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Update 1/2/20: This deal is back again for all American Express cardholders. It is well worth doing this now and potentially matching to Hertz President’s Circle (though I personally prefer renting through National). Note two awesome things about this deal: First, while the landing page suggests that status would be active until February of 2021, some people are reporting that their National accounts are showing Executive Elite status valid through February 28, 2022. That’s awesome and it worked for a family member:
Second, the terms indicate that after completing your first rental paid for with an Amex card, you’ll get 5 free rental credits. As an Executive Elite member, that’s enough for a free day. What I love about those free days is that they are valid until December 31st of the year after you earn them and are valid on most car classes (more classes than the one two free promo). I just recently used one to save a bundle on a one-way minivan rental to haul Christmas presents home from visiting relatives. If you have an Amex card and rent cars, I’d definitely recommend this deal. Unfortunately, I can’t get this promo to work on an account that already has Executive Elite status. When I try, it tells me that the account is already enrolled in this promo (since we previously did it in January 2019 and that status is valid until February 2021). Oddly, we had one account in the family that I don’t think previously had the Executive Elite status and it did let me enroll, but gave a Feb 2021 expiration date. I’m not sure why that happened to me while most people are reporting the 2022 expiration. YMMV.
Update 1/19: A reader reports registering now (in January 2019) and receiving Executive Elite status through February 2021 (H/T: Happy). I think that is likely accurate. My wife just did this. She previously had National Executive status courtesy of her Business Platinum card.
She then did this match and her status immediately updated to Executive Elite. While it no longer shows the expiration date, it says that the membership is valid for the remainder of the year in which you qualify plus 14 months, so I expect this to be valid through the end of February 2021. Read more detail in the original post below this screen shot.
National is offering free Executive Elite status to American Express card members. That’s the level above the Executive status that comes as a benefit of the Platinum Card (and Business Platinum card), so this is a pretty awesome upgrade. Furthermore, if you rent one time and pay with your Amex, you’ll earn 5 rental credits — enough for 1 free day. With Executive Elite status, that’s a great deal, too.
The Deal
- Get National Executive Elite status, either enrolling as a new member or upgrading your existing membership
- Direct link to enroll / upgrade (click the button that says “Executive Elite Enrollment” and you’ll have the option to sign up or sign in)
Key Terms
- Offer valid for new members only enrolled via this promotion between
9/16/18-1/31/1912/16/19-2/29/20. - Get five Emerald Club Credits you can use toward a future rental day after you enroll in the Emerald Club at nationalcar.com/offer/amexee between 12/16/19-2/29/20, rent one time from National and pay with any American Express Card.
- Rental day offer is valid at participating National Car Rental locations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Latin America, Caribbean, and in Europe, for National Car Rental brand reservations serviced by Enterprise. The five Emerald Club Credits you can use for a rental day are applicable toward the base rate but do not include taxes, government charges, surcharges, concession recoupment fees, fuel and other optional items, which are the responsibility of the renter.
- Emerald Club points will be credited 24-72 hours after a paid rental.
- For Executive Elite members, the rental can be used for any available car class, excluding trucks.
- The rental day expires 12/31 of the calendar year following the year in which the credits were earned.
- Executive Elite status is valid through 2/28/21 (though some have reported status valid through February 2022). (To maintain Executive Elite status, member must meet the standard qualifications of 25 or more rentals or 85 or more rental days during the full calendar year 2019).
- See promotion page for full terms
Quick Thoughts
This is a quick, easy, and awesome upgrade. I love National Executive status since it enables you to rent a mid-size vehicle and then choose from the Executive Aisle when you arrive. I’ve even had locations ask me what I’d like and find it on the lot for me when it isn’t in the Executive Aisle. When traveling with family, this has come in handy more than once — I’ve been able to rent a mid-size and reliably get an SUV on arrival.
Executive Elite status gives you access to an even better aisle in some locations, and on free days you can reserve any available car class, excluding trucks. That’s great since the promo also offers enough credits for 1 free rental day after you book a rental and pay for it with an American Express. Remember that you’ll be sacrificing Primary CDW coverage that you could get when paying with other cards (or you’ll need to opt in to CDW coverage through Amex that you’ll need to pay for). That said, the free rental day, especially if you were to use it for a more expensive car class, could certainly be worth it.
Greg just went ahead and did this upgrade. He had National Executive status courtesy of a Platinum card:
But with this promo, he was able to upgrade that status to Executive Elite.
Even if you’re not sure you’d use it, this is worth signing up for since it is valid for all of 2019 and up to the end of February 2020. You never know when it may come in handy. Furthermore, you can likely leverage it into elite status with other companies thanks to a status match. See StatusMatcher.com for options. Dan’s Deals notes that you can match to Hertz by emailing a picture of your National status to hertzstatusmatch@hertz.com.
H/T: Dan’s Deals
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This is only valid for new enrollments not on already enrolled members as listed in the terms.
I did this promo in January and my status was showing as good through 2/28/22 but I just got an email stating that I qualified for “membership status”. Sure enough when checked the app I had been moved to just emerald club status so basically none. The contract ID is still showing Amex EE but apparently the status was only until the end of this February. I dont rent cars from national often so not that big of a deal but still irritating.
I am currently EE by earning it (for many years running). I tried to sign up, as this past year I didn’t earn enough to maintain EE and will drop down. It went through the whole process others have described, but said my status ends 2/28/2020. I am wondering, however, since my status ends 2/28/2020 and the promo sign up date ends 2/29/2020, if leap year might be my friend and make it so that my status will expire and I can then sign up again, the next day, and get it for another year, or hopefully 2. I guess I will be giving it a shot, as I really don’t want to lose my status. I will be making many more trips this year where a car is rented and the benefits are very useful for me and how I travel.
My husband and I were hoping the same thing but the enrollment link appears to have expired today. 🙁
When I signed up, I only got the status thru 2/28/20. I tried again today (2/29) to see if I could catch a loophole with the date but the link does not work anymore.
Ditto! Tried to upgrade last night before offer expired. First page or two looked good until I got to “Source Code has expired.” Sent email to National and got this reply today, “Tier status upgrades for American Express Platinum card holders….” Seems the National CSR team knows nothing about the EE upgrade for holding any Amex card.
[…] Get National Executive Elite status through Feb 2022 (YMMV) w/ Amex (Expires 2/29/20) […]
Just tried it. Says offer expired.
Same
Hi Nick, I was a regular executive level member set to expire in February 2020, but after enrolling under the American Express Promotion above I am executive elite until February 2022. My American Express account is a personal account and not a business account, and when I use National-rent a car I’m typically traveling for work so I have to use my Corporate card which is NOT an AMEX. Will I still be able to pick cars from the executive elite section although I’m paying with a Non-Amex?
Yes. I’ve never paid with my Amex despite the promo to earn a free day.
Just signed up for this promo w/AMEX card and link above, but i only got Emerald Club? Did i do something wrong?
Still working, Status Expires Feb 28, 2022
Deleted.
Nick, I see this message when I click on the link to upgrade:
“Are you sure you want to update your profile with the AMEX EE Account Number?
Any existing Account Number will be removed from your profile and replaced with this new account. Also, remember to review your rental preferences as they may be affected by this change.”
I have a reservation coming up in a few weeks linked to my Emerald account, this will not cancel it, will it? Also, will it void my existing emerald points in my account? I assume not, but want to make sure it doesn’t screw up my account right before my reservation.
I went ahead and did this on one of my accounts and it worked fine, but I didn’t have any reservations coming up. I didn’t lose rental credits that were in my account and it didn’t actually change my Emerald Club account number. It just replaced whatever was below my account number before (I can’t remember what it was) with Amex EE. To my knowledge, that just means it’ll automatically put in Amex EE as my preferred rental code. As noted above, I never end up using that one though — I almost always end up replacing it with something else manually when searching.
Short story: I don’t think it will hurt anything.
Hey Nick,
I also just got it to work through 2022, but wanted to clarify the requirements. My first rental must be on my Amex card, but what about subsequent rentals? I have several upcoming rentals and wanted to know if I could rent the first with Amex, but then switch back to my CSR card (better CDW) for the rest.
Finally, if I plan to use a Free Rental Day for my first rental, would paying the $3.30 facility fee, that is not covered by the Free Rental Day, count as my use of Amex?
Thanks.
So this will replace the contract you are currently enrolled under with the EE one. For example, I have a corporate contract that includes group rate plus included CDR, waivers, etc fror NC. If I do this then I lose that.
Does anyone know if you have to get a midsize (or better) car to skip the counter, get faster returns with drop and go, and have no second driver fees? I almost always rent economy cars because they are cheaper and more fuel efficient.
I think you can still skip the counter, but I’m not absolutely positive. Hopefully someone else can answer that for sure.
Before my days of elite status and airline miles and credit card rewards, I always rented economy cars for the same reasons — cheaper and more fuel efficient (which is also why I primarily drove a Toyota Yaris for years). We often used to argue at the counter about the “free upgrade” they gave us to an SUV that we didn’t want because it was going to cost us more in gas.
However, my view on it has changed now that I’m older and mostly using miles and points for flights and hotels (and especially now that I’m traveling with a child). I do enjoy a more comfortable ride now and find it worth a small premium in many cases.
I’m also less focused on what I view as very small wins. For instance, I think you have to consider how far you’re going to drive that rental car. In some cases, the answer might be “really far”. But in most of the situations where I rent, I’m looking at driving maybe a couple hundred miles over the course of the rental. Let’s say that I drive 400 miles (more than I usually do unless I’m on a one-way rental). The economy car gets lets say 35 miles per gallon — so we’re talking about 11.43 gallons of gas. Let’s say that I could instead have a Chrysler 300m or a medium-sized SUV that gets about 25mpg. Over the course of 400 miles, that car will use 16 gallons. We’re talking about a difference of about 4.5 gallons of gas. At a nationwide average cost per gallon of $2.62, we’re talking about a difference of less than twelve bucks. Obviously if I’m planning to drive a thousand miles and/or somewhere where gas is particularly expensive, the equation can change, but I’m usually willing to spend that extra twelve bucks for a substantially nicer car (and a more comfortable situation now that we’re traveling with a child and all of his stuff). I similarly often find that the difference in price between an economy and mid-size with National in particular is negligible.
On the other hand, National isn’t always the cheapest overall. Sometimes, that means I rent with someone else. Other times, like when I recently needed a minivan for a family trip and minivan prices were astronomical with everyone else, I knew I could pay the mid-size price with National and probably pick out the minivan, so I gladly paid for a mid-size with National even though it was more expensive than a mid-size with someone else (and I did get the minivan I needed at a substantial savings over what it would have cost me to choose one in advance).
I say all that not to say my approach is the “right” one. It certainly may not be for you. Obviously, you’re paying less than I am, so by at least one measure your approach is certainly better. But I caught a piece of myself in your response and wanted to respond to it because my perspective changed over time and I’ve become less likely to be as laser-focused on small wins. Don’t get me wrong — if I can save fifty bucks or more with a smaller car, you’ll find me driving the shoebox and being happy about it (my wife thought there was no way we’d fit our son and all our stuff in the matchbox car we rented in Crete this year, but I wasn’t going to pay double for something bigger). I’m just saying to do the math. Of course, maybe your concern is more environmentally-focused or you usually travel alone or in places where gas is expensive, so the economy car certainly may make more sense for lots of reasons.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember the last time I rented the economy car from National since we’ve had elite status with them for so long. When I say the cost difference for a mid-size is negligible, I mean that I often see a difference of a dollar a day. Sometimes less.
All good points. Maybe I need to try the midsize car executive elite experience and see if I feel it’s worth the minimal added cost. Traveling to Hawaii in May with my wife, thanks to your Turkish Miles and Smiles find, seems like a good time to “splurge.” Thanks again.
In Hawaii, it depends somewhat on the airport. The Kauai location is really small and as I recall you actually have to go to the counter. We did talk our way into a free upgrade to two four-door Jeeps one time a couple of years ago, but I would set expectations for National low at LIH airport.
In Maui, it wasn’t there when I arrived, but when we returned a car on a trip last January, there was a convertible BMW on the Executive Selection aisle. Depending on how busy things are, I think you’re fairly likely to see Wranglers on the ES in Maui or Honolulu. I can’t remember what our last experience on The Big Island was like, but this Flyertlak thread has links for each airport with reports on what people found. Go to the last page of the airport you’re interested in and scroll backwards (just don’t put much stock in reports from Christmastime since it’s super peak time — i’d scroll back a bit farther in the reports).
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/national-emerald-club/829910-national-s-executive-emerald-aisle-vehicle-selections-location-franchise-list.html
Nick, I am renting a mid-size SUV in 2 weeks at National LIH (cheaper than a mid size car through Autoslash) I will report what I find when I get there. I believe their website indicates you can skip the line there now and go straight to the executive aisle. I would love to get a BMW or Audi SUV, but will be happy with a Pathfinder, too.
Based on the Flytertalk thread, you’re right that it does seem that they have some sort of aisle. Now that I think about it, I’m not positive off the top of my head whether I rented from National on my trip to LIH last year. We were with another couple that were aiming to keep costs down, so I am fairly sure that we rented through Alamo on either Kauai or Maui or both last year (rented from National on previous and trips to both islands and a subsequent trip to Honolulu this past year). I usually walk over to National even when not renting with them to see what they have, but now I’m not 100% sure I’m picturing the Kauai rental cars right in my mind. At any rate, best of luck with it!
Just got my status through February 2022. Thanks for this info!
Same here: Status Expires Feb 28, 2022
“in January 2019”
2019? I hope you mean 2020.
Well, I meant January 2019 when I wrote it a year ago. We re-published this post today with the latest update at the very top. We originally published this post in September 2018 and then re-published it in January 2019 with the update that you could match until Feb 2021 and then today we re-published it again because the deal returned and is now good for status through Feb 2022. I’ve added dates to the updates for clarity.
Thanks! Just signed up.
I just got Executive Elite thru Feb 28, 2022. Thanks for the tip.