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Crazy car promo: get 25,000 Etihad Guest miles with a 3+ day Avis rental

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Back in December 2016, Head for Points caused chaos with Avis UK.

Iberia Plus was offering 18,700 Avios for a 3-day Avis car rental over a specific weekend. In 2016 it was perfectly possible to get a 3-day Avis rental for under £50, and our readers promptly booked out virtually the entire UK supply of small cars.

A promotion has now turned up which is even more generous.

Etihad Guest Avis 25,000 miles offer

Etihad is offering 25,000 Etihad Guest miles if you book a 3+ day Avis car rental.

There is quite a bit of flexbility too as you can read here:

  • you need to book by 31st October (Monday) so from that point of view it is tight
  • you can, however, pick up your car at any point up to 23rd December
  • you need to rent a Group C car or above for 3+ days
  • virtually all Avis rental stations globally are taking part
  • you can earn the bonus up to three times

The bonus is on top of your base earnings. If you don’t have Etihad Guest status you will earn 3 miles per $1 equivalent.

It’s not 2016, of course

What has changed since the Iberia offer of 2016, of course, is the cost of a car rental. With most rental companies having sold off large parts of their fleets during the pandemic, and now being unable to restock due to the global slowdown in car production, prices have shot up.

You won’t be finding 3 day UK rentals for under £50 I’m sure, and I’m not expecting Avis UK to experience another sell out.

Etihad Guest is not of huge interest to most HfP readers. That said, if you wanted to try their Business Class product to the Middle East then a one-way redemption from the UK is roughly 62,500 miles.

You can top up your miles from car rentals via an American Express Membership Rewards transfer. I recommend this article which shows you all the options for earning Etihad Guest miles from UK credit cards.

Our last review of Etihad’s business class service is here. Our news report on the new seat – which is a smarter version of the British Airways Club Suite – is here.

You can also redeem on a wide range of partners, including American Airlines and Air Canada, even though Etihad is not in any airline alliance.

Unless you are a keen Etihad Guest collector then I wouldn’t be renting cars under this offer purely to leave them on your drive for three days, as happened in 2016.

If you do need car rentals between now and late December, however, I would be taking this offer seriously.

You can find full details on this special page of the Etihad website.


How to earn Etihad Guest miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Etihad Guest miles from UK credit cards (April 2024)

Etihad Guest does not have a UK credit card.  However, you can earn Etihad Guest miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.

Cards earning Membership Rewards points include:

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Etihad Guest miles which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Etihad Guest mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.

Comments (53)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • EG says:

    Daft question alert:

    I’ve just followed the link and got all the way through to the payment page. However, at no point drying the process was I asked to input my Etihad Guest number. Am I missing something obvious? How would the miles be credited?

    • jms_uk says:

      After your details and before payment details, there is a section TRAVEL:
      first part is the flight number, the second one is:
      Frequent traveller (optional)
      I want to collect points and miles as I travel
      you have to tick this and then a box opens up to enter Etihad Membership number:

  • LostAntipod says:

    Just as an fyi – 27000 miles gives you two business class tickets from Brisbane to Sydney in Virgin, which while not the pinnacle of flyer mile value, is a nice little bonus on my upcoming trip to Oz. I had to use these Etihad miles or lose them and this gets me in the lounge for breakfast as well. Only pain is you have to call to book, can’t do online.

  • AndrewT says:

    Currently considering doing this from Liverpool. A category C car is currently £105 for next weekend (3 days). I usually dont collect Etihad points, rather focus on Avios. Whats the best way to use the 25k Etihad miles, is it to transfer to a hotel or just book partner airline flights?

    • Rob says:

      If you click ‘Etihad Guest’ under ‘Category’ (bottom of the article on mobile, top left on desktop) it bring up all our Etihad content and if you go back far enough you’ll see pieces on partner airlines.

  • ms says:

    This is a silly question probably, but how do I know which class I’m booking?

  • Johan says:

    There was a similar promo in August promising 20K etihad points
    I booked 3 rentals but still didn’t get the points despite sending several reminders to Avis

    • jms_uk says:

      Has it been six weeks since the end of rental?
      I booked two last time, but only rented this month.
      So far, only the regular miles (67 for £51) posted exactly two weeks after the first one – should be seeing the same tomorrow for the second one.

  • Yorkie Aid says:

    Sadly this simply doesn’t work for me. It would have been really useful for two upcoming car rentals. I get through the entire process only to receive the error code “Sorry, this rate isn’t available online right now. Please call 0808 284 0013. (EX016)”

    • Andy says:

      Try a pre-paid booking, it failed multiple times for me when paying on collection but worked fine when I switched to pre-paying

  • TJ says:

    There’s a key clause to note in the T&Cs:-
    “If any other AWD number is present in a customer’s Avis Preferred profile and this is used in the rental booking no bonus Etihad Guest miles will be awarded and once booked this cannot be reversed.”

    My advice would be not to use your Avis Preferred membership number if, like me, you have enrolled into the Avis Preferred programme via Amex and receive the automatic 15% discount on all bookings. It will invalidate any claim to this bonus offer.

  • Odd says:

    I’m heading to south america before the end of the year, and could find a useful rental car then, but these offers often exclude that part of the world. Is that the case here as well?

    • Andy says:

      “ The bonus Etihad Guest miles apply to participating Avis locations in the USA (excluding Alaska), Canada, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia (exclude Pacific) only”

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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