On Monday I told you about the exclusive tie-up that Hertz was about to announce with the SkyTeam airline alliance – see here.
There is no news at the moment about whether your SkyTeam elite status can be turned into Hertz Gold Plus Rewards status. It is very unlikely that your Hertz status will get you SkyTeam airline status.
Because Hertz is NOT an Avios partner, you need to find an alternative home for your rentals.
One of the SkyTeam airline programmes may now be the right choice for you. However, our preferred deal is with Virgin Flying Club, where you can earn 1,000 Virgin Atlantic miles on most Hertz rentals. Full details are here.
There is, however, a little known partnership between Hertz and IHG Rewards Club – the Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental etc hotel scheme – which is surprisingly generous. I wanted to run through it again today.
IHG Rewards Club offers Spire Elite members status with Hertz – click to read my article explaining how it works.
ALL IHG Rewards Club members, irrespective of status level, can earn points when they rent from Hertz. Full details are on the IHG website here.
Here are the headline details:
You will earn 1,500 IHG Rewards Club points per rental
plus
125 IHG Rewards Club points per day for non-status members, or
500 IHG Rewards Club points per day for Gold, Platinum or Spire Elite members
This is pretty generous, especially for Gold, Platinum or Spire Elite members who are guaranteed at least 2,000 points per rental.
Perhaps more importantly, it seems that this is one of the few partner earning opportunities which still count towards earning IHG Rewards Club status.
Here are the snags:
You must book via this link on this page of the IHG website
You must include the IHG CDP in your booking – this means that, whilst you benefit from the IHG discount of up to 35%, you are excluded from any more generous deals you may be able to access
The offer used to be restricted to rentals in certain countries but that wording has disappeared over the last 12 months and it now appears to be a global offer.
Let’s assume that you value IHG points at 0.4p each, as I do. A 2-day rental for a status member would earn you 2,500 points which is £10 of value. A week-long rental would get you 5,000 points valued at £20.
This compares well with the Virgin Atlantic deal, assuming you value 1,000 miles at £10.
As long as the IHG discount rate throws up a good price, this is one of the better hotel / car hire tie-ups and one you should try to remember.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
Is it not best to collect Hertz points instead of airline / hotel points?
If you only do occasional rentals then maybe not.
Hertz points can be really poor, even if you do rent regularly. If you’re paying 60 GBP for a weekend you get 60 Hertz points (ish), you need 800 for a free weekend day! In the same time you could have earnt 10,000 Virgin Atlantic points
I do find that Hertz quite often do special promotions, e.g. “rent for X days and get 800 points”. I rent only occasionally but have been able to rack up a decent amount of points with these offers.
“You must book via this link on this page of the IHG website”
Takes you to Avis and Budget links
“You must include the IHG CDP in your booking – this means that, whilst you benefit from the IHG discount of up to 35%, you are excluded from any more generous deals you may be able to access”
What is the IHG CDP?
Thanks.
22754
Thanks
Don’t ignore Hertz’s own Reward Points (1 point per USD spent, requires activity every 24 months, but no hard expiry)
I earnt some points by accident.
When I went to use them up I was pleasantly surprised to find that:
a) one can use for part payment after one has found the best rate, so even 800 points are useful (a booking using the points has to be for at least 2 days)
b) no black-out dates (although “off-peak” days are half the cost.
c) if partly weekend, you get a choice of whether to apply points to a weekday or weekend day (with amounts shown)
It’s the no-black dates which make this valuable – I got 8% back, but it would be more if you need a car at an expensive time/location, and hold the points for then.
When promotions offer E.g. 5,000 airline miles on a rental of GBP200 I take that, but in the absence of a promotion, or for high amount rentals, I get more value from the Hertz points.
P.S. Redemption only gets one C,D or N class cars, so for car-snobs that probably rules it out, but for large families the 7-seater redemptions are probably even more valuable.
My experience is that Hertz points are rubbish because the ‘free’ day never is free – you have to pay taxes fees and charges on it that would make BA blush. Every time I’ve gone to use them it has always worked out cheaper to pay cash through an aggregate site like auto Europe, holiday extras or Priceline than to pay the fees on a hertz redemption…
I had a similar experience with the Avis “free” weekend rental – the charges were nearly as much as a paid rental. I assumed Hertz would be the same – thanks for confirming!
What “free” weekend? The ones you get for your second rental (Or third I forget which!)
I have used these 2 or 3 times and it has always been 100% free. I just book for a weekend and then show them the voucher and that’s it.
Well I don’t know why I seem to keep getting shafted by rental companies. They said I had to pay extra taxes as it was an airport fee.
I find that the taxes and fees really vary, and I haven’t yet worked out what the driven behind that is. My experience so far has been that a weekend rental in Luxembourg incurred taxes & fees of approx. GBP 60 and a weekend rental at City Airport on the other hand cost me less than GBP 5 in taxes…
Whilst I am no expert, I’ve never heard of anyone having to pay any extras on Hertz redemptions. Have you actually paid these in practice? I think you may find (but check with the experts on FT) that in reality they are not charged.
I rent with Hertz for lengthy periods twice a year whilst in the UK. Usually manage to get below £10 per day (using the Amex Plat CDP) for an Astra size car and no-one else has got close in the last three years. I’ve nothing but praise for the service I have received and they are so much cheaper I don’t really focus on the points I get.
On the last page of confirming the rental you can also enter an IHG number, has anyone ever done this WITHOUT using the IHG link?
Yes. You can choose who you credit the rental to.
I have tried out IHG’s “up to 35% off” with the above code a number of times. Quoted different durations and countries. it never gave me more than 10% off. I view 10% off as pretty much available anywhere. It looked like IHG was going to make more out of it than me. So so far, I have never found a case for using the IHG code with Hertz.
Europcar used to promote some very interesting transfer options with Accor, not sure if those are still there and not sure if it applied all countries. IIRC this was available in Oz and France, at least.
Another one to keep an eye on is Lufthansa Miles & More website. Miles & More and Lufthansa don’t seem to email promotions regularly. Many times I have found treasure logging into Miles & More for car rental promotions. They usually have promotions on more than one major rental company at a time so you have a choice.
Rob/guys, here’s a question for you. As a spire elite I rented 3 times with hertz and never got my IHG points, I followed the guidance and entered the correct CDP, but post hiring I was rejected for not having a PC# code (that I didn’t know I needed) at the time of the rental. Despite numerous twitter messages to both Hertz and IHG, no one ever told me what the correct PC# code was, does anyone know what it is? I’d be fascinated to find out. IHG eventually gave me my points as “service recovery”. Neither the Hertz or IHG websites show the PC# code that you need, how hard can it be for IHG to pre-populate that field when you follow the link? This was last year, hopefully things have changed for the better!
Here is the reply I got on twitter
“We have researched the rental record xxxxxxxxxx you submitted and have determined it does not qualify for bonus miles/credits/points because the PC# indicated on the promotional offer was not indicated on the reservation or rental. A CDP number alone is not valid for bonus miles, as this CDP number is available to all Holiday Inn members. Most valid offers for bonus miles/credits/points will also have the Promotion Code (PC) number listed.
The CDP# and PC# indicated on the offer must be on the reservation as well as the rental, and may not be used in conjunction with any other offers, discounts or promotions. All terms, expirations, and conditions for promotions are listed on the Hertz website at http://www.hertz.com or on the offer itself.”
A quick google reveals that a PC code of 203756 exists, don’t know if it is correct or if it works though.
Thank you John, this is good to know, my rentals were around that time last year, but you would have hoped that both Hertz and IHG teams would have known that and told their members that they needed it!
I’d say you have been done if the requirements to get the extra points were so unclear. would make me ensure other rental companies were considered for at least a few upcoming rentals.
Sadly, this still doesn’t work, if you just enter the CDP you do get a quote, if you enter the required CDP and PC code you get
“Not all requirements for the Promotion Coupon requested have been met. We have removed the Promotion Coupon from your request to provide you with the best rate. If you would still like to take advantage of the Promotion Coupon, please refer to the offer details to meet all necessary requirements. [DRX141]”
The quote it gives me is $26 more for a 6 day rental than with my Amex plat, so I’ll stick with that
You also get an extra 4 hours with the Plat code. It has come in handy for me a few times for airport drop off. I credit to Hertz and use the often received 8/900 bonus point code. This is after I have checked the comparison sites for better deals, I stopped using airline/hotel links for car rental years ago. I can count the number of times I received points/miles on one hand.
I have ALWAYS got Virgin miles from Hertz using the Amex Plat discount code, and booking via Hertz Australia.
Can you remind me about the Hertz Australia opportunity? Was it to remove insurance that is provided by Amex plat or was it just keener prices?
It removes some insurance that Hertz UK site adds for UK rentals, leaving what I think is only the legal minimum. And it is a lot cheaper anyway – presumable it thinks Australians are cheap.
I have got £100/day Bank Holiday rentals down to £20 via a combo of Hertz Australia and the Amex Plat discount code.
Thanks Rob.
Would be interested in anyone has experience with points/miles with a corporate van & car rental account. Currently with Sixt but they don’t offer any mile with corporate rates…. Spend 5 figures a year with them…
Hertz does do some quite reasonable van promotions 2 or 3 times a year. september and march might be good months. click Offers or Local Offers on their homepage near the top somewhere near the middle.
Car hire related. I have the Avis offer on my Amex (£20 off £150) but you need to “book, rent & pay” by 31st Dec. If I prepay now for a rental in January, will it trigger this credit?
I would say no because your rental will not take place before the end of December. You could always call Hertz and let us know?
My firm has a corporate CDP code which makes it nigh on impossible to partake in the best mileage earning opportunities. VS are very easy they have no “must include” requirements, Aegean A3 & IHG both insist on their own CDP being used (which I cant do).
So that leaves Marriott or LH Miles & More – does anyone have any experience of these programmes with hertz?- I read it that Marriott is ok with ANY CDP *but* and its a big one you only get 500 points per rental not per day.
With Lufthansa I cannot for the life of me see how many miles they credit of if they insist on their own CDP but the LH site claims a “minimum” of 500 miles – does anyone know what the earning in miles and more actually is?