Experienced travelers flying on cheap airplane tickets, taking advantage of cheap auto rentals like to acquire as many frequent flier miles as possible on their trips. Now travelers need to be careful or they may unintentionally be charged for giving car rental companies their airline frequent flier information.
Often when travelers reserve car rentals online there is a place to enter their membership number of their preferred frequent flier program. This appears an attractive way of earning additional frequent flier miles which can later be turned into free airline tickets.
Many car rental companies now are charging a service fee of up to one dollar a day to customers who provide airline frequent flier numbers in their car rental reservation. Hertz, for example, charges a frequent flier surcharge on rentals in the Canada, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.
Although Hertzs surcharge varies by airline, the charge is often 75 cents per day with a maximum of $5.25 per rental. Some airline frequent flier programs come with a much lower charge, such as American where the charge is about six cents per day.
Members of airline mileage programs should not provide their airline frequent flier numbers to car rental companies unless they are participating in a special airline promotion which generates enough bonus miles for renting a car to offset the cost of a frequent flier fee.
Currently this surcharge is not clearly disclosed on most car rental websites, resulting in customers often buying frequent flier miles from car rental companies when they mistakenly think they are earning them for free. www.cheapfares.com