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

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 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 (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:

• American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 20,000 Etihad Guest miles. This card is FREE for your first year and also comes with four free airport lounge passes.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 40,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 40,000 Etihad Guest miles.

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 10,000 Etihad Guest miles. This card is FREE for life.

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.