I think, from october or something, the FAA will let wings program seminars count for renewal as well?

The regs say:

(a) A person who holds a flight instructor certificate that has not expired may renew that certificate by—
(1) Passing a practical test for—
Blah, blah
(2) Presenting to an authorized FAA Flight Standards Inspector—
(i) A record of training students Blah, blah;

(ii) A record showing that, within the preceding 24 calendar months, the flight instructor has served as a company check pilot, chief flight instructor, company check airman, or flight instructor in a part 121 or part 135 operation, or in a position involving the regular evaluation of pilots; or

The regular evaluation of pilots at a 141 school would be worth a call to a FSDO. Hard to say if that only applies to 121/135 ops.

how long is this the AF course? I just started it and about 20mins into and already want to pull my hair out.

My CFI expired in Nov. 2000, will they renew it, being expired that long? Is there a check ride involved??

CTPilot how much are you paying (if I'm not getting too personal), I got two summer projects, renewing my CFI and getting my seaplane rating. I'm financially retarded at present, might only be able to do one.

Yeah, you have to fly with a CFI examiner. A successful ride in any class on your CFI certificate will renew all CFI ratings. 61.199

There's a link to the American Flyers' course earlier in the thread. Here it is again ... American Flyers - Flight Instructor Renewal Courses

I don't know if it's the cheapest, but I'm using it for the second time at no additional charge.

I understand that's the downside of the free lifetime AF course. The Gleim course has the advantage of letting you do it at your own pace. You can usually blow though most modules fairly quickly.

I've done the American Flyers gig the past 3 renewals. Paid the one time fee and now free for life. Everything is online. Do the course on your laptop in your hotel room while on a trip. When complete, print and take the certificate to a FSDO (doesn't matter which one in the country). Very painless.....:D

The AF course is the same. You can stop at any time and come back to it at your leisure.

Read a few pages, go get a beer at your hotel bar, come back and read more. Repeat as necessary.

The trick is to be doing something else while you're "studying."

Hit the refresh button every 10 minutes, and it'll put that times towards your study time. That's how I did it after I had read the questions one time through. It will only go up a max of 10 minutes if you happen to forget and say hit the refresh every 15, so hitting it right on the dot is important to maximize the time use.

If you're doing the American Flyers course, you might find that this application is worth downloading. Not that I am implying that you don't read the course materials, but I know that I can get through a module in less than the "required" timeframe:

YRefresher - Automatic Web Page Refresher
Yrefresher Freeware download and review - automatically refresh web pages from SnapFiles