental Options $0.00 Fees & Taxes $37.69 Estimated Total $ 117.69.
So for $85 I even got full coverage insurance. But on the US site, I’d pay $117.69 without insurance (not that I need it). Of course, since I booked on the official site for the promotion, I’ll get 6000 miles one way or the other.
Has anyone come across favorable rates on FlyClub site? Or what I got is a “glitch”.
I made three 2-day rentals. They all were credited only 500 miles each. I made the reservation directly from Avis website not through the Flying Club page. I don’t know if that makes a difference.
Just had 500 miles credit to my Virgin Atlantic account for a rental from 1/29 but no bonus. Anyone know if the bonus points typically post separately (later)?
[…] Frequent Miler did some math and figured out that you could earn as many as 486,000 Flying Club miles. As he mentions, that number of miles would be enough for four first class round trip tickets on ANA. I highly suggest reading through the comments of his post. A reader realized you could actually earn closer to one million Flying Club points if you make your reservations just right. […]
Does this deal apply to Australia?
I don’t believe it does unfortunately.
[…] HT: frequentmiler […]
You can have more than 81 rentals without being concurrent. A rental of 1 day and 2 hours would count as 2 days. This is what you could do:
Rental 1: 1/19/2018 6am – 1/20/2018 8am
Rental 2: 1/20/2018 8am – 1/21/2018 10am
Rental 3: 1/21/2018 10am – 1/22/2018 12pm
You get the idea …
Basically you can book a 2 day rental for every 26 hours. 163*24/26=150 rentals. That’s close to 1 million miles if it all works out…
I like your thinking!
Well, the terms and conditions do not say that you have to book through the special link. I wonder if I would get the bonus if I just book on Avis app and select Virgin as travel partner.
On UK website, the price quoted includes all taxes and fees as well as CDW and supplemental liability insurances. I priced a few rentals and some don’t have price difference while others are far more expensive on the UK site.
I booked 1/29/2018 – 1/31/2018 LAS for a total of 73.26 GBP. On the US site, the total price is $100.68 using AA AWD# (don’t have AWD for Virgin but I suppose all those AWDs have the same discount ). Using exchange rate of 1.39, $100.68 will convert to 72.43GBP. Pretty close. In fact the total of 73.26GBP also includes CDW and supplemental insurance which I don’t really need but nonetheless would make the UK price even better. Now I will see how fast those miles post.
I also tried to book 1/19/2018-1/21/2018 MSY. The US price is $68 total. The UK price is 68.12 GBP. The price difference is $26. I suppose that’s still OK if 6000 miles will post. That’s a big if. I would rather just book on US site and see if the 6000 miles will still post.
I took part in similar promotions with Aeroplan. I booked all my reservations on Avis app and still got bonus miles.
Al, did your January miles post?
I’m seeing prices on the UK site quite a bit lower than the US site actually.
AWD for Virgin Red members is Z333300.
Do we have to book through Flying Club AVIS portal ? Can’t we use AVIS portal directly and get the miles credited ?
Thanks
Harsh shah
On the post that Head For Points wrote, they noted that you don’t have to book via the Flying Club portal, so you can use a different discount code and still get the miles credited to your Flying Club account.