So this morning I had over a quarter of a million Holiday Inn points, and we are planning a spring vacation to get out from under Columbus’s snow and frostiness. Our vacation requires some driving, so I thought it would be cool to get a rental car and save our van some wear.

A rental car for a week is only 55,000 points for a Toyota Corolla, but 150,000 for seven days in a Grand Marquis, with nothing in between. Taking the Grand Marquis would have left us without enough points to stay in hotels for free for the week. The question is, we didn’t know how big a Corolla was, though various reports say a six-footer can fit comfortably. I’m a little taller than that. :)

I called Holiday Inn to get a coupon code for the rental. I got the code, then called Hertz and got my first glitch. The Columbus Airport Hertz, a local franchisee instead of being corporate-owned, doesn’t accept Holiday Inn coupons.

I said fine, look at Newark, OH. They have a corporate-owned Hertz, but we ran into another problem: the specific coupon is good only for airport Hertz locations.

The nearest Hertz location that could take this coupon? Dayton. 80 miles away. Only 20 miles closer than Cincinnati but completely in the wrong way. We’re headed southeast. Cincinnati is still bad, southwest of us.

Holiday Inn has no deals with any other rental car companies. Hilton’s VIP program can use coupons with four rental car companies.

Holiday Inn and its sister chains in the InterContinental Hotel Group have a decent reservation system where I can use points for free nights. Their rental car system can use some work. As far as the Columbus Hertz goes, I do have options to rent cars for business. Avis and Budget have done well with me in the past.