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Just like hotel chains and airlines, many rental car companies offer multiple tiers of elite status. The intention is to incentivize loyalty by offering better benefits to better customers. Here’s how to fast track to status without being a great customer…
Hertz Elite Requirements
Hertz offers three levels of status, as follows:
- Gold Plus Rewards: This is the base level available to anyone who signs up.
- Five Star: Within a 12 month period, this level requires at least 7 rentals or $1500 in spend.
- President’s Circle: Within a 12 month period, this level requires at least 20 rentals or $4000 in spend.
Hertz Elite Benefits
You can find Hertz’ benefits listed here. To summarize:
- Gold Plus Rewards: designated Gold parking stalls. No need to wait in line to pickup your car.
- Five Star: Gold benefits plus one car class upgrade subject to availability; 675 rewards points after 15 rentals; 10% bonus points on rentals.
- President’s Circle: All Five Star benefits plus confirmed reservations; confirmed one-car-class upgrade; 25% bonus on rentals.
How to manufacture Hertz elite status
Recently, United and Hertz announced a partnership with two primary benefits:
- Beginning November 1st, 2014, United elite members and cardholders earn extra miles on Hertz rentals.
- Beginning January 1st, 2015, United elite members and cardholders of premium United credit cards may sign up for complimentary Hertz elite status.
Please read the announcement for complete details. Here, we’ll focus on the Hertz elite status benefit that begins on January 1st:
Hertz Five Star status
To qualify for complimentary Hertz Five Star status, you must have United MileagePlus Premier Gold status or Premier Silver status.
Path to Five Star status:
One way to get to Five Star status, now, is to get to United Silver status. One path to United Silver status is to manufacture Marriott Platinum status. Through United’s partnership with Marriott, Marriott Platinum elites are able to sign up for free United Silver status. And, now, United Silver status elites can sign up for free Hertz Five Star status.
For details about manufacturing United elite status and Marriott elite status, please see:
Hertz President’s Circle status
To qualify for complementary Hertz President’s Circle status, you must either:
- Be a near-top tier United elite: MileagePlus Global Services, Premier 1K or Premier Platinum.
- A primary cardholder of either: MileagePlus Club or Presidential Plus Card.
Easiest path to President’s Circle status:
The easiest path to Hertz President’s Circle status, then, is to sign up for the MileagePlus Club card. This card costs a hefty $395 per year, but it includes excellent benefits, such as: 1.5 miles per dollar earned everywhere, no fees on close-in award booking, United club membership, and free checked bags.
Other good options
As I’ve reported before, its possible to get instant free elite status with National and/or Avis simply by signing up through special links. See: Instant free Avis and National car rental elite status! You can read more about National elite status here: Discover rental car discounts and upgrades.
Status Match
Interestingly, it looks like you can obtain Avis and/or National status as described above and then status match to Hertz President’s Circle status! This might be the best option of all (but I have yet to try it). Details can be found here.
Conclusion
I’ve presented here a few ways to fast track to Hertz elite status. Whether or not you should do so depends heavily upon your situation. Do you already qualify anyway (due to having United elite status or certain credit cards)? If so, there’s no reason not to signup. Or, do you rent from Hertz enough to make it worth doing more? I can imagine that people who fly United often will find the United Club card appealing and that the added benefit of Hertz Presidents Circle may be enough to tip the scales in favor of getting that card. In my case, I hardly ever fly United and rarely rent from Hertz, but I’ve found it easy to maintain Marriott Platinum status through their elite buy back program (details here) so I’ll keep United Silver status and I’ll signup for free Hertz Five Star status. What about you? Do you see any benefit in reaching for Hertz elite status?
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[…] How to manufacture Hertz elite status […]
Delta also has a free status program for Medallions on Hertz: http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/skymiles/earn-miles/earn-miles-with-partners/car-rental-limo-and-shuttle/hertz-elite-status-benefit.html
Great article! I tried the Hertz competitive upgrade request yesterday and already got upgraded from 5 Star to President’s Circle based on my National Executive status.
The thresholds for Five Star and President’s Circle were recently reduced, and the max upgrade for President’s Circle was reduced from Premium to a Full. (This may vary in practice, but I would not count on generous upgrades as being a perk of President’s Circle — especially with it being a giveaway status for United elites and credit cardholders.) I certainly wouldn’t do any extra renting, churning, or running to achieve President’s Circle status. (I say this as a current member.) National’s program is better, but unfortunately you can’t get an upgrade when renting from Enterprise locations. I am interested to see what the new Avis program looks like and may attend to status match there, because Hertz simply doesn’t really deliver when it comes to benefits.
Did Hertz recently reconfigure their elite program? Are the Five Star and President’s Circle levels new? Amex Platinum counts Hertz Gold as one of the card’s benefits, and IIRC back in the day it actually meant something more than just a program that Hertz gives away to anyone who bothers to sign up.
Actually, I was wondering that too. I don’t know when things changed.