How to earn Avios, miles and points from Europcar rentals

Europcar is a major player on the car rental scene in Europe (the company is based in France) although it has a lower profile than the big boys, Hertz and Avis Budget.

Europcar joined Nectar three years ago as their car rental partner, replacing Hertz.  With Nectar points now converting into Avios, Europcar is more interesting to HfP readers.

That said, the Nectar earning rate is just 1 point per £1 in the UK which is hardly exciting.  If you transfer the Nectar points to Avios, you are getting 0.625 Avios per £1 spent with Europcar.

Outside the UK you get a flat 200 Nectar points (125 Avios) per rental – except for USA, Canada, China and Japan, where you get nothing.

Full T&Cs and more information about the Nectar partnership can be found on the Europcar site here.

However, you can beat this return by taking miles or hotel points instead.

You can also collect airline miles with Europcar

You cannot collect Avios directly from Europcar, although the ability to collect Nectar points and convert those is a good alternative for UK-based readers.

You cannot earn Virgin Points either.  However, Europcar does have some airline partners:

Miles & More – earn 500 miles per rental

Emirates Skywards – earn 600 miles per rental

Delta SkyMiles – earn 60 miles per day

Qatar Privilege Club – earn 500 miles per rental

…. plus Air Europa, Finnair Plus, Flying Blue, Loganair and TAP Portugal.

IAG, BA’s parent company, is in the process of buying Air Europa.  If the deal completes, any SUMA miles you earn from Europcar will become Avios.

Earning hotel points with Europcar

Europcar has partnerships with two major hotel groups which can earn you hotel loyalty points.  You could turn these into Avios if you wished.

Earning with Accor Live Limitless

As you can see on the Accor website here, you can not only earn Accor points with Europcar but also redeem your points for vouchers to spend on Europcar bookings.  This gets you the same value as redeeming for a hotel room, ie €40 per 2,000 points.

The earning rate for Accor is:

•  250 points for 1-4 day rentals
•  500 points for 5-7 day rentals
•  1,000 points for 8-days+ rentals

Canada, China and Japan are excluded.  There are additional benefits for Accor Diamond members.

As each Accor point is worth 2 Eurocents or one Avios point (if you convert to Iberia Plus), you will receive at least €5 of value per rental.

There is a special Accor / Europcar booking page which you can find here.  You will save 10% to 25% depending on your Accor Live Limitless status.

Important: do not convert Accor points into Avios via British Airways Executive Club.  For weird historical reasons, the rate into BA is 2:1 whilst the rate into Iberia is 1:1.  There is a minimum transfer into Avios of 2,000 Accor points.  Move to Iberia and then use ‘Combine My Avios’ to get them across to BA.

Depending on your daily rate, the Accor route may be more lucrative than taking Nectar points if you want to earn Avios.  The downside is the minimum conversion of 2,000 Accor points into Avios.

Earning with Radisson Rewards

Radisson Rewards has a relatively new partnership with Europcar.

You will earn 300 Radisson Rewards points per rental day if you credit a Europcar rental, up to a maximum of 1,800 Radisson Rewards points per rental.

We value a Radisson Rewards point at around 0.3p, so this is not exactly generous – although still more generous than Nectar.  It is better than nothing (just ….) if you are using Europcar anyway.

Bookings need to be made via this special Europcar site and you cannot credit rentals from the USA, Canada, Japan, China and India.

Note that Europcar does not show as a partner on the Radisson Rewards website.  The booking site appears to be active, but I’m not sure what this means about the state of the partnership.

You can also double dip with Europcar’s Privilege programme

Europcar has its own loyalty scheme called Privilege.  Full details can be found on the website here.

The perks are modest but, importantly, you can double dip with earning frequent flyer miles or hotel points so there is no reason not to join up.

The key benefits are:

free weekend rental after three rentals in a calendar year

£10 discount voucher after your second rental after joining

express pick-up service

Do 10 rentals over two years and you will be upgraded to Privilege Executive, triggering another free weekend voucher and an upgrade on every rental.  25 rentals over two years takes you to Privilege Elite, getting you a double upgrade.

Conclusion

With Necar points now convertible into Avios, Europcar is more interesting than it was to British Airways flyers.

The earning rate is not hugely generous, however, and for short cheap rentals you may prefer to take a fixed amount of miles in another programme.