AutoSlash is a meta search site for searching car rental deals without hunting around for discount codes for various car rental companies. Although my first go to site for car rental search is "CarRentalSavers.com" it might be worth requesting a quote from AutoSlash.

The way AutoSlash works is different from OTA's such as Priceline or Expedia. You have two options with AutoSlash:

• You can provide the details of the car rental you are looking for and it will email you the quote usually within few minutes.
• You can plug in details of your existing car rental booking and it will alert you when it finds a cheaper option. 

Once you enter the airport details, it asks if you have membership with any of the various credit card, frequent flyer programs or AAA, AARP. This enables AutoSlash to use discount codes which are provided by those membership's and get the best quote possible. Once it finds the best rate it will email the quote which has multiple rates and usually ask to book ASAP as the rates might change anytime. 

The good aspect of this rates is that most of the time you can cancel this rates till last minute without any penalty. Sometimes it will redirect you to Priceline to book this special rate while other times it provides the rate bookable on AutoSlash itself. 

Below is an example rate from "CarRentalSavers.com" for 1 day car rental in Austin and how it compares to the search with "Autoslash".

As you can see from above the "AutoSlash" still saved couple of dollars for the best/cheapest rate against the same search with "CarRentalSavers.com". The saving's in this case may not be huge but I have seen instance's where AutoSlash provides discount of 30% against the best available rate on any other car rental site.

Do note that AutoSlash may not always provide the best rate so its always useful to search couple of OTA or meta search sites before you make your car rental booking. Also before you make your final car rental booking it is always good to check any frequent flyer bonus promotions for car rental. My go to site for this is "frequentflyerbonuses.com".

So, next time your rent a car do check with AutoSlash!!

​Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.

If you are not tied to loyalty to any of the brand name hotel chains or if you are looking to stay at hotels which are not part of any hotel chain then Expedia might be a place to go to book your next hotel stay. The reason being the Expedia Rewards which have improved over the period of time and can provide good value for rewards on stays which otherwise would not be rewarded.

Expedia Rewards has 3 different membership tiers which is Blue Member, Silver Member and Gold Member. All Expedia Rewards members start as Blue member where they save 10% or more on select hotels and enjoy Hotel Price Guarantee till midnight before the stay. The Silver tier of members earn 10% more in points and get extra's such as free WiFi, free Breakfast or Spa credits whereas the Gold tier members earn 30% more in points and have all the other benefits of Silver tier. 

Expedia has two co-branded credit cards from Citi where currently you can earn 20,000 or 50,000 Expedia Reward points after meeting minimum spend and which would instantly give you Silver or Gold tier status respectively.

Earning Expedia Reward Points:
As a Blue member you earn 2 points/$ spent on hotels, car, packages, things to do and cruises which is effective earning of 1.41% and 2 points/$10 spent on Flights giving effective earning of only 0.141% on Flights. If you use Expedia App you earn twice those points effectively making the return as 2.85% and 0.285% respectively. 

Silver member earn 10% bonus on the base points making the earning as ~1.574% while Gold member earn 30% bonus on the base points making the earning as 1.857%. (Except flights which earn's 1/10th of that rate).

Redeeming Expedia Reward Points:
The good news is that you can start redeeming your points even if you do not have sufficient points for paying the entire cost. The only exception to this is booking flights where you need to have sufficient points to cover the cost of entire flights (including taxes and fees). Alternatively Expedia has what they call VIP Access hotels where you can redeem your points for participating hotels at twice the value. So instead of redeeming 140 points for $1 you would redeem only 70 points for $1 of value. 

VIP Access hotels: 
Although classified as VIP Access hotels these can vary in price and does include lot of budget hotels. Expedia uses certain (non-revealed) criteria to classify them as VIP Access, but you will find lot of budget properties which are VIP Access as well.

Here is a little trick you can use. When you are searching VIP Access hotels for your destination after your initial search, under the "Property Type" check box for "VIP Access" and sort by price for you selected hotel rating. You will see a list of hotels and a default selection on the top where it applies your available points. Click on "Remove points" option and you will see the list change with now lower priced hotels which have "VIP Access" bookable. You can select the one which fits your stay criteria and eventually apply the points on the payment page after you select "Pay Now". Below are the two snapshots of search with and without "Remove points" options.

As you can see disabling the apply points after the search shows cheaper hotels by price showing up which did not came up earlier. You can now check out your other criteria for hotel selection and make your reservation of the VIP Access hotel to get best value of your Expedia Rewards points. Hopefully you can take advantage of Expedia Reward points for your next hotel reservation.

 Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.

Flying Blue Miles of Air France / KLM expire after 24 months of no flight or credit card activity on the account. The miles earned through other partner activity can be extended by partner activity but NOT the miles earned through flying. So, if you have Flying Blue Miles expiring and you reside in U.S.A below are your options:

Redeem for Award Flights on Air France / KLM or any of their partners:
Although the best use of miles is to redeem for flights this option is only useful if you have enough miles to redeem for Award Flights. The redemption starts at 6,000 miles for Air France / KLM and with Air France promo rewards it might go as low as 3,600 miles. Unfortunately most partner reward redemption starts at ~10,000 miles or more each way.

Credit Delta Airlines Flight to Flying Blue program:
Delta Airlines Basic Economy (E) class fares does earn 20% of miles flown when credited to Flying Blue program. So, if you have upcoming Delta Airlines flight before the expiration of Flying Blue miles then you may consider changing your Delta frequent flyer number on your reservation to Flying Blue frequent flyer number. 

Open Bank of America Air France KLM Credit Card:
Bank of America has partnered with Air France / KLM to provide credit card in U.S.A which earns Flying Blue miles. As long as you have this credit card your miles do not expire. This might be useful if you do not have any upcoming Delta or Air France flights but have substantial miles which you do not want to get expired.

Shop Online for Vouchers or gifts:
While not the best value for mileage redemption you could still use your expiring miles to shop online on Flying Blue Shop or on Air France / KLM Shop. On Flying Blue Online Store there might be option to redeem miles for activity which might give at least some value but even the best of case you would rarely get more than ~$3 in value for every 1,000 miles you redeem. 

So, before you let your miles expire do check out above options and you might get some value out of your expiring Flying Blue miles.

​​Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.