Today we have a Reader Question about the Hertz Rewards frequent renter program and how to activate the membership, including President’s Circle Status obtained through American Express.
Readers are encouraged to send us questions, comments, or opinions by email, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We’ll try to cover them here several times a week.
American Express has added Hertz Presidents Circle status for their U.S. card members in November 2022, and many have taken that benefit up and either signed up fresh or upgraded existing memberships.
However it’s important to note that brand new members won’t be able to use the membership right away to be able to pick a car from the Hertz Gold Lane as first-time renters need to verify their credentials at the office/counter.
We previously covered a question from the same reader of how to sign up for the Presidents Circle membership as an Amex Platinum cardholder:
Reader Question: Hertz Presidents Circle Through The Amex Platinum Card, How To Apply The Benefits?
Signing up for the program is rather easy and self explanatory as we described in the article.
The reader ran into some problems after this:
Hi Sebastian,
thanks again for your help. I did as instructed but when I arrived at the airport I couldn’t pick up a car from the Gold Lane and I wasn’t assigned a car either. No choice other than standing in line (again) and the wait at Las Vegas Airport was quite long. Did I do something wrong?
He didn’t exactly do something wrong but this affects every new member with the Hertz Rewards program and likely every other car rental program as well.
So Martin has successfully opened a Hertz account and the status was visible as well – good! But as he experienced that’s not the end of it as he overlooked a key notice in the fine print, namely that new customers have to show their drivers license in person during the first rental to “activate” the membership.
Some locations allow this to be done at the gate but the majority doesn’t and first time renters have to visit the counter at least once for a face to face interaction with a Hertz employee, showing the drivers license.
Conclusion
A few months ago we covered how to enroll for Hertz Gold Rewards Presidents Circle with the Amex Platinum Card. One of our readers did just that but the first rental post enrolment had some hiccups as he was prompted to visit the counter rather than just find his name on the assignment board or pick up a car from the Gold Aisle.
Reason being that first time renters have to show the drivers license in person to a Hertz employee and sign for their first rental in person to be on file for the Master Rental Agreement. Now that Martin has done this I’m sure all future rentals will be easy and without further verification issues.