The car hire tips thread

[demodonk08]

First time post – really great thread, thanks all for contributions.

I am a UK Amex Platinum Card customer, and have had great luck with free upgrades from car rental companies as a result over the last year. In addition to Avis and Hertz I have successfully status matched at Sixt and Enterprise too. (For those who haven’t done so – its super easy and you can just use a screenshot of your Avis President Club page of your logged in Avis app.)

My question is that I’ve found a number of better car rental deals on the third-party sites ebookers/rentalcars.com, but I’m unsure whether I would still be eligible for free upgrades. Have you had experience of this? I know the Marriott/Hilton benefits that come with the Amex Platinum only really apply when you book directly through Bonvoy/Hilton.com. Is it the same with car rentals? Or could I for example, book an Avis rental on ebookers (cheaper than avis.com) and still be eligible for all my President’s Club perks?

[dougzz99]

I guess much depends on where you’re renting, but my experience is rental status amounts to not much, and often an ‘upgrade’ is because they have no inventory in your group. I suspect my upgrades have also been limited as I tend to rent more expensive cars to get what I want, rather than trust in luck on the day. Having said that, if it was a one or two day rental I wouldn’t care, it’s the two week+ ones where I like getting the right car for me.

I don’t like 3rd party rentals, but many will say otherwise. But treating direct bookings better than 3rd party ones is a sensible policy for companies.
Just after Christmas was in Enterprise/National in London and customer in front was told they could have a manual in an hour, or an automatic probably by about 4PM, it was around 10AM at the time. Counter person very politely said you rented through a third party and we couldn’t contact you. I was given my car without issue immediately after them, having rented direct.

In my younger years when I was considerably more ‘so what’ about things, I used several 3rd parties, but was never sold on that method.

[Lady London]

@Dougzz99 where you’re coming from is exactly the same as me.

In general unless prices are totally ridiculous, book direct. Same as hotels, car companies are not going to give you extra service/care/status benefits as well as hand a big % of money to a booking service. Having said that, car hire is fraught with flakiness as an industry. So even booking direct you have to be on your guard.

Like a hotel, if you’re a regular customer at one particular location then you may get looked after better in either case.

If you need a certain level of car, book it (and even then you might not get it depending what’s available on the day).

My one other tip is never book the lowest level of car.

My problem has consistently been being given upgrades I did *not* want once I started doing that (booking direct and being a member of their program), particularly at locations that knew me.

[demodonk08]

Thank you so much! Will keep my booking with the companies direct!

[Ash]

Avis upgrades you upto class f.f..so no point booking q class F or above and expecting an upgrade. Having said that if they do t have. Class f to upgrade you they go up to the next class, and keep going until one is available.

The status discount is not the same for all…it depends who gave you the President’s Club status …a CR told me the Mastercard WE status gave bigger discounts than the Amex Platinum president club.

Have mat he’d with hertz, sixt and enterprise …always found Avis was still the cheapest (vie Mastercard WE).

[dougzz99]

Wasn’t sure best place to post this. Anyone with reservations in the US may want to check prices. I checked a couple I have with National and rebooked $1400 to $900, and $1000 to $820.

Looked at few other US cities and rates seemed fair bit lower compared to the last couple of years. Short term blip or sign of some normality who knows.

My understanding is car supply is still not great, and my SUV rental in Tampa at the end of last year was 60K+ miles, that wouldn’t have been the case pre-2020.

[dannyhk]

Has anyone managed to get a discounted rental with Enterprise? Have to rent from Enterprise for the first time as only Enterprise have a depot in Durham (where I’ll be returning the car) and struggling to find any way of discounting the £559 rate which the Enterprise web site is quoting for a 5 day one way rental from Manchester airport to Durham in May. Unable to find any discount/promotional codes for Enterprise? Unlike Hertz, changing the country website doesn’t seem to reduce the rate. And clicking through from Enterprise’s frequent flyer partners produces the same rate (or even higher). What (if anything) am I missing?

[The real Swiss Tony]

dannyhk wrote:

Has anyone managed to get a discounted rental with Enterprise? Have to rent from Enterprise for the first time as only Enterprise have a depot in Durham (where I’ll be returning the car) and struggling to find any way of discounting the £559 rate which the Enterprise web site is quoting for a 5 day one way rental from Manchester airport to Durham in May. Unable to find any discount/promotional codes for Enterprise? Unlike Hertz, changing the country website doesn’t seem to reduce the rate. And clicking through from Enterprise’s frequent flyer partners produces the same rate (or even higher). What (if anything) am I missing?

I feel your pain. Enterprise is the only national operator within 20 miles of me and their prices are now stupid. £150 a day for a Qashqai etc.

I managed to get 10% off using some football code a while back. They obviously do a lot of work with insurers too, but no idea how you would try to get in on that rate. I have seen them cheaper on one-ways using sites like kayak which then scan the consolidators.

[dannyhk]

I feel your pain. Enterprise is the only national operator within 20 miles of me and their prices are now stupid. £150 a day for a Qashqai etc.

I managed to get 10% off using some football code a while back. They obviously do a lot of work with insurers too, but no idea how you would try to get in on that rate. I have seen them cheaper on one-ways using sites like kayak which then scan the consolidators.

Many thanks for the tip about consolidators. Unfortunately Kayak is currently showing the same (ridiculously high) price as booking direct with Enterprise. But I’ll try some other consolidators as well. You never know I might strike lucky eventually!

[The real Swiss Tony]

Just another thought – have you tried booking for 7 days (note you’ll probably need to keep the car for 6 days and 1hr). And are you spending 5 days ambling over from Manchester to Durham, or is it feasible to hire in Manchester, drop back in Manchester 4 days later – possibly from another provider – then pick up another car for Enterprise to make the journey over?

If you’re not aware we also have three bank holiday Mondays this May, so that’s going to skew demand on the 1st, 8th & 29th.

Good luck.

[dannyhk]

The real Swiss Tony wrote:

Just another thought – have you tried booking for 7 days (note you’ll probably need to keep the car for 6 days and 1hr). And are you spending 5 days ambling over from Manchester to Durham, or is it feasible to hire in Manchester, drop back in Manchester 4 days later – possibly from another provider – then pick up another car for Enterprise to make the journey over?

If you’re not aware we also have three bank holiday Mondays this May, so that’s going to skew demand on the 1st, 8th & 29th.

Good luck.

Yes, those are all great ideas many thanks. Will definitely look into switching providers part way through which could cut the cost a lot. Also now discovered Hertz have a depot on the southern outskirts of Newcastle which is only 14 miles from Durham so that might be another option. Thanks also for the tip-off about bank holidays. Since I live overseas, didn’t realise May 29 is a holiday.

[Gary]

Amex Plat UK for Hertz. Two questions:

1. Has the CDP code changed? Entered 633306 as per article and reservation came through as BAE systems! https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/03/28/hertz-amex-platinum-4-hour-grace-period/

2. Already have Hertz Gold membership. How do I upgrade this to Five Stars as the Amex enrolment link only took one to new membership application?

[Hbommie]

Brisbane car hire

3 week car hire in Jan 24 from the airport on average is around £1200ish. But when booking on Expedia from a Kayak search the price drops for Hertz to £300, pay now, 100% refundable up to 48hrs prior to pickup. The rub is refundable security deposit of £3000 for theft or damage when picking the car up. Would Platinum card insurance cover any nasty surprises when returning the car?

[DTR]

Gary wrote:

Amex Plat UK for Hertz. Two questions:

2. Already have Hertz Gold membership. How do I upgrade this to Five Stars as the Amex enrolment link only took one to new membership application?

I have the same issue. Opened the account some years ago with platinum and now already to not be five star (perhaps never was?) Amex Plat link doesn’t help.

Grateful for any ideas!

[davefl]

Quick DP for car hire drop offs. Doing a 1 way from DC (Georgetown) to Chicago. Costco/budget coming up cheapest for what I need.

The difference between dropping off at the Willis Tower over North Loop/Clark St locations (0.8 miles apart) is £587 against £410.

£177 in my pocket more than covers the cost of the Uber for the extral mile to the hotel.

Moral – Always check a few locations for both pickup and drop off

[Go197]

Any advice on how to use Hertz points for a free rental?

Whatever I do, it says I don’t have enough points, even though I do. That is, when the website or app actually loads and stays up for more than 3 seconds.

Hertz IT is awful. Slow, barely functional, car availability and prices change every time you submit a search, hard to even find where to say you want to use points, sometimes quotes 10 or 20 thousand pounds for a 1 day rental in a compact car. It’s a joke.

Same issues or hertz.com.au or hertz.ca.

If Hertz are deliberately trying to block redemptions then they’ve done a good job.

Hertz shut down so many locations during the pandemic so now they are almost useless to me. I don’t wish to rent with them again just to keep my points alive, but I would like to use them up before they expire.

[davefl]

I had the same issue a couple of years ago, couldnt use them so wantedd to transfer them out to an airline or hotel progam I forget which. Not sure if that’s possible any more.

Had one completely bizarre thing happen. One day 52 points vanished from my Hertz account (awardwallet reported it). Contacted Hertz CS and they sai that was impossible until I showed them a screenshot of the -52 and the balance. So they credit me the missing 52, I cash out…. and my balance is zero

Strange thing happens over a year later, balance is suddenly +52 and still is to this day. No idea what happeed or how but I’ll never rent with Hertz again for many reasons.

[Lady London]

Try desktop mode vs mobile, different browsers, incognito.

Over many years with Hertz although not since 2021 now, I have always found that the single most useful thing you can do with the Hertz website is keep deleting cookies between quotes.

And, although this won’t work if you are trying to use points, don’t ever log in before getting quotes as prices often get pegged higher.

I’d suggest phoning them their agents sounded to be mostly in Dublin and were incredibly helpful.

Technically Hertz went bust, I think, during covid and I’m hoping for your sake points weren’t wiped as part of that.

[davefl]

@Lady London, yes they filed Chapter 11, recovered and then ordered 100,000 Teslas in 2021, then last year lost a class action suit for $168M for wrongly accusing customers (and also non customers) of theft. Many innocent people ended up in Jail because of their actions

[Go197]

100,000 Teslas

I’m looking at a 1 day rental out of Leeds, where Hertz are offering me a Tesla for £11,003.12

Even at that rate, they’ll need a lot of rich suckers to earn back that $168 million!

If I pre-pay online, the price drops to £1243.81. That’s a bargain for a one day rental, lol. They also want to charge 24p per mile after the first 600 miles. Jokers.

[Anna]

No one in Yorkshire will pay that!!

[Go197]

Couldn’t even if you wanted to. Click through to the next page and it decides “all vehicles are sold out for your chosen dates”. Hertz IT is a shambles.

Want a car in Leeds for 2 days in February 2024? How about a Nissan Qashqai (or similar) for a mere £21,600.96…..

[TooPoorToBeHere]

+1 for shambles.

I literally can’t rent from them – the site doesn’t work.

[Travel Strong]

Hertz outsourced the site building to Accenture; who delivered… something, and got paid; Hertz know the site is awful and sued Accenture …….. And yet almost 8 years later have still not redesigned the site… it is absurd in the extreme.

I too thought vehicles were out of stock for my dates, for months. Until one day clearing out the cache and there was plenty of availability.

I also could not see any vehicle except one type, because your gold profile insists you pick a preferred vehicle type….. Then it got stuck in a loop where you can only see that vehicle forever more. Had to get Hertz customer service to put the preferred vehicle as blank, and put up with warnings every time I log in.

Quoting, then going ‘back’ and requoting used to fix many glitches – but not anymore.

[dougzz99]

Go197 wrote:

100,000 Teslas

I’m looking at a 1 day rental out of Leeds, where Hertz are offering me a Tesla for £11,003.12

Even at that rate, they’ll need a lot of rich suckers to earn back that $168 million!

If I pre-pay online, the price drops to £1243.81. That’s a bargain for a one day rental, lol. They also want to charge 24p per mile after the first 600 miles. Jokers.

I wanted a car for a week in May in London. I tend toward National. A Qashqai was around £700, yet there were two nice EVs for around £450. A Volvo XC40 and for about £20 more a BMW iX. As I don’t have home charging I tend away from EVs. I had a Tesla for a few days, and ended up with 4 or 5 apps on my phone, and had the hassle of finding an available charger each evening.