“I rent a lot of cars. One reason for this is I travel a lot,
mostly to conferences and meetings in other cities. Another reason
is my own car, a late-80s Subaru wagon (the exact model year is a
mystery not worth solving), can’t be trusted on long trips. Also,
its roof leaks.“So, I’m a veteran car rental customer. Because I’m also a
veteran airline passenger whose most frequent flying has been to
cities served heavily by United Airlines–Denver, Chicago,
Washington, New York–I belong to a high, though not the highest,
frequent flier caste in United’s Mileage Plus system. So, when I go
to car rental agency sites, I usually enter through United’s
portal, which tells the agencies to give me a few extra
miles…”