14 ms·

37 rental cars – 2 days – 185,000 miles earned

• bobwaycott 11y ago
  I cannot decide if this is brilliant or masochistic (and possibly still brilliant). It's definitely outright weird to me.
  • rrrx3 11y ago
    It's definitely both.
  • emptybits 11y ago
    Words often spoken of great hacks.
• Cshelton 11y ago
  These flyertalk guys are crazy. Yes, it's awesome, but I can never imagine having the time to do this...Like the guys who fly from DFW -> NYC -> LA -> back to NYC -> SF -> back to LA -> back to NYC -> back to DFW all in a little o=ver a day and for about $360. Yeah, it's cool, but you are traveling without leaving the airport. Not my idea of fun.
  • smackfu 11y ago
    If you are a frequent flyer, I can see the point. "Waste" a weekend and bump yourself up to the next level and get free upgrades on all your future flights for the year.
    • monksy 11y ago
      I did a business fare from ORD-MKE, to take the train back to Chicago.. just for the silver status at the end of the year. At the bare minimum status does count for things.
      • maaku 11y ago
        > At the bare minimum status does count for things. Why?
        • mseebach 11y ago
          Priority check-in, fast-track security, lounge access, priority boarding, priority for upgrades, increased luggage allowance and priority access to customer service. And in general, things just start flowing a little smoother when a FF status card enters the equation.
          • gav 11y ago
            > priority access to customer service I don't think people value this enough, I have really appreciated this in the past. For example, on a MEL to LAX flight, our 787 had mechanical issues and the flight was cancelled. As the 270 passengers lined up in front of the two customer service agents, I had a mere 15 minute wait in the priority line and was able to get booked on another airline. Not to mention, if you show up to the airport early, they'll re-book you on an earlier flight at no charge (assuming available seats).
            • monksy 11y ago
              I appreciate it. It's great to call the gold desk as soon as you hear that we're going to be delayed again but there is other planes. It also helps that I know how to look up flights and ask for specific ones before hand.
        • ghaff 11y ago
          Preferred seating and boarding, free checked baggage, potential upgrades, a multiplier on miles earned. (Although the minimum status level doesn't buy you a lot on most airlines these days.)
        • steveklabnik 11y ago
          I was diamond on Delta, and now have lost it. The little perks really adds up, and make travel significantly more comfortable. One example off the top of my head: when I had status, if I had an issue, I could call a phone number and a representative would answer after a single ring. Shortly after I lost my status, a snowstorm complicated some of my travel... I was on hold for a few hours in the general queue. Free bags, priority boarding, lounge access on layovers, free upgrades... Each one of these things isn't a big deal, but when you're on a plane three or four times a month, it really helps you cope.
  • organsnyder 11y ago
    It seems like a game more than anything else: See who can get the most value out of the system for the least investment. I'm sure that there are some valuable "hacks" that they've discovered, but I'd rather spend my time on things that are more fulfilling to me.
  • Someone1234 11y ago
    Some of the airlines have really clamped down on those itineraries now. They either have an automated system which will cancel the booking (typically within 24 hrs). Or they have altered their loyalty system to give diminished returns for "pointless" stop-overs.
  • arcticbull 11y ago
    Haha start of the year I flew, with 7 other people, SFO-LAX-BOS-DFW-HKG-DFW-SFO in the span of a weekend for $1000 ^_^ walked away with 60,000 mi, top-tier status at American thanks to a now-defunct promo, and 10 systemwide upgrades (each). If you enjoy the hobby, there's really nothing better. Then, later in the year, I redeemed 75,000mi per person for a round trip in Etihad Apartments to the Maldives ^_^ Both the earn and the burn side can be a great time. Going back to Hong Kong later in the year, paid $2200 for a round trip business class ticket on AA from DFW-HKG, upgraded to first and thanks to 3 stacked promos, earn 70,000mi and that round trip alone gets me 1/3 of the way to EXP status for next year.
    • _xander 11y ago
      From an environmental perspective, these kinds of economic incentives seem highly damaging. Not that I've got anything against you for exploiting them.
      • imgabe 11y ago
        The planes are flying regardless of the people seeking frequent flyer miles. Aside from the marginal fuel increase due to the increased load, there's not much impact.
        • slg 11y ago
          "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." - Stanisław Jerzy Lec
          • pdeuchler 11y ago
            the vast majority of harmful vehicle emissions come from freight airplanes and ships with commuters coming in as a distant second, so even still the impact of consumer air travel is a rounding error (if that)
          • imgabe 11y ago
            On the other hand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle Nobody ever stopped an avalanche by targeting individual snowflakes.
  • linkydinkandyou 11y ago
    I do mileage runs one a year on a few different airlines and have a lot of fun plus get all my reading done! To each his own, I guess. I'm a United Global Service (which is based on spend, not miles, ~$80K/year gets you that) from business travel that's paid for by my clients, but for other airlines (AA) if I'm on the border of making "status" I will do a mileage run if I can.
    • JoshGlazebrook 11y ago
      Damn. What all incentives do you get for being in that secret club?
      • linkydinkandyou 11y ago
        Basically, I get good treatment for irrops
• smackfu 11y ago
  When you are trying these kind of system exploits, it really helps to not have to deal with any humans. It would be very easy for this plan to be shut down by someone in the office just refusing to rent to you after the first car, because they see you are trying to game the system.
  • notahacker 11y ago
    In practice, I suspect the reps earn commissions on rentals, incur no penalties at all for the frequent flyer bonus, and were quite happy once they'd satisfied themselves that the payments would be made and the cars were only going to be driven by the renter and would be returned in one piece. The risk of some auditing process, computerised or otherwise, highlighting the error and not actually crediting the miles is still pretty high though...
  • detaro 11y ago
    Yes and no. In this case, it seems like it helped that he dealt with humans (who gave him 1 car do go back-and-forth with instead of insisting he hand it and get another one, who organized the paperwork, ...), but it could have equally gone in the other direction.
  • ddingus 11y ago
    That is what I found great about this story. He calls 'em up and is frank about what he's doing. One quote says it all, "25 years at Avis and I've never seen anything like this" Not only did they know, but they thought it was cool and helped the guy max out his opportunity. The object lesson here is to never underestimate the impact of boredom or just the chance to be part of something unique as motivators. Bet those people had an interesting day, and you know they all got to talk some about where they live, where he lives, etc... Heck, I would jump on something like that just for the conversations that day, if nothing else. As long as the guy is nice, why not?
• therealmarv 11y ago
  It's one thing to make a good deal. But IMHO it's another thing to behave like a parasite.
  • hyperpape 11y ago
    That's a pretty strong claim. I condemn a lot of economic behaviors that prey on people who just aren't as good at reading legalese or terms and conditions. Banks reordering deposits and then charging overdraft fees that are far above their actual costs is one example, or contracts with hard to understand add-ons are another. I don't think this behavior is at all like those shenanigans though. Companies that offer frequent flyer miles spend plenty of time trying to offer the maximum apparent benefit while limiting the ways they actually pay out. It's a game where they're often trying to screw you. Screwing them in return (without violating the law or even their own terms) seems fine. If they had a simple system with decent (or even bad but predictable) rewards, like x miles per dollar spent, none of this would even be an issue. But they see an angle from a more complicated system. Sometimes it works for them, sometimes they pay more than they expected.
    • Strom 11y ago
      like x miles per dollar spent Sounds simple? Well it isn't, and it has already been tried. The exploiters will spend a lot of money - on buying money. They will buy gift cards and other such things which can easily be converted back to cash. These kinds of marketing exploits happen everywhere. I remember a nice local event where a mobile carrier offered pre-paid SIM cards at a great discount. People hoarded all these discounted SIMs immediately. Used them to transfer money to some web services (some services offer pay-by-mobile, where the charge is added to your mobile bill). Then proceeded to withdraw the money to their bank accounts. A pretty nifty way to make money.
  • Someone1234 11y ago
    > But IMHO it's another thing to behave like a parasite. Is the name calling/vilifying really helpful? Also companies remind us all the time that they're amoral, but when people treat companies in an amoral fashion suddenly everyone gets upset about it. The ironic thing is that Avis as a company has TONS of complaints. Just google "Avis is a scam" and read all the stories about hidden charges, misleading headline figures, and so on. Pages and pages of them... Because they're amoral and only care about the bottom line. Why is it wrong for people to only care about the bottom line?
• dpflan 11y ago
  When considering the exploitation of these airline mileage opportunties, one should never forget the 'Pudding Man'. http://www.snopes.com/business/deals/pudding.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/deals/pudding.asp Of course this makes me wonder about how the exploited companies respond. The exploiters can be identified (are companies afraid of lawsuits and public defamation)? Is such a story like an advertisement that may make someone (a reader) slightly more likely to use Avis (in this case) in the future?
  • userbinator 11y ago
    I don't think they were actually "exploited", because the money just came from somewhere else. From your article: "Because the airlines sell the frequent-flyer miles to Healthy Choice for the promotion for about two cents a mile, they aren't out a thing. Healthy Choice likely also made on the deal, because the value of the publicity surrounding Phillips' pudding run probably exceeds the actual dollar cost incurred by the company for purchasing those miles."
    • dpflan 11y ago
      Perhaps we should use the definition of exploit that pertains simply to making full use of and to deriving benefit from a resource rather than the definition of doing something selfishly and in an unfair manner?
    • ubernostrum 11y ago
      Well, things like this did ultimately have an effect on airline frequent-flyer programs, primarily in that every program which offers status-based perks for reaching mileage totals now only considers mileage that comes from actually putting your butt on a plane (unofficially referred to as "BIS" -- for "butt-in-seat" miles, officially referred to as various terms depending on program, such as "elite-qualifying miles" with American Airlines). And of course that also can be gamed through mileage runs, where you simply spend some time searching for cheap long-distance fares on the airline or one of its alliance partners, and use that to rack up extra qualifying miles. Which in turn has led to countermeasures from the airlines: ultra-discounted fares on partner airlines often earn only a tiny fraction of mileage flown, and two of the three US-based legacy carriers (Delta and United) now also have a minimum dollars-spent requirement in addition to the mileage-flown requirement. Largely this is because the miles themselves, as an alternate way to purchase airline tickets, are not much of a hit, but the status perks are. Airlines do some interesting balancing acts in terms of wanting to attract people who fly a lot (and thus spend money on tickets) vs. not wanting to be so top-heavy with people entitled to free perks that you end up losing money on them.
• elcct 11y ago
  Writing Terms and Conditions is like programming. You have to think of even unimaginable scenarios or face consequences.
  • dpflan 11y ago
    This is a good point that may elucidate how such things are tested: someone conjures up the 'contract' / terms and conditions, then what? Is there a suite of 'unit tests' for the conditions, then a QA department? I imagine there is (or was) an economic analysis of this that leads to the decision to apply human resources elsewhere within the company. The 'loss' from a few exploiters must be probabilistically low and does yield publicity / free advertising (right?).
  • smackfu 11y ago
    And the tricky bit for something like this is that the terms and conditions have to match the programming, otherwise someone might exploit the programming, even though you wrote bulletproof t&c.
    • ubernostrum 11y ago
      The general way out for the airlines is that the terms give them the right to unilaterally change the terms at any time, or terminate membership in a program at any time.
  • pjmorris 11y ago
    Too bad there's not a fuzzer for English.
    • 1_player 11y ago
      It's called a lawyer.
  • georgeott 11y ago
    I think adding "Limit: One rental per day" would have solved this problem.
• wil421 11y ago
  These things are interesting to read but it's also these kinds of things that cause companies to not do promotions like this anymore. It worked out well for him but I think the scheme to buy dollar coins from the treasury and then use the same coins to pay back off the credit cards was brilliant. You also didnt have to involve employees in the schemes. I'm not sure what Avis will say to the branches he rented from.
  • monksy 11y ago
    That seems like an alarmist statement. For everything you do [for the most part], there is someone that is going to take that to the extreme. The people who do those mileage runs are fairly rare in the grand scheme of things. They are fairly annoying. ---- Why do these people exist? I think that this in a way is a protest in response to the airlines and the way that they do business. Realistically, individuals have little power in exercising their disapproval of treatment by the airlines or from the effects of business decisions. (I.e. Award devaluations, stripping out connections to hubs at airports, monopolies over airports (I.e. CLT pre Southwest) Even as a group.. an airline won't respond to a person not flying with them.
    • linkydinkandyou 11y ago
      How can you say "these people are annoying?" He seemed to have fun, and the staff at the rental car company enjoyed interacting with him. And I don't think this man did his mileage run to "protest" anything. He's probably a big fan of air travel, airports, and car rental companies and enjoys traveling.
  • Someone1234 11y ago
    > These things are interesting to read but it's also these kinds of things that cause companies to not do promotions like this anymore. Or they just spend five minutes thinking about attack scenarios. For example in this case, if they had added "one offer claim per customer per day" it wouldn't likely have impacted any of their normal customers (or sub-1% of them), but would have stopped stuff like this. The dollar coin thing was always going to bite them in the butt. They were literally selling money at a loss (it was a dollar coin, effectively sold at a dollar not including postage). There are numerous ways to exploit that, it was moronic.
• userbinator 11y ago
  185,000 (frequent flyer) miles earned I guess this is useful only if you fly a lot...
  • eli 11y ago
    Well, I'd fly more often if I had 185k miles to spend.
  • grandalf 11y ago
    that's redeemable for about 4 round trip flights from the US to Europe.
    • monksy 11y ago
      That's in an econ seat. It's about 120k round trip for business/first.
      • grandalf 11y ago
        If you're willing to go to such lengths to get the miles, chances are first class is not a priority.
        • monksy 11y ago
          FC on domestic nope. But if you ever want to fly first on Emerites, Quantas, or Singapore... it's a heck of a lot cheaper to do it on award miles.
          • ubernostrum 11y ago
            I'm sitting on a cache of American Airlines miles equivalent to a business-class round-trip to Sydney on Qantas, in anticipation of visiting Australia sometime in the next couple years. For a flight that's over 15 hours, you better believe it's worth it.
    • mseebach 11y ago
• klean92 11y ago
  Accomodation 4 nights: €42 Camping?
  • QuotedForTruth 11y ago
    He explained further down in the thread. Two cheap nights in guest houses, one camping, and the last one in the airport before flying home.
• kybernetyk 11y ago
  I have deep respect and envy for some people's executive function. I would be far too lazy to do this. :)
• hartator 11y ago
  It is why we can't have nice things.
  • rsync 11y ago
    This (the miles, etc.) is commercial air travel in 2015. There were no nice things in the first place.
• wpietri 11y ago
  Can HN folks help me come up with a catchy name for something here? In particular, when somebody enriches themselves in a way that's a net negative when you look at the whole system. Here, for example, the guy says he "earned" €3k in a way that was almost perfectly wasteful. I'm not so worried about him; crazies gonna cray, and he knows that this is ridiculous. But there are so many people who have jobs that are equally wasteful but don't know it. E.g., all those people flooding in to the US mortgage industry to help inflate the 2004-2008 housing bubble with dodgy loans. I want a punchy word or phrase that can a) help the rest of us talk about the problem, and b) at least occasionally puncture the bubble of self-justification that lets this go on. "Quack" and "scam artist" are good examples of what I'm after, but I want one specific to this phenomenon.
  • marcusgarvey 11y ago
    It's called "bullshit jobs." https://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber https://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-gr...
  • arnehormann 11y ago
    It's a non-classical example of arbitrage.
    • fennecfoxen 11y ago
      And both this and more-classical arbitrage is just someone enforcing the Law of One Price (by profiting from the price difference). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_one_price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_one_price
    • forgetsusername 11y ago
      Methinks you miss the OP's point. It isn't the name of the actual mechanism for the financial gain. It's a title for the idea of doing something wasteful, perhaps even net negative for society, for a very minor personal surplus. In this example, the guy wasted gas, created traffic, occupied employees time, put wear and tear on vehicles and roads and spent two days driving in circles...all for $2000. People are free to do what they want, and the "exploitation" is fair game, but it seems odd to me too.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• coldcode 11y ago
  If a group of people did this and rented every car, would this not be a Denial Of Service attack since no one else could rent a car?
  • deskamess 11y ago
    That's why the Avis employees assigned him 1 car at each site. He re-rented that same car all the time. The employees mitigated the expected DOS with a cached response. Both DOS'er and DOS'ee are happy. Edit: Poor reading skills on my part... I just noticed you said 'group'.
  • jameshart 11y ago
    Big promotions are often an opportunity to DOS yourself. Sometimes, the fact that a system is likely to be overloaded and sell out is part of the appeal - think about hitting refresh to get tickets as soon as they go on sale, or waiting in line from 6am to get into a midnight doorbuster sale. Self-limiting how many people can exploit the deal through capacity is also a way of preventing unlimited downside losses on the part of the promoter. That's why most special offers say "subject to availability".
  • mseebach 11y ago
    For sufficiently broad (and meaningless) definitions of DoS.. sure, why not? In general, however, in commerce, the term used is "sold out".
  • Dylan16807 11y ago
    That would be an enormous profit for the car rental places, especially if they get little traffic most of the time. I don't think buying huge amounts of something at max price counts as an attack.
• jameshart 11y ago
  So because this involves high status goods - flights, car rentals, etc - it's a cool hack; but when an old woman exploits the couponing rules at Market Basket and gets a cart full of canned goods for 25c, I can't help feeling that's not going to make the front page of HN...
  • thisone 11y ago
    that get's it's own TV show. higher profile than HN
    • jameshart 11y ago
      Who still watches TV shows?
      • cozzyd 11y ago
        People who clip coupons at Market Basket
  • anthony_d 11y ago
    Not my thing but it is impressive and clearly there is at least some demographic that does find the game entertaining. Maybe not HN, but there is a show devoted to that kind of thing: http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/extreme-couponing/ http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/extreme-couponing/
    • smackfu 11y ago
      And some of the people on that show who really exploit the coupons seem to be ex-white-collar alpha-types turned stay-at-home parents who would be the same people who do these mileage hacks back when they were travelling for work.
  • icebraining 11y ago
    I'd upvote it.
  • cma 11y ago
• weatherlight 11y ago
  This reminds me of this episode of Seinfeld. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bottle_Deposit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bottle_Deposit
• Loque 11y ago
  Relevant: http://gizmodo.com/how-an-engineer-earned-1-25-million-air-miles-by-buying-1339646546 http://gizmodo.com/how-an-engineer-earned-1-25-million-air-m...
  • jdmichal 11y ago
    > ... a one time cost of a little over $3000 (or a little over $2200 if you subtract the tax deduction) ... How do people still not understand the difference between a tax deduction and a tax credit? Deductions reduce your income, not your tax burden. Even at the highest 31% bracket for 1999, that deduction is only worth $248.
    • bpeebles 11y ago
      My reading is that he was able to donate nearly all of the $3,000 worth of pudding, which means if his marginal tax rate had been about 27% that year, he'd get about a $810 reduction in his taxes.
      • jdmichal 11y ago
        That's not what the text reads, but I suppose it's possible. > But here’s the beautiful part, doing this counted as a considerable charitable donation, which let David claim just over $800 back in tax deductions at the end of they year.
• anonu 11y ago
  I view this as simple arbitrage. There's an opportunity to take and you take it first.... Lots of other comments somehow point to the fact that this is parasitic behaviour. Well, this is human behaviour. Here's an even simpler credit card point arb: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/mint-closes-loophole-ends-credit-card-coin-sales-frequent-flyer-flier-miles-1263.php http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/mint-closes-loop... The story in a nutshell: "On July 22, 2011, the U.S. Mint said it was ending credit and debit card sales of $1 coins because of "individuals purchasing $1 coins with credit cards, accumulating frequent flier miles, and then returning coins to local banks ... While not illegal, this activity was a clear abuse and misuse of the program."
  • mikeash 11y ago
    I can't understand calling this "parasitic." Doesn't that imply that what's going on is somehow against the will of whatever you're exploiting? If a company sets up a promotion, it's their responsibility to ensure that the terms are favorable to them. If they screw it up then they should have thought it through some more. Loss leaders are a time-honored way to attract customers, but anyone who uses them must be aware that sometimes the "loss" in "loss leader" is all you get. You either need to make your terms accordingly, or bet on the average being beneficial even if you lose out on some individuals.
    • claudius 11y ago
      > If a company sets up a promotion, it's their responsibility to ensure that the terms are favorable to them. If an animal sets develops a new organ, it is its responsibility to ensure that the functionality of the organ is favourable to them. If it screws it up and a worm infects that organ, then it should keep evolving a bit more. Of course this is a somewhat trivially true statement, but it doesn’t change the fact that the worm is parasitic.
      • mikeash 11y ago
        That analogy makes no sense, what with evolution having no volition or intelligence.
• Theodores 11y ago
  The problem with these 'who can consume the most' competitions to game the system is that there are 'external costs' placed on everyone else. Planes are noisy, they pollute and they crash. In West London the annoyance begins at 4.30 a.m. and goes on until 11 at night, with another plane load of really important people arriving every two minutes. If we didn't have people going about on senseless travel all the time then the airport could be closed for long enough for people in West London to get some uninterrupted sleep. I don't think people gobbling up air miles care about these 'externalities'. I know they can't see past their own greed, but, what about noise, climate change and the fact that we do not have more than one planet's worth of hydrocarbons to waste? Also, fun that it may have been in Madeira, Madeira used to be unspoilt. The place deserves better than some idiot hiring cars and driving them in circles all day. Again, noise, pollution and wastage. Despite the photos, I don't believe this is 'take only photos, leave only footprints', driving around madly for one day is not doing justice to what Madeira has to offer. It is quite an insulting attitude, typical for an American where community was swapped for this inane frequent flyer culture where nobody knows their neighbour or cares about things like the planet. I do not actually fly any more, mainly because I have better things to do with my time (not because I think that I can save the planet by using my bicycle instead). In the work context I get more done from the one desk than those around me that have to do lots of flying for 'work'. I am also quite bemused at those that do travel for leisure - these days they come back and have nothing to say on their first day back, it is not like they are infused with mega-enthusiasm from the amazing things they saw and people they made acquaintance with. Did I not get the memo that you must not talk about your holiday?!? Also odd with the mass-flying-disease is that the fuel in those planes is not taxed. Would these air miles schemes work if things were taxed properly? People that fly don't tend to care about that. You would think they would think about that whilst being waited on by effective slaves in parts of the world where human labour is not considered a valuable resource to be rewarded accordingly.
  • icebraining 11y ago
    I think that's overreacting. As pointed out, the earned miles are not that many (a couple of Europe-US roundtrips), and the 37 trips of 1.2km to get the promotion weren't exactly that many either. As for the "insulting attitude", who exactly is feeling insulted? Nobody from Madeira I know (I'm Portuguese myself, so I know a few) would feel "insulted". Curiously, the people I know who travel more by plane are those from Madeira (and Açores), since they don't have access to a lot of stuff in the islands. In reality, their lifestyle is much more polluting than someone who pulls a stunt like this every few years.
• martywm 11y ago
  What is the value of your time to keep renting cars? I think Hacker News is a bunch of people who are interested in making things. Creating things. Creating value. Please share with me the value of this other than the fact that you hacked the system the way PG likes to hear in the YC application.
  • OverlordXenu 11y ago
    It had non-monetary value, too. For one, he was essentially paid to go on a short vacation. He also had fun creating/solving a puzzle for himself. It had value beyond what he earned.
• paulsutter 11y ago
  He's really undervaluing his time and energy. Maybe this is a fun and exciting game for him, but I'd think someone as clever and determined could do something more productive. And that's just /earning/ the miles, never mind using them. I have 1.4 million miles because even the act of using them consumes a lot of clock time and usually turns out a waste of energy (tickets based on mileage are rarely available for the routes/dates I want to fly).
  • mikeash 11y ago
    Maybe you're undervaluing his fun and excitement instead.
  • ddingus 11y ago
    I don't buy that. How we value things really does vary from person to person. His time and money commit was not large, yet he got a nice perk, at least one or two awesome flights somewhere he would want to go, status, and a chance to hang with the locals where he did the rentals. Bonus, a nice day just driving around a part of the world just for the hell of it. To me personally, that and the chance to interact with some people there is worth a lot. And this guy didn't pay all that much.
  • tnuc 11y ago
    If you want to sell some of those miles let me know. I can give you full instructions on what (and how) to book and I will give you cash.
• msoad 11y ago
  If you like credit card churning, people at https://www.reddit.com/r/churning https://www.reddit.com/r/churning are telling others about churning opportunities
• 1024core 11y ago
  Not to threadjack, but: people are mentioning "priority access at security" as a perk of higher FF status. Which begs the question: what does FF status have to do with security? You could get a higher status by just renting a car (or cars, as per the story). Does that make you a less of a security threat at the airport? Shouldn't security be independent of your status in some points collecting game??
  • wclax04 11y ago
    Its just a shorter line at security. Same security checks though.
  • mseebach 11y ago
    The miles in this trick aren't status miles, so they won't affect your ability to use fast track. But, that said, fast track security is the exact same security as regular security, it just have more staff allocated (at the airline's expense), so the lines will (usually) be shorter. Also, fast track will have a high percentage of experienced travellers that know to pack their liquids in a plastic bag, to remove their laptops and shoes, and when etc, and especially know the total futility of engaging with the security staff at all, so things tend to flow faster.
  • arcticbull 11y ago
    A lot of people do this; you're conflating 'status' and 'earning points' -- none of the miles earned here count towards elite status. You can't get elite status from 'just renting cars'. You generally (with a few exceptions) need to fly 25, 50, 75 or 100K BIS ("butt-in-seat") miles each year. Security takes time at airports and airlines want to look after their best customers, so they have arrangements with TSA/airport officials to create a shorter line for passengers with status and passengers in premium cabins. Doesn't affect what happens when you get to the end of it.
    • Someone1234 11y ago
      This is totally accurate. I just want to add, that the TSA now has "TSA Pre" (or Pre-Check) which categorically DOES impact the level of screening pax need (i.e. they need less screening with TSA Pre). Express doesn't (you just skip the queue), TSA Pre does. This is free to members of Global Entry, SENTRI or NEXUS programs, active duty [US] military, DoD employees and other federal employees with security clearance. For everyone else it costs $85/5 years ($17/year~) and may require an in-person interview. I'd argue that if you are a frequent traveller, this is BETTER than status at the moment. The TSA Pre line is shorter and moves quicker than even the express line. And if you travel even semi-regularly $85/5 years is almost nothing compared to the time and hassle savings (look at it as one trip's lost lounge access).
• gknoy 11y ago
  One takeaway from this article, for me, was that Avis' customer service, and the agents at these rental places specifically, were __awesome__. This is the kind of experience that would lead a customer like me to choose Avis over their competition when traveling, for example.
  • switch007 11y ago
    I've used Avis in Canada, UK, Spain and Australia - a fair sample. Not all Avis outlets are the same. For example in Spain they will happily scam you with Dynamic Currency Conversion. Don't take this one event and think Avis are angels. Try the flyertalk forum for Avis.. To be fair though, Avis don't particularly stand out - all car hire companies pull these "tricks" (some people have alleged fraudulant).
  • grecy 11y ago
    I wonder if there is any chance the Avis offices called head office to discuss what this guy was doing before he showed up. If so, I wonder if head office said "be super, super nice to him, hopefully he'll write about it..."
• _kyran 11y ago
  My favourite was this guy who wrote a script that processed 7000 1 cent donations netted him 380,000 points: http://www.brw.com.au/p/marketing/nab_taken_for_frequent_flyer_ride_D845R7c9uKhD7R17SlvawO http://www.brw.com.au/p/marketing/nab_taken_for_frequent_fly...
• _kyran 11y ago
  My favourite was this guy who wrote a script that processed 7000 1 cent donations netted him 380,000 points: http://www.brw.com.au/p/marketing/nab_taken_for_frequent_flyer_ride_D845R7c9uKhD7R17SlvawO http://www.brw.com.au/p/marketing/nab_taken_for_frequent_fly...
• neves 11y ago
  I think he forgot an important criteria about where to rent the cars, but, by pure luck, got it right. He must have considered the "niceness" of the people of the country he is travelling. Great that he got to Madeira, a very laid back country with great people. Try to do it in ... ! (fill the blanks with your preferred sullen people)
• bastian 11y ago
  Made my day!
• alexwebb2 11y ago
  This is why we can't have nice things.
• modfodder 11y ago
  Just waiting for one of these companies to create a "Hack the Promotion" promotion. Customer who devises the most efficient hack wins (maybe double/triple miles?).