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Anyone who ever calls Delta, when you are done with the call, you get the request about cars and hotels. Also, as you can see from MY DELTA page, we also see the adds on our home page at Delta.
Now I am all for earning extra Skymiles and a discount on top of that would be great too as I am always looking to both earn more Skymiles and save a few bucks.
But when I looked to rent a car from Hertz in Sweden on this last trip, you can see that for a day rental the price was just a little high. But was it a good deal or not? So I went direct to Hertz to see.
Humm… Not seeing the BIG 15% discount Delta.com was promising here, but I would get a few extra Skymiles this way if I booked it so there is that, right?!
But you know what, Air France also has a deal going. They are saying I can save up to 24% off and when I use their link and code, as you can see from the above, the price DOES in fact drop a bunch. How nice and even a bigger car for the price (I also check other places like MouseSavers as well).
I would love to get feedback from readers if you have ever used the Delta codes and have found a good deal in both price and points due to the offer on the website. As for me, in the end I used my USAA discount and earned Hertz points and got a much better rate than any of the above. It does go to show that Delta.com links can be checked to see if they are worthwhile, but as most have found they are rarely the best deal to be had! – René
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Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
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I have used the link on delta.com to reserve at Hertz 4 or 5 times in the last few months, and it’s turned out to be just a little bit higher than rates on other major car rental sites (like Budget or Avis). It was worth it for me for the bonus Skymiles. A few times that I checked Hertz via the Delta link, though, the prices were way higher than the other companies, so I booked elsewhere. I’d say it’s worth a look, but make sure you check at least one or two other companies before booking!
I have used the Hertz rate before and found it much higher than if I used AAA. Plus I am still waiting for the bonus points to show up. When they say you can get the big discount I have found it misleading.
I never use the Delta links. Not only have I found their prices usually to be non-competitive but I feel I often get the best bang for the buck by participating in the rental company’s own loyalty program instead. There are exceptions, of course, and the Delta offer does give a lot of skymiles, but we gotta pay for those somehow and the way Delta does things these days, it’s us, not them. who is paying.
I’ve also found Delta’s price for Hertz not competitive. The Ultimate Rewards Travel is another place I’d check. For most of the time, I’m more for saving a few buck over earning miles unless I’m short of a few miles for a redemption. The American Express Open typically give pretty competitive rates in certain locations as well. Another place is Costco Travel, but Costco doe not sale Hertz.
I tried to use the Hertz thing on a trip to Kalamazoo last month and the agent at Hertz said that there wasn’t a discount in for me, and that it was only 5% off anyways. I booke the car directing through delta.com by clicking on the hertz advertisement. A little disappointed… I should have written Delta but I never got around to it and it’s been week over a month now..
I’ve tried using the code from the website, and doing a reservation online, and both times, the price was more expensive going through Delta then directly to Hertz.com or using a code from another website. Add to the fact it took about 15 minutes to try and book on the phone only to find out it was significantly more expensive through Delta.
First, two big Thumbs Up for the MouseSavers reference, Rene! That site is great for travel deals, especially rental car codes.
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Next, I think you’ve hit on a fantastic point, and I actually carried it out a couple steps, and I was hoping to share.
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Since Delta seems to want their site to be a one-stop shop for travel, which drives more airline revenue, they could probably do this using their membership tools to make it more of a travel portal rather than a place to get them a commission. For instance, if Delta.com was able to store my preferred link for rental cars and hotel info, such as USAA, Costco and AAA codes for cars and hotel membership info for hotels (especially SPG), then Delta.com could do a search with this criteria and pull results to create a travel package at the best possible rate for an individual.
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Such a service may not earn them commission revenue, but instead they get more traffic and more data on their customers, which could be more lucrative. If they notice my family travels to Disney in CA and FL at certain times of the year, they could send me targeted airline offers or total package offers to include my fav car rental agency and hotel. This would be much better than the email offers they send me now that don’t have deals from Portland, OR, thus are useless spam.
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Another travel piece I don’t get offers on are for airport parking! Why not? If Delta knows I’m flying during a certain time, then why are they not partnering with a parking service or hotel chain with stay & park to get the word out to me? Seems like revenue out the window for them, IMO.
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In the end, it seems like they could turn Delta.com into a social media platform (of sorts) that allows storage of data on my travel preferences, then using this information put together a travel package for my most frequent destination (and maybe a wish list). While it may/may not generate specific revenue for Delta, such a service could ensure more bookings on Delta jets and the collection of their much vaunted membership data.
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Thanks for the great post, Rene, and for making me think.