Hertz membership downgrade despite Amex Platinum

[JenT]

Hi all,

I have held the Amex Platinum card for more than 5 years and have continuously had Hertz Gold Plus with Five Star tier as this is a benefit of the card. I have also previously status matched to my Avis President’s Club to get the higher Hertz status. Therefore I was a bit surprised to find that I was downgraded to the base level this month with Hertz. When I queried it, I got this response: “I have investigated your case and found that you have been downgraded despite having an American Express Platinum Card. It is vital that you at least have rentals every 2 to 3 months in order to keep your status active and not to loose the points. Hence due to only 1 rental in the past 12 months your status has been downgraded.“

I can’t find a minimum rental requirement on the American Express site. Has anyone else experienced this?

[EwanG]

The agent is making it up, not unusual for Hertz! There are some good ones but it takes perseverance!

Send them a link to the Amex site / terms and ask them to return you to Five Star.
Make sure your Plat card is saved in your GPR profile too.

[Luca M]

I believe since November 2022 Amex Platinum gives you Hertz President Circle and Avis President Club, without having to status match each other.

I already had President Circle with Hertz via HSBC Premier MasterCard World Elite (if you have any World Elite Mastercard you should be upgraded), but they were very picky asking to send a picture of the card, which I did only after agreeing to blur the card number but for the first 6 digits (BIN).

I have used my Platinum to upgrade my Avis Account, and to be fair, they have consistently offered best prices, upgrades and even week end vouchers (they have just communicated recently that this is changing though).

[EwanG]

Both the Amex enrolment page, and a Hertz page say Plat gets you to Five Star, not PC. Nothing about it expiring and moving you down a tier, although the Terms pdf on the Hertz site still refers to 24 month point expiry (which changed to 18 and most recently to 12 months).

Are the accounts linked through the Amex Hertz enrolment page?

[tiberius]

Luca M wrote:

I believe since November 2022 Amex Platinum gives you Hertz President Circle and Avis President Club, without having to status match each other.

I already had President Circle with Hertz via HSBC Premier MasterCard World Elite (if you have any World Elite Mastercard you should be upgraded), but they were very picky asking to send a picture of the card, which I did only after agreeing to blur the card number but for the first 6 digits (BIN).

I have used my Platinum to upgrade my Avis Account, and to be fair, they have consistently offered best prices, upgrades and even week end vouchers (they have just communicated recently that this is changing though).

Slightly off topic but where did you manage to find the Avis free weekend voucher? I have the same status for a few months now but have never found the voucher and assumed, like the Enterprise scheme, they came randomly via email? This would help as I consistently find Avis to be the most expensive car hire option (Hired a Hertz Polestar for 4 days over this weekend from Manchester Airport for £50!?)

[TooPoorToBeHere]

I’ve had Avis rentals where they were cheapest, but not in the UK.

Note that ordinary punter Avis quotes, and quotes obtained while logged-in, may differ wildly.

[Rui N.]

tiberius wrote:

find the Avis free weekend voucher? I have the same status for a few months now but have never found the voucher and assumed, like the Enterprise scheme, they came randomly via email? This would help as I consistently find Avis to be the most expensive car hire option (Hired a Hertz Polestar for 4 days over this weekend from Manchester Airport for £50!?)

You only get the voucher after 2 rentals with them or something like that.

[Luca M]

EwanG wrote:

Both the Amex enrolment page, and a Hertz page say Plat gets you to Five Star, not PC. Nothing about it expiring and moving you down a tier, although the Terms pdf on the Hertz site still refers to 24 month point expiry (which changed to 18 and most recently to 12 months).

Are the accounts linked through the Amex Hertz enrolment page?

There was a discussion on this on one of the forum on this site. TPG US site also has an article about it. I have had 0 rental with hertz and I am still PC.

[Luca M]

tiberius wrote:

Luca M wrote:

I believe since November 2022 Amex Platinum gives you Hertz President Circle and Avis President Club, without having to status match each other.

I already had President Circle with Hertz via HSBC Premier MasterCard World Elite (if you have any World Elite Mastercard you should be upgraded), but they were very picky asking to send a picture of the card, which I did only after agreeing to blur the card number but for the first 6 digits (BIN).

I have used my Platinum to upgrade my Avis Account, and to be fair, they have consistently offered best prices, upgrades and even week end vouchers (they have just communicated recently that this is changing though).

Slightly off topic but where did you manage to find the Avis free weekend voucher? I have the same status for a few months now but have never found the voucher and assumed, like the Enterprise scheme, they came randomly via email? This would help as I consistently find Avis to be the most expensive car hire option (Hired a Hertz Polestar for 4 days over this weekend from Manchester Airport for £50!?)

As the other poster said, the Free Week end voucher was achieved after the THIRD rental in one year. Officially was not even meant to be given to President Club members (it is not on the listed benefit whilst it is on the ones listed for the tier before), but I got mine last year, which I am using just before expiring. It is supposed to be automatically sent after the THIRD completed rental, but as I did not receive mine, I had to chase it and they forwarded me the original email (maybe it was stopped by the spam filter).

To be fair, I do not actually rent in the UK, but I often do when travelling across Europe and North America, where I find Avis to be the cheapest or virtually level with the cheapest (within £10 extra on occasion), but as I have had 100% success rate with upgrades (more then once of two classes), I rather not risk it with Hertz or even with Sixt, Enterprise, Europcar or National where I also held high status via status match schemes

[aso40]

tiberius wrote:

Slightly off topic but where did you manage to find the Avis free weekend voucher? I have the same status for a few months now but have never found the voucher and assumed, like the Enterprise scheme, they came randomly via email? This would help as I consistently find Avis to be the most expensive car hire option (Hired a Hertz Polestar for 4 days over this weekend from Manchester Airport for £50!?)

Oddly, the easiest place I found the free weekend voucher was in apple wallet! If you select your membership card, then the three dots in the top right corner for “pass details”, the voucher details are listed amongst other information there. I could not see it on the Avis website anywhere.

I have also received the Hertz downgrade email, also have Amex Plat and status matched from HSBC WE.

[Luca M]

Just to make it clear though, regarding the Avis free week end voucher, they have just communicated that they will not longer be issued and new benefits will be coming out in about 8 weeks