After a dispute and explanation that Puerto Rico is (unincorporated) U.S. territory, the Hertz employee called the police, and things quickly went downhill from there.

One would think that Hertz would have learned its lesson after paying out millions in settlements to customers who were wrongfully reported to the police as car thieves, many of who spent considerable time in jail until things were cleared up.

This local employee didn’t get the memo and will most likely cost the company another chunk of money in compensation and reputational damage.

It all broke when the customer posted a video and account of what happened on his Twitter:

@Hertz I’ve been a Hertz Gold Member for more than a decade! I just got denied a Prepaid Reservation(3 weeks ago) because I only had my REAL 🆔 Driver License from PR 🇵🇷 – they required to physically show my passport-I only had a digital image!- they called @NOPDNews on me! …. pic.twitter.com/LSymCFPiqE

— Bert Marchand Paonessa (@Moonrican1) May 10, 2023

Not enough with Hertz refusing the customer his prepaid rental and going completely nuts, the police was called and apparently, the officer at the scene wasn’t exactly the brightests bulbs in the chandelier either:

The NOPD Officer ordered me to leave the area (I was already outside HERTZ premises) or other wise he was going on call US Border authorities! They are making a huge mistake!

— Bert Marchand Paonessa (@Moonrican1) May 10, 2023

A police officer threatens a U.S. citizen who is in possession of a REAL ID by calling CBP/ICE to settle a business dispute?

I get (not that I accept it) that Hertz has ‘some’ bozos working for them, I doubt their hiring requirements are very high, and that geography, civics, or political science played a major role in their employees curriculum, but a police officer should be trained better and know the basics.

CNN reported that following the Tweet, which went viral, Hertz acknowledged the error and issued a public statement:

Hertz has apologized to a Puerto Rican customer after one of its employees refused to rent him a car he had paid for in advance because he did not show her his passport.

Humberto Marchand said that he traveled to New Orleans last Wednesday and presented his Puerto Rican driver’s license at the Hertz counter at the Louie Armstrong International Airport. The employee asked for his passport even though, like all Puerto Ricans, Marchand is a US citizen and does not need to have a passport to rent a car within the United States.

Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, and anyone born on the island is by law a US citizen.

Marchand said the employee, who has not been publicly identified, treated him like a foreigner and told him that he could not rent a vehicle without presenting a passport.

“I was surprised and definitely frustrated because it was very late at night, so I decided to make a formal complaint” said Marchand in an interview with CNN.

In a statement to CNN, Hertz (HTZ) said that the company accepts Puerto Rican driver’s licenses from customers renting in the United States without requiring a valid passport.

“We sincerely regret that our policy was not followed and have apologized to Mr. Marchand and refunded his rental,” a company spokesperson said. “We are reinforcing our policies with employees to ensure that they are understood and followed consistently across our locations.”

Marchand says a Kenner Police Department officer responded to the scene and also asked him to leave. As he walked away, he said he heard the police officer threaten to call the border patrol.

A spokesperson for the Kenner Police Department told CNN that they have reviewed the officer’s body cam footage and that nowhere in the video did the officer mention the border patrol, ICE or any other immigration authorities.

“There is the specific portion on the footage where the officer says something, not related to any of those things mentioned earlier, and clearly Mr. Marchand misunderstands the officer,” Capt. Michael Cunningham told CNN.

Cunningham also said that the police department will release a statement about this incident and the body camera footage but did not specify when it will be released.

“I became very nervous because once you call the police you don’t want the matter to escalate to the point that the officer thinks he has to use some sort of force. So, I kept a very calm and assertive, but respectful, posture,” said Marchand.

It is not clear if Hertz took any disciplinary action against the employee, however, the company said that this employee, like all their employees, has been reminded of their longstanding policy related to Puerto Rican driver’s licenses.

Marchand said he also plans to file a complaint against the Kenner Police Department to ensure that their officers are trained to validate Real IDs and to review any inappropriate comments about being referred to border authorities that he claims were made by the officer.

Refunding the rental which the customer didn’t utilize isn’t an acceptable form of compensation. It’s not even an apology and should this be the only action taken it’s absolutely ridiculous and the customer should explore his legal options with the help of an attorney.

Why is it always Hertz that’s in the news with these sorts of things? What in the world is going on with their employees, hiring policy, and training philosophy?

The claim of the police officer threatening to call CBP has been disputed by the police department. If the customer is 100% sure that’s what the officer said then he should absolutely lodge an official complaint, gain access to the footage and consider legal action.

Conclusion

Hertz once again made headlines for all the wrong reasons, this time a station employee got into a fight with a customer demanding he presents a passport to obtain his rental car. As a U.S. citizen and Puerto Rican resident, he isn’t required to do so and this should be flagged in the Hertz system.

Why an employee would make up random rules and then even call the police is beyond me. Sometimes employees who have an overbooking situation on their hands and not enough cars that day try to go 100% by the book and hope some customers can’t fulfill the requirements so they won’t have to give them a car. Happened to me recently at (surprise) another Hertz station but of course, I had my passport handy. Still ended up with a total trashcan of a car that I immediately exchanged at the LAX airport station.

It’s not like this customer rented the first time with Hertz, he’s a member of Hertz Gold Rewards and has a rental history. This employee in question has no business being on the frontlines with customers or even in any other position with the company. Hopefully, Hertz will take appropriate action here.

Hertz previously extended members’ points balance due to the pandemic, but that moratorium ended (at least for elite members) on Dec. 31, 2021 after which accounts without activity were reset to zero balance.

I was an avid Hertz renter since the mid-2000s when I lived in the U.S. and had a Hertz local edition nearby, where I rented on average twice per week. After that, I mostly rented at LAX Airport, where I always received pretty decent cars, first as Platinum and later as Presidents Circle.

Over the years, I must have earned close to 20,000 Hertz points with my leisure rentals and countless frequent flyer miles.

I used most of the points for rentals in markets where the prices usually shoot through the roof, especially when it’s high season, which includes Canada, Alaska, and Australia. By early 2020 I had about 1700 points left.

Admittedly I haven’t paid much attention to Hertz since 2019, and whenever I visited the U.S., I started to rent from Sixt instead as I got sick and tired of Hertz’s lackluster vehicle selection.

When I rented at LAX Airport, I chose Sixt instead of Hertz and looking back, I should have paid some attention and at least clocked one quick Hertz rental to extend the points. Well, I didn’t, and they all expired:

Oops: I Have Lost All My Hertz Rewards Points Due To Inactivity

I eventually decided to contact Hertz Rewards customer care to ask if they could make an exception and reinstate these points, either complimentary or against payment.

It took them about three weeks to get back to me, but the reply was positive:

Dear Sebastian, 

Thank you for your recent inquiry. We greatly appreciate your loyalty as a Hertz Gold Plus Rewards member and remain committed to you.

As noted in the FAQs on line, in order to keep points from expiring, Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Rental Activity must take place within an 18 month period, where points are either earned or redeemed. Our records indicate your last rental activity was more than 18 months ago. Unfortunately, as a result of this inactivity, any prior points expired.  For more information, please visit online: https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/misc/index.jsp?targetPage=GPR_FAQs.jsp

As an one time gesture of consideration for our valued Gold Plus Rewards member, management has made an one time exception. The 1,700 expired points have been restated for the next 180 days. Unless you complete a qualifying rental prior to 10/14/2023 the points will expire and no additional extension will be allowed.  You may extend these points by completing a rental  that either earns points OR redeemed points for 1 day at any Hertz location, including thousands of HLE’s in your neighborhood. 

As stated above, your current balance is 1,700 points with the current expiration date of 10/14/2023. We look forward to seeing you rent soon to extend the expiration date. 

Thank you again for allowing me to assist you.  Should you have any further queries with regards to this matter, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,
Carla A.
Customer Correspondence Administrator

Excellent. They reinstated my 1,700 points and in order to carry them over longer Hertz required me to have at least one rental that earns Hertz Points (ZE1) until October 14th.

As luck would have it I needed a rental at a local station in San Pedro after getting off a cruise ship last week so I had a two-day reservation at that particular Hertz HLE station for two days, dropping it later at LAX.

The amount of points Hertz now requires for a rental has gone up considerably. I had a look at the award chart, and the points are actually worth much less now:

950 points per day (previously 700) for a standard award and 1,900 points for an AnyDay award free day. For a one-way rental it’s now 1,900 (previously 1,700) on a standard award and 3,800 on AnyDay award.

The high rates for awards are the reason why it almost never makes sense to use them. Last weekend I rented a full-size car for $62.50 total (two days). 1,900 points for that? Nah.

Availability for redemptions has also gone down, and they have gotten expensive. The good old days are definitely over including for the company itself which is still reeling from the bankruptcy process.

Conclusion

I made a blunder not monitoring the expiration of my Hertz Rewards points, and roughly 1,700 of them expired sometime in the last 15 months (based on what Hertz published, likely on DEC 31, 2021).

After some consideration I contacted Hertz and they reinstated the balance for six months during which I either had to use them or extend the validity further by renting at least once, earning additional points.

I decided to do a quick rental following my cruise, use the car for two days, and then this matter gives me another two years of flexibility to come up with some decent use case for the points. Unfortunately, prices for the awards have gone up so much that it’s hard to find a sweet spot these days where it’s actually worthwhile using points rather than just paying cash.

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.

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.

You can access American Express Platinum Rental Car Privileges here.

Our reader Marty asked the following:

I signed up for the Hertz Presidents Circle benefit through Amex Platinum almost immediately after I got the card [through THIS link] and the account was upgraded accordingly.

Now, the question is how I benefit from it. My workplace, a F500 company, constantly books my cars through some travel agency or consolidator that makes it impossible to add my Hertz number and the associates keep telling me these bookings can’t be paired with Hertz Gold Rewards. What do you think?

It’s indeed a booking source problem our reader faces here, and as his example shows, even large companies fall into these traps. often not realizing their employees lose out on certain savings and benefits, mainly by saving time and cost.

Whatever portal Marty’s company uses looks like it acts as a consolidator or at the very least a third-party seller. Bookings for car rental agencies generally need to be reserved directly with the respective company or through a travel agent with proper GDS access that allows access to the booking system for the car rental agency.

The following memberships are available to Amex Platinum members:

• Avis Preferred Plus Status
• Hertz President’s Circle Status
• National Emerald Club Executive tier status

Since our reader specifically asked about Hertz I’ll focus on that but the principle remains the same.

Let’s not focus so much on the discount code that comes with alleged savings and a 4-hour grace period that can indeed be useful but the general program benefits. Third party bookings through consolidators or travel agents such as Expedia don’t count for the program, and you won’t be able to enjoy the express rental/upgrade privileges with either company.

Be careful when booking through Amex Travel as well as their surface is basically just an Expedia booking machine and it will show up accordingly for the car rental company. Always book direct through the website, phone or with a qualified travel agent who knows how to reserve a car directly through the GDS of the car rental company (same goes for hotels – stay away from Amex Travel except for Fine Hotels & Resorts and the International Airline Program).

Sometimes agents will do it out of courtesy, but you still need to see a counter. The only way to ensure it’s immediately attached to the booking and benefits are conferred is by adding it to the eligible booking on time (at the point of reservation).

Another misconception is that hotel and rental car companies will confer these benefits simply by presenting the Amex Platinum Card and that isn’t correct. The member needs to actively sign up for the partners loyalty program, which is then assigned the advertised tier status. Using this loyalty membership whenever making new reservations is absolutely imperative or else no benefits will be given.

Conclusion

Having Gold Plus Rewards status speeds up the rental process and likely yields an upgrade too, although since the introduction of the Gold Choice lane at major airports not as generous as in the past as Hertz has become very liberal, giving out the status through promotions like these and status matches.

Hertz only used to upgrade by one category, but now with Gold Choice you can pick any car in the respective lane. I usually rent from them at LAX and while in the past I’ve gotten some nice cars including premium SUV’s the last time I was there in July they only had trash with mileage and lots of damages.

Amex Platinum holders should first sign up for a President’s Circle account through the benefits section of their online account or upgrade existing accounts through the same link. You can then make bookings directly with the rental agency. I’d like to emphasize once again that third party bookings do no work together with car rental status. And remember: ALWAYS BOOK DIRECT!

Hertz previously extended members’ points balance due to the pandemic, but apparently, that moratorium ended (at least for elite members) on Dec. 31, 2021 after which accounts without activity were reset to zero balance.

Admittedly I haven’t paid much attention to Hertz since 2019, and whenever I visited the U.S., I started to rent from Sixt instead as I got sick and tired of Hertz’s lackluster vehicle selection.

I was an avid Hertz renter since the mid-2000s when I lived in the U.S. and had a Hertz local edition nearby, where I rented on average twice per week. After that, I mostly rented at LAX Airport, where I always received pretty decent cars, first as Platinum and later as Presidents Circle.

Then Hertz took a turn for the worse. First, they changed from pre-assigned cars to the Presidents Circle/Gold Choice aisle, which meant that you had to wait around quite a while until a decent vehicle showed up. Then the cars got much worse in selection, quality, and mileage, plus the eventual decay of Hertz, culminating in the bankruptcy of the company.

During the pandemic, Hertz extended the points of their members as they announced:

While the status was extended, points were not. At least not for common members though Elite members had their balance frozen until December 31, 2021.

John covered the tier extension policy of Hertz last year:

Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Tier Extension Through January 31, 2023 & Lower Qualification Requirement

Well, as I mentioned I haven’t used Hertz for quite some time and the last time I tried (2019) to use my points, a redemption option wasn’t available.

Points will not expire as long as you have a Hertz Gold Plus Rewards rental activity in the prior 18 months. Activity means a Gold Plus Rewards Point was either earned or redeemed on a rental.

In January of 2021, Hertz announced that they waive Gold Rewards points expiration for all elite members through December 31, 2021. This extension applied only to Platinum, President’s Circle and Five Star members.

How did I learn about this just now?

As I plan to pick up a car in Los Angeles near the San Pedro world cruise center in a few weeks I had to make a reservation with Hertz again and noticed when I logged in that while I’m still Presidents Circle for whatever reason, my points are now gone:

I believe my latest balance was something around 1600 points so enough for two free rental days under normal circumstances.

It’s a bit sad that I wasn’t able to use the points. I could have either preserved or used them when I was in California in May of last year, however, I got a very decent rate at Sixt where I always receive at least a BMW3 or higher. So why bother with Hertz just for the points and end up driving some dinged-up Toyota Camry with 40,000 miles for a whole weekend? Nah.

Nevertheless, this was an oversight I normally don’t like to expose myself to. You never know where this points would have come in handy but that’s spilled milk under the bridge.

Conclusion

I made a blunder not monitoring the expiration of my Hertz Rewards points, and roughly 1,600 of them expired sometime in the last 15 months (based on what Hertz published, likely on DEC 31, 2021).

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to get these points back. For my next rental that I plan to pick up at a HLE location, I’ll just collect Virgin Atlantic miles again as I’ve done so many times in the past. Only expensive rentals that earned several hundred Hertz points were credited to my rewards balance.

Availability for redemptions has also gone down, and they have gotten expensive. The good old days are definitely over including for the company itself which is still reeling from the bankruptcy process.

SkyMiles elite members can get Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Five Star (Silver & Gold) or President’s Circle (Platinum & Diamond) tier.

You can access Delta’s page for the Hertz partnership here.

Hertz SkyMiles Earning Rates Until January 30, 2023:

Hertz SkyMiles Earning Rates From January 30, 2023:

Comparison:

• Silver: 1,300 (previously) – 5 miles per USD (now) = $260 
• Gold: 1,300 (previously) – 6 miles per USD (now) = $217
• Platinum: 1,550 (previously – 7 miles per USD (now) = $221
• Diamond: 1,500 (previously) – 8 miles per USD (now) = $188

Conclusion

The new earning rates that are based on the rental charge, I would assume without all the extras, are better, in general, for rentals of more than $200.

You could earn much better under the previously fixed schedule if your rentals are short and inexpensive.

You can gift Five Star or Presidents Circle status for a year to a friends and family member (only one), and it is valid for 12 months.

You can access this offer on the Hertz website here (I cannot get it open).

Offer Information:

Conclusion

I just logged in to my Hertz Gold Plus Rewards account, and I cannot recall where I got my Presidents Club status, but it could have been from a credit card.

The promo page doesn’t open up for me, but it should work for those that have qualified.

The generic signup page made available by Hertz is actually open to all entries and doesn’t verify current Platinum card membership so I guess everyone can just sign up [edit: the general link is now dead].

Hertz Presidents Circle is the only useful status with the company aside from Platinum (which is very hard to get, especially since the pay option disappeared).

You can access the landing page of Hertz for Amex Platinum Members through the Benefits subsection of your Platinum card (the original link is no longer live).

According to the footnote, the requested Presidents Circle status will be active within 24-72 hours of enrollment.

You can also email Hertz directly if there are any problems, their contact for any kind of status matches is: hertzstatusmatch@hertz.com !

Hertz Presidents Circle is a useful status but your experience with the company largely depends on where you rent from them. I also feel that the quality of the vehicles has suffered over the years both in terms of models and mileage (high).

Conclusion

Amex has a range of benefits and status matches attached to the portfolio of the Platinum charge card but this one might be one of the more useful options (probably the best together with Hilton Gold).

As Presidents Circle you can usually pick from the Gold Choice Presidents Circle section at larger locations and that requires a minimum of a midsize reservation. At smaller locations, it’s really luck of the draw and even at the Gold Choice locations like larger airports you often have to wait around until a nice vehicle shows up.

The most recent previous devaluation took place on 2019 (read more here). The free day rental price now went up by 200 points and weekly by 1,000.

You can access Hertz’s page for awards here.

New Award Chart – August 9, 2022

Previous Award Chart:

Conclusion

It would have been great if Hertz had given proper advance notice to its Gold Plus Rewards members.

I have given up collecting points with car rental programs but have status with quite a few due to tie-ups with other travel providers.

The expiry of Gold Plus Rewards points has also been paused through the end of 2022. The tier requirements have also been lowered.

You can access Hertz here.

CORRECTION: We mistakenly included in this piece previously that points expiry would have been waived through the end of 2022 which is incorrect. The points expire 18 months after inactivity.

Note From Hertz:

President’s Circle and Five Star – Customers’ points will be good through the end of 2022 (longer if a customer has already completed a rental in the last 6 months) and won’t expire if a rent or redeem is completed by Dec. 31, 2022.

President’s Circle status earned after just 15 rentals versus 20 previously, or by spending $2,000

• Continue earning 50% more points toward free rental days, choosing from the widest selection of cars and enjoying guaranteed car-class upgrades

Five Star status earned after just 10 rentals versus 12 previously, or by spending $3,000

• Continue earning 25% more points toward free rental days, choosing from a wider selection of cars and enjoying one-car-class upgrades

Qualification Requirements:

Conclusion

Extended member tiers make sense, considering all the challenges Hertz has experienced lately. It makes sense to extend tiers and pause points expirations.

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.

You can access Hertz here.

Email From The Reader:

Here is a summary of the story, if you find it interesting, I can send you a full description and all the supporting documents.

I rented a car for 20 days at Hertz in Germany, picking up the car at Dusseldorf airport and returning it at Munich airport. The last day (returning day) I was supposed to return the car at 12:00pm per contract. I returned more than 2 hours before (around 09:20am). Please note that in Munich you have to leave the car with the keys at the parking lot because there are no employees that receive the cars. There is one company that handles the returns for all rental car companies…

So I left the car and went to take my flight. After coming back home I checked my credit card statement and I found that Hertz was charging more than triple the cost of my contract. I was supposed to pay 640 euros in total and they charged me 1,868 euros. When I contacted them, they told me that this was because I returned the car late (@ 01:16pm) so the system recalculated the whole contract automatically.

Please note that I can prove that I left the car @ 09:15am because before 10am I was at the Vip lounge. Besides, I could have never returned the car @01:16pm because my flight departed from MUC at 12:15pm.

After several emails and calls, customer service says that they need 3 weeks to check this and I have to pay the credit card in the meantime. They say that they have to check with the company that handles the returning cars and the their management is located in Asia.

The person from Hertz customer care that talked with me told me that this is a common situation there.

Of course I refuse to pay and will observe the charge with the credit card company.

I really can’t believe that this can happen with Hertz in a country like Germany. And would like to aware your public that they should be careful and go to the Hertz counter anyway to close their contracts even if they say that this is not necessary.

Now I am also seeking for a lawyer to sue Hertz in Germany because this whole situation is crazy.

One Of The Emails From Hertz:

We apologize that you have not received an answer yet!

According to our system,  your reservation was for 20 days. The rental has been closed on 14 May 2022 after noon, this is why 3 weeks have been calculated – this changed the price (weekly rate 285,00 Euros plus insurances etc.).

We will contact the service company ASSURED and ask them for the correct check in time of your rental car.

We apologize for the inconveniences, and we kindly ask you for your patience!

I am always very hesitant to leave a rental car on a return or other lot without getting a closed contract to avoid situation like the reader is having.

Avis refused to close the contract in Chile when I returned a car because they claimed they were inspected outside the airport. There were no extra charges, but how easy it would have been then to claim that there would have been something.

It is crazy that the company that Hertz uses to deal with car returns in Germany processes the return at a time when they get it to, even if the renter may have left it in the lot hours earlier.

Conclusion

I could swear that these car rental companies business is nothing more than to scam extra fees that are their profit drivers.

Have you ever heard that a car rental company would have charged less by mistake? All these cases benefit only one party, and it is not the renter.

Hertz has been in the news lately in the United States, where it has not been able to process returns properly and had reported renters for stealing cars when, in fact, they had been returned. There are hundreds of such cases, and some had been arrested for days while Hertz figured out they had the cars in question that they had reported stolen.

I used to rent cars frequently, but nowadays I only do if I absolutely have no other choice. I have no patience dealing with inspections and imaginary scratches that you cannot dispute.

What experience have you had lately with car rental companies?

Hertz Rewards points have historically been useful for high-value rentals where rates are rather expensive such as one-ways and peak days, especially midweek.

For quite a while now it seems that Hertz has restricted the use of these rewards to the point of no date or location being available anymore for redemption which basically renders the program almost worthless as far as Hertz points are concerned.

I have performed several searches to find availability to redeem Hertz Points at the following locations:

• Anchorage
• Boston
• Detroit DTW
• Los Angeles LAX
• Miami
• Vancouver

Not one of these locations offered me to use my points for a rental even though I have a sufficient balance in the account.

I have written to Hertz to get some clarification but there wasn’t any reply. This wasn’t a problem before the pandemic and the subsequent bankruptcy of Hertz during and after which they suddenly started to clamp down on their rewards system while at the same time offering status matches all the time.

In my example displayed above, it wouldn’t make much sense to use points either way as points only eliminate the base fee for the rental but facility charges do apply. With a cost of $34/day you can just as well pay cash rather than using 750 points or even worse 1500 points for an AnyDay award day.

You can find the Hertz Reward Chart here.

This award chart makes me cry. I can still remember back around 2010 when awards were rather cheap, especially for a weekly rental. Availability was never an issue either but boy have things changed.

Nowadays I primarily look at Sixt and National but occasionally I’m still renting with Hertz, especially at LAX as the location is right next to the Renaissance so I can just walk back to the hotel after dropping off the car since Hertz has eliminated the hotel shuttle service several years ago.

Conclusion

For some reason, it’s impossible to use your Hertz Gold Rewards points at the moment which makes people rather upset and many Hertz members are now switching to collect airline miles again rather than going for Hertz own loyalty currency.

Have you tried to redeem points as of late and ran into the same issues we encountered when searching for redemption options with Hertz?

Gifting is free, and the recipient gets the same tier as the member for up to seven months from December 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.

This offer was around for the first time exactly a year ago and then members were able to gift status for a full year while this time around its for six months.

You can access this offer on the Hertz website here.

‘Tis the season for giving. To thank you for your loyalty, we’re inviting you to gift your current Five Star^® or President’s Circle^® member status to one friend, family member or colleague for free up to June, 30^th, 2022!^*

Then you’ll both enjoy faster, easier rental experiences when you:

• Skip the counter and go straight to your cars^†
• Choose from a wide selection of cars
• Enjoy car-class upgrades^‡
• Earn more points toward free days

From the wording of the offer it’s a bit unclear if the status will only last through June 30th as a whole or if you can gift until June 30th and then the term will start.

This is the information form members have to fill out in order to process the match:

When this offer was around a year ago (see John’s article here) it said “Gifted status is available from 1/31/21 to 1/31/22” but now we see this new campaign under the same URL prior to that date. Based on that I’d say the status will be valid until June of next year but you never know with Hertz.

Each member can use this offer for one gifting transaction.

They keep extending their tiers for no apparent reason and I’ve now been Presidents Circle for ~ 13 years but only qualified once or twice based on my actual rentals Back in 2008/2009. Since then I maybe have 4-5 rentals each year at the max.

Conclusion

Having Gold Plus Rewards status speeds up the rental process and likely yields an upgrade too, although since the introduction of the Gold Choice lane at major airports not as generous as in the past as Hertz has become very liberal, giving out the status through promotions like these and status matches.

Hertz only used to upgrade by one category but now with Gold Choice you can pick any car in the respective lane. I usually rent from them at LAX and while in the past I’ve gotten some nice cars including premium SUV’s the last time I was there in July they only had trash with mileage and lots of damages.

These are the (rather simple) terms & conditions for this offer:

Offer available to active Hertz Five Star® and President’s Circle® members only. Each member can grant status to one customer only. Gifted status is available from 12/1/21 to 06/30/22.

Hertz has now put out a sign-up link for its Presidents Club tier for Capital One Venture X cardholders, but it may be open for all.

You can access the sign-up on the Hertz website here.

Gold Plus Rewards Benefits Matrix:

Sign Up:

Success:

Conclusion

Was it Hertz’s intention to release the link on an open web? I am not sure how they will verify the eligible cardholders merely based on the name and email address, as these may not be an exact match.

The status on my account didn’t update instantaneously even when the webform indicated a success, although with a note that it would take some time.