I know, I know. I hate Enterprise, too. The hard sell on the collision damage waiver, the walkaround the car with the Enterprise agent, the utterly pedestrian vehicles… until now, that is

Lotus announced plans today to distribute 50 Elise roadsters to select Enterprise Rent-A-Car locations in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego and south Florida

Given Enterprise’s penchant for dinging customers for minor damage, I’d definitely take the CDW coverage, even if I’m renting with a credit card offering primary insurance coverage.

The car will apparently cost $199 a day — but it’s a rental as it should be, the opportunity to try something new and out of the ordinary.

Register by October 17 and earn 5000 bonus miles on your next Northwest roundtrip completed by November 30.

The Essential Air Service Program has to be the most effective and most important effort our government has.

• More than 100 airports receive federal subsidies under the “Essential Air Service” program

• Per-passenger flight subsidies for these flights are greater than per-rider subsidies to Amtrak

• Subsidies are as high as $677 per one-way ticket, and airports average as few as 3 passengers per flight

In most cases people can and do (hence the lower traffic numbers) drive to larger airports. But this is one piece of pork that just won’t go away.

I recently posted Avis 1000 mile promotions for several airlines, but the British Airways link didn’t work. Turns out there’s an even better offer. Through November 30 you can earn double British Airways miles for Avis rentals, which means basic members earn 1000 miles and Golds earn 1500. Details are here.

Dean Burri is a former Flyertalk President and organizer of events between frequent flyers and Continental executives. He’s profiled by CNNMoney for his 300 days on the road and 400,000 flown miles a year.

He has custom made suits that hold his cigar humidors, but otherwise his travel approaches are not unlike thousands of other road warriors. Nice recognition, cigarman!

Several hotel chains are making real efforts at using cutting edge technologies. Priority Club was first with a blog, though it’s a pretty awful effort. Starwood is furthest along with its “The Lobby” entry. Marriott public relations is busy pitching their news stories at blogs. And now Marriott has posted a video to YouTube promoting an upcoming photo contest. Pretty amusing and clever entry, too. And I understand it uses real Marriott employees, to boot.

It appears as though Air France-KLM Flying Blue and Singapore Airlines Krisflyer are new American Express Membership Rewards transfer partners.

They show up on the list, anyway, though when clicking for more details you get

The reward you requested is currently unavailable.

So I imagine this is coming soon.

Good news indeed that American Express seems to be adding partners after losing so many over the past several years. Alas, Singapore is a Star Alliance carrier and there are already others in the program, and Air France KLM is Skyteam adding to that alliance’s already heavy representation. A oneworld partner would sure be nice!

Northwest is finally promoting the 20th anniversary of its frequent flyer program. There’s a not-all-that-right instant win game from October 4-23, and much like American’s effort several months back they have an ‘offer of the day’. Today’s is quite nice — double iDine miles for your next 12 dines through November 30 (up to 20 miles per dollar spent if you’re already an ‘elite’ member of the dining program).

Worth continuing to check out…

You can earn a 25% bonus on eligible spending (which should be all purchases) on the Delta American Express card from October 1 to November 30. Registration required.

Via Free Frequent Flyer Miles, there’s a new best offer for the Starwood American Express: 10,000 points with first purchase, no annual fee the first year. (Previously the best offer I’m aware of was 6000 points with first purchase and then the potential for additional bonus points via hotel stays.)

Via Don there is also – finally – a Starwood Preferred Guest Business Credit Card from American Express and it also offers 10,000 points with first purchase and no fee the first year. This is useful for several reasons:

1. because American Express generally doesn’t let you sign up for the same card more than once to double and triple dip on signup bonuses, but you can sign up for a personal and business card and collect both bonuses.
2. because it’s easier to use a business credit card for business spend than to add additional cardholders to a personal account – actually using the card for its intended purpose can really rack up those SPG points, which I generally value more highly than airline miles (aside from the ability to transfer the points at favorable rates to most airlines).

Update: Though I have a nice email from American Express about this new business card product, the link isn’t working at the moment – I’ll update shortly.

Update 2: Link is fixed.

US$211 from Vancouvery (YVR) or Toronto (YYZ) to Bucharest (BUH) — it’s a $0 fare + fuel surcharges + tax.

Bookable at nwa.com or travelocity.com. Book at nwa.com and you should have until tomorrow to refund the ticket if you change your mind, so minimal risk… (It should be a refundable fare in any case, but I haven’t checked this yet.)

2 free stopovers are permitted. Stopovers appear possible at least in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Tunisia (!), Madrid, Vienna, Milan… 7 day minimum stay.

It’s a “B” fare — so *potentially* changeable (probably only after travel commences, in order to avoid a refare) as well as upgradable (if space is available) for 15,000 Northwest miles each way. B fares earn 50% bonus miles.

This fare won’t last, it’s been available for over 7 hours already at least. And as always, wait to see whether this will be honored before booking additional nonrefundable travel such as tickets to Vancouver or Toronto or hotel stays..

It was only a matter of time before the signup bonus arms race made it up to the next level. The United Visa is offering 21,000 bonus miles and even 25,000 bonus miles with annual fee waived the first year.

They took a page from a recent Citibank American Mastercard offer, though, and are requiring $250 in spending on the card before awarding the bonus instead of crediting it after first purchase. Still, an extra 5000 miles award for spending $250 seems quite worthwhile.

Through the end of the year, miles earned from select partners (mostly hotel and car rentals but also FTD flowers) count towards elite status with USAirways. No registration required.