I’ll admit, Budget Car Rental wasn’t a company I paid much attention to. I looked into how to sign up for the Budget Fastbreak program when writing my article about signing up for car rental programs, and what each program will give you, but that was the extent of my research. They’re just not a company I rent from very often, or at all.
That changed a few years ago when I went on my first work trip. I was allowed to earn frequent flyer miles, hotel points and car rental credits for the trip. SCORE! However, I had no control over the booking, as the corporate travel agent handled it, and my intermediate-sized rental car was reserved from Budget Car Rental.
Time to sign up for Budget’s Fastbreak service.
I went to the article I wrote to find the link to sign up for Budget’s program:
The first step was entering my personal information. It took a few tries to turn the “Receive Email Offers” toggle switch to OFF.
After entering my info, Budget wanted to verify my email. I received the email immediately and clicked on the link and was returned to the signup page:
Here was where I was asked for my credit card information. I registered with my Sapphire Reserve card because it earns 3X Ultimate Rewards for rental car expenses and includes primary rental car (LDW) coverage. However, this rental was paid for by my employer and they provided coverage for the car.
Of course, they wanted my Driver’s License Information:
The last step was agreeing to Budget’s rental agreement:
The next (optional) part was registering to earn Miles & Points for my rentals. Is this really optional?
I was impressed by the huge list of travel partners Budget offered me to earn points with:
While I’m sure some people would want to earn points with British Midland, it might be difficult since the airline no longer exists. Bonus points to anyone who knew that Boomerang Rewards was the program for Eurowings and Multiplus is for LATAM.
While there are many options, there’s a different list of partners listed on the website. Who knows which one is correct:
Of these, I picked Southwest. Their earning formula seemed the most generous:
Earn 600 Rapid Rewards Points per rental. Plus, you can receive valuable discounts whenever you provide your Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards/Budget Customer Discount (BCD) number U072700.
- Valid participating Budget airport locations worldwide.
- Members must provide their Rapid Rewards membership number at the time of rental.
- Airline flight is not required to earn point credit.
- Points may not be earned on free, tour or certain travel industry rates and may only be earned in one frequent traveler program per rental.
- A Frequent flyer surcharge of $1.00 per day will apply.
I didn’t pick the company to rent from for my trip, but I earned points while driving a Hyundai Elantra back and forth to work for a week.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
