Alamo Insiders Rewards: Program Benefits

Alamo Rent a Car is a U.S.-based car rental company that has locations in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. Alamo falls under the Enterprise Holding, Inc. umbrella which owns both Enterprise Rent-A-Car and National Car Rental.

The Alamo Insiders Rewards Program offers the ability to earn points and miles when booking with Alamo as well as discounts and faster rental service. The program is free to sign up for.

Alamo Insiders Program

The Alamo Insiders Rewards Program does not offer rewards specific to Alamo, but it does allows you to earn airline miles, hotel points, and more when renting cars through them. Since signing up for an Alamo Insiders account is free, I recommend doing so even if you're only renting once due to the extra savings you'll earn just for being a member.

Alamo Insiders Benefits

Signing up for the Alamo Insiders program will grant you a few small, but useful benefits. I recommend signing up for an account even if you only plan on renting with Alamo once due to the small savings you'll be eligible for.

Earning Rewards

Alamo Insiders Rewards offers you the ability to earn airline miles, hotel rewards points, and more through the Alamo Partner Rewards Program. You can do this by heading to alamo.com, signing into your Alamo Insiders account, and clicking on 'My Profile'. This is where you'll find the Frequent Traveler Partner Preference option to add/modify your partner preferences. Once that's done, you'll be able to start earning rewards every time you rent with Alamo.

Once you select your preferred rewards program, you'll start to earn rewards with that program on every rental. This is an easy way to earn extra points and miles with your favorite programs.

You can earn rewards directly though Alamo Insiders with the following programs:

• Frontier Airlines
• American Airlines
• Southwest Airlines
• Alaska Airlines
• Delta Airlines
• Sun Country
• Avianca
• Japan Airlines
• Asiana Airlines
• All Nippon Airways
• Korean Airlines
• Eva Air
• Copa Airlines
• Virgin Atlantic
• Miles & More (Lufthansa)
• Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific)
• Hilton Hotels
• Best Western
• Radisson Hotels
• AIR MILES / Bank of Montreal
• CAA

Alamo Frequent Traveler Recover Fee

Before you sign up to earn rewards, do note that Alamo charges a Frequent Traveler Recover Fee for earning miles/points with certain programs. Generally, this fee is up to $0.75 per day with the exception of Southwest Airlines which is up to $1.50 per day.

This is something that you will want to note when opting to earn rewards as you'll want to make sure the rewards you're earning are worth more than the fee.

The following Alamo Partner Rewards Programs are subject to a Frequent Traveler Recovery Fee:

• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
• American Airlines AAdvantage
• Delta Air Lines Skymiles
• Frontier Airlines MyFrontier Rewards
• Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles
• Radisson Hotels Radisson Rewards
• Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards
• Sun Country Ufly Rewards

Earning With Other Partners

You can earn discounts or rewards with other programs not listed under the Alamo Insiders Program. These partners will require you to either book through a special link or through another portal.

Alamo Car Insurance

Finding a credit card that earns a great return on car rentals or a great return on general travel purchases is one approach, but the better option will usually be finding a credit card that offers rental insurance coverage.

Alamo's Car Rental Insurance can be quite pricey!

When you pay for a car rental using a rewards credit card that offers Primary Rental Insurance, you can avoid the high per-day rate that car rental agencies charge for their protection by declining it. Depending on how often you rent cars, this can save you hundreds per year.

Overall, Chase offers the best credit cards when it comes to Primary car rental insurance. AMEX's primary car rental insurance will cost you $12 and $25 each time depending on the coverage you select and the state you live in, but this is still significantly cheaper than paying what the car rental agency charges.

Here a few of the best credit cards for car rental insurance:

• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
  Best For High Value & Travel Benefits
  Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $900 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.
• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
  Best For Flexible Travel Rewards
  Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.
• Chase Freedom Unlimited®
  Best For Flat-Rate Cash Back
  Earn a $200 bonus after you spend $500 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
• Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
  Best For Flexible Business Travel Rewards
  Earn 100k bonus points after you spend $15,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $1,000 cash back or $1,250 toward travel when redeemed through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.
• The Platinum Card® from American Express
  Best For Lounge Access & Luxury Travel
  Earn 80,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $6,000 on purchases on the Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership.
• American Express® Gold Card
  Best For Restaurants & U.S. Supermarkets
  Earn 60,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $4,000 on eligible purchases with your new Card within the first 6 months.

Alamo + Rewards Portals

An easy way to maximize your spending with Alamo is by using a cash back portal. Cash back portals allow you to earn cash back in addition to the miles, points, and other rewards you would normally earn booking your rental with the Alamo Insiders program. This is how portals work:

1. Find Alamo on the online portal of your choosing and click Shop Now
2. You'll land on alamo.com to make your car reservation as normal
3. Once you book and complete your reservation, the online portal will be notified
4. You'll earn cash back (or other rewards) with that online portal

Earn cash back booking travel through portals.

The great thing about booking through portals is that it's not considered to be third party since you'll be dropped off on Alamo's website to do your booking as normal. I recommend booking all travel through online portals as well as using cash back and shopping portals when making purchases online.

I've earned lots of cash back using the Rakuten Rewards portal alone.

There's a handful of great cash back portals available and no portal is generally better than another portal as the cash back values change on a consistent basis. You can choose a favorite or sign up for all of them if you want the ability to book with whichever portal has the best deals at the time of your Alamo booking.

Cash back portals are free to sign up for and there's no cost associated with them.

If you don't have an account with any of the leading cash back portals, you can sign up for any of them through The Point Calculator and earn extra cash back when you rent cars and make other purchases online.

• Sign Up For Rakuten
• Sign Up For TopCashback
• Sign Up For RebatesMe
• Sign Up For BeFrugal
• Sign Up For MrRebates