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Hertz has quietly doubled the rate to rent a car using your Hertz Rewards points during most of the year. A reader tipped us off to the fact that Hertz is pricing free night awards at the “Any Day” rate meant for “peak” dates for more than 2/3 of the year at every single Hertz rental location we’ve checked. That effectively doubles the number of points that you’ll need to use for a single free day on 249 days out of the year or more at every airport we’ve checked.
As a reminder, Hertz has a “standard” award rate as well as an “Any Day” reward rate. Here’s a snippet of the award chart for daily rentals (the chart goes on with further rows on the Hertz website).
Here is the full award chart for weekly rentals:
And here is the entire award chart for one-way rentals:
As you can see above, the “AnyDay Rewards” are all double the cost of a “Standard” Reward.
Whether your chosen date will qualify for a “Standard Reward” or an “AnyDay Reward” depends on the blackout dates calendar, which shows the dates during which Standard Rewards are blacked out. You can view that “AnyDay Rewards” calendar here on the Hertz website.
That page allows you to enter an airport code or city location to see the peak date start and end periods for that particular location. Rentals between those peak start and end dates will be at “AnyDay Rewards” rates.
I searched more than two dozen locations, both major airports and small airports and also neighborhood locations. All of the locations I checked had one of the following two numbers of “peak” dates where you will have to use AnyDay Rewards:
- 249 peak dates (68.22% of the year)
- 256 peak dates (70.14% of the year)
Most locations fit into #1 with a few smaller locations having the greater number of peak dates.
I was surprised to see no variance here — every airport I tried had either exactly 249 or 256 peak dates.
In other words, a “Standard Award” isn’t very standard since, at best, one will be available during 31.78% of dates. While “AnyDay Rewards” implies that they would always be available, I think that awards must be further capacity-controlled as I have several times looked to use points only to receive a result saying that no reward days are available (despite cash bookings being available for small to mid-size cars).
While I don’t know how many dates were Standard vs AnyDay in the past, it’s clear that moving forward, you’ll need enough points for a double-priced AnyDay award more often than not — and if you happen to find a “Standard” award available for a day you need, it probably makes sense to snag that award while you can. That’s generally sound advice for using Hertz points, especially considering the latest change to the points expiration policy.
H/T: Reader Mark
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[…] Finally, after a long stretch of bad press, Hertz announced positive changes: Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Program Changes: Hard Expiry, Transfer Points & Award Cancellation Fees Removed. Contrary to all the bad press, I have had good experiences with the program. I once had to book a day rental because my points were about to expire the next day…and now it appears I have five years plus six months to use them. And no more award cancellation fees which was absurd. But, you know, I do not rent cars as often, thanks to Uber and Lyft. I just go for the best deal on a case by case basis. Heck, last time in Greece I used Sixt for the first time since Covid and it was great. Anyway, the bad press continues for them lol: Stealth devaluation: Hertz prices most days peak, doubling free day costs. […]
[…] Hertz prices most days peak, doubling free day costs […]
I will never give Hertz a single dollar. High costs, poor service, and a bonus possibility of being arrested when they wrongly report a vehicle as having been stolen (again).
Hertz is a terrible, terrible company. Even after being fined for having people *arrested* they continue to falsely accuse renters of damaging cars. Truly and utterly corrupt.
Credit your rentals to airline miles and sidestep the issue. It’s one less thing to track. Simplify your life.
Lee, don’t the extra fees Hertz charges for getting airline miles more than offset the value of the miles thereby making it that you are essentially buying miles at a very unfavorable rate. Have you run the numbers?
It’s not about numbers. It’s about convenience. It’s about not having to (stinkin’) deal with the issue. And, given the typical dollar spend for most people, how many (stinkin’) points are we even talking about?
Separately, not wanting to sound like a smart ass, I didn’t want to even bring up the arrest / stolen car issue. Who in their right mind would even rent from Hertz?
That arrest will be on a person’s record. And, even without a conviction, a person can be denied TSA Pre-Check / Global Entry renewal. A person’s professional licenses / standing can be at risk. No (stinkin’) way.
Lee – Yeah I agree Hertz is definitely a high risk company to deal with given the dozens (hundreds?) of stories of people being pulled over or arrested. Kind of amazing they haven’t fully fixed the problem given all the bad press and presumably legal trouble they’ve gotten in because of it in recent years.
Lee, are you sure about your “It’s not about the numbers” take? If they charged you $1,000 to earn airline miles, would you overpay by $1,000? Obviously you wouldn’t and that example is facetious, but I think Mark’s point is that in some cases the fee Hertz charges to earn miles is higher than the value of the miles. Sure, it’s on a much smaller scale — but if they charge you say $10 to earn 500 worth of miles, you’re essentially paying $0.02 per mile. If you wouldn’t otherwise buy miles at 2 cents per mile (I am not a buyer at that price), then it doesn’t make sense to earn airline miles. In that case, I’d rather earn the Hertz points even if I’ll never use them.
For what it’s worth though, I don’t think it’s a blanket truth that the cost for crediting to an airline program is higher than the value of the miles — particularly with promotions, I think it is possible to beat the fee sometimes.
As to “who in their right mind would even rent from Hertz”, I’ll say that I’ve rented from them at least a dozen times over the past couple of years without getting arrested. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely ridiculous that it happened to something like 360 people (the number with whom they settled anyway) and I’d of course be livid if it were me, but I think that the overall chance of that happening was still pretty slim during the window when most of that happened as compared to the volume of rentals each day without issue and it remains pretty slim. I’m certainly not saying you’re wrong to avoid Hertz – I mostly agree that Hertz stinks – but I don’t think that my actual risk of getting arrested by renting from Hertz is what I’d describe as “high”.
The real point is use a different car rental company. Hertz has too many issues.
PS – Nick, your thoughtful comments are the sort of thing that distinguishes FM as *the* hobbyist website. I hope other readers also recognize and appreciate the level of engagement the FM team has with its readers. Thanks.
It’s not a stealth devaluation if they send an email about it. It’s just a devaluation.
Thomas – When did they send an email about this? I don’t recall receiving any email about this. Can you share the subject line, date you received the email and ideally the text from the email? Thanks!
They didn’t send an email about it — a reader took the initiative to check the calendar dates for an airport where they had often rented for 950 points per day in the past and saw that 70%+ of the calendar this year would be double price. After that reader noticed and told us, I went and searched a couple dozen airports across different sizes and used a spreadsheet to determine that they had the same numbers of blackout dates (either 249 or 256 at every single one).
So you’re right — it wouldn’t be a stealth devaluation if they sent an email about it. They didn’t as far as I know….hence “stealth devaluation”.
Sorry, Nick, don’t be so snide to your readers – they did send an email about it.
Thank you for being a valued Hertz Gold Plus Rewards member. We have a new program benefit and an important program update to share with you that are highlighted below.
Don’t wait to use your points for exciting adventures
Effective December 31, 2024, points will expire after 5 years from when they were earned, regardless of rental activity.This means that any points that have been in your account for 5 years or longer will expire and be removed from your account. But don’t worry! You’ll have up to 6 months to use those points to book free rental days through 2025. And you can transfer points to an immediate family member who is also a Gold member.
This change is in addition to the current policy in which points will expire after 12 months of no rental activity.
Redeeming points is easy, just follow the steps laid out here and you will be on your way to enjoying free rental days.
More flexibility when you travel
Enjoy more flexibility when you travel, as we’re revising our cancellation policy when you redeem points toward your rental. Effective September 1, 2024, there will be no cancellation fee when redeeming points. Cancel any time before pickup and we’ll credit you the full amount of points redeemed.
Updates to Standard and AnyDay Rewards
We are making updates to our Standard and AnyDay Rewards days and what classifies as a peak day. This may increase some awards but will ultimately provide our members more value.
More ways to earn points redeemable toward free days
– Starting today, earn up to 3 FREE rental days*** for your rentals through October 5. You’ll get 1 free day (950 points) after the completion of each rental of 2 days or more when you book using PC 211511.***
– Be on the lookout for even more bonus promos throughout the year!
Questions about these updates? Contact us: 888-999-4900.
Happy travels!
Well – I got the email and read the 5 year expiration. Burying this under the last paragraph “We are making updates to our Standard and AnyDay Rewards days and what classifies as a peak day.” and then following this up with “this may increase some awards but will ultimately provide our members more value.” is still a stealth devaluation in my mind but maybe not yours Thomas. We can agree to disagree.
Nick – thank you for writing this up. I for one did not understand that one sentence out of the email.
Well thank you for pointing that out! That’s why I said they didn’t send out an email about it as far as I know. You proved me wrong. Thanks! Devaluation in plain sight it is.
[…] Hertz has not released anything about this publicly, Frequent Miler has an interesting analysis changes in the Hertz price calendar. For those unaware, Hertz has both Standard and AnyDay rewards […]
What about for existing redemption reservations?
Christian – I’m not an expert but I think you’ll be okay as long as you don’t need to change the existing redemption reservation and can simply use it as booked. Good luck!
I stopped using Hertz since they started reporting cars stolen on honest renters. Sounds like they are still at it with anti customer antics.
Ouch. I also received an email today that their new expiration policy starting on 12/31/2024 has a 5 year expiration date from when points were earned (in addition to 12 months of inactivity). So in my case I have a little under 6 months to use up some old points. And it’s now likely I’ll have to pay double the rate as peak days were quite infrequent before where/how I used points. If I can even find a good use.
Now you need roughly $2000 in spending over 5 years to get an award or about $400/year. Before, you could rent once every 18 months and eventually get a free day after possibly 8-10 rentals ($950 in spending).
That makes Hertz points only good for the frequent renter, not the occasional or yearly rental.
Another way is to rent from Hertz and get airline miles, instead.
Derek – It is actually way worse than having to spend $2,000 for a single 1-day award. Because all the taxes and fees don’t count (just the base rental cost), so you’ll probably have to spend closer to $2,400-$2,800 or more in total rental costs before earning those 1,900 points.
And guess what, by the time you’ve reached 1,900 points I’m sure they’ll devalue the currency even more thereby making it impossible to even redeem for a single day. Super disappoint Hertz.
Makes National’s free day after 4-6 rentals depending on your status look like a real steal. Especially because you can use National awards for 1-way rentals at no additional cost last I checked.
The National free day scheme unfortunately is very much biased towards short rentals as a one day and a one week rental earn the same credit.
I have long concluded that it’s not really worth my time to worry about earnings from car rentals, unless there is a promotion with a partner (I used to earn a lot of UA miles with Hertz). Better to look for a good deal and not worry whether it’s Avis, Budget, Alamo, or National. Hertz is pretty much on my “Do Not Rent from” list due to their various scams (having customers arrested for “theft”, fuel scam, damage scam, toll scam, …).
Mark, it’s even worse than you describe for some. If a person rents a car from an airport location, the airport authority’s fees (such as at LAX) can push the total fees and taxes to as much as 100 percent of the base rental rate. Put another way, fees and taxes represent about 50 percent of the total cost.
Good point Lee. I hadn’t thought of that. Ugh. Basically makes it impossible to earn enough points unless you are traveling for work and spending $$$ on extended expensive rentals. Wild. But not surprising.
My primary way of getting Hertz points these days is calling and complaining to the Hertz President’s Circle number and asking for points as compensation for things when they screw up. That has surprisingly sort of worked and I’ve got about 3,000 points in recent months. Until yesterday I thought that was enough for three free 1-day rentals. Haha.
Is it even worth getting airline miles? Last I did so, many years ago, I was charged more in a airline mile fee than the miles were worth. I don’t even bother trying to accumulate or redeem points from rental cars. It feels like 80% of the time I don’t even get points, chasing them down didn’t work often enough to justify the effort, and then policies change to make it exceedingly rare that a redemption will ever happen.