National - "One, Two, Free" free day cost me ~$2???

Two questions for the knowledgable masses here...one very specific, one more general...

[1] I earned a "One, Two, Free" free rental day from the promotion this/last year (these promos always seem to fall in my quiet travel times)...when trying to book a six day rental from FLL last night, I noticed an oddity that has me kind of perturbed...

My rate using the 12F certificate was ~$190ai. (Daily rate for the weekly rental is right around $23/day.)

I tried to combine the 12F coupon with others available online, all get rejected as incompatible.

I then tried the latest National offered promo of $25 off with a weekly rental (which seems to be available year-round AFAIK)...my rate comes out to ~$188ai.

So, the 12F "award" that I "earned" from National is actually costing me $2 extra for the rental? That just doesn't seem right to me!

Can anyone offer suggestions?

With that being said, it leads me to my second question...

[2] Why does National offer a space for up to 3 coupon codes when seemingly you can never stack coupons? Whats the point?

Thanks in advance!
HockeyCoachBen

I'm not sure I understand all your issues, but neither 12F day vouchers nor banked days can be combined with each other OR other coupons.

If you earn more than one 12F day voucher, up to 3 of them can be stacked towards a rental.

I'm not sure I understand all your issues, but neither 12F day vouchers nor banked days can be combined with each other OR other coupons.

You got the gist of what I was going for in my post. I guess what is most frustrating is that the 12F certificate that I "earned" doesn't get me the lowest rate for my rental...but a publicly available coupon does get me the lowest rate. I just don't feel like I "earned" anything by getting the 12F cert...except the right to pay extra for the rental. Essentially the 12F cert is useless to me.

Now upon reconsideration...how does National handle two consecutive rentals from the same location? Can I do a 1 day rental using the 12F cert then do a separate rental for the rest of my time? Or would that cause problems?

Shouldn't cause problems. You will not get a 2nd emerald club credit for the consecutive rental and will likely have to switch cars, though that varies by location.

The best usage for 1-2-FREE days, as well as normal free days, is when they are able to cover the entire rental (i.e., using 2 free days to cover a 2-day rental). You generally can rent for $0.00 or near $0.00 (if there are location specific taxes/fees that you cannot avoid, esp. customer facility charges that are on a per-day basis, rather than % of rental costs).

12F days cannot be used with coupons, so the $25-35 weekly coupons or $20 weekend coupons are sometimes better than a free day if you are renting for more days than you have free days for.

Generally, a great use for free days (whether 12F or standard) are one-way rentals, which can cost a lot if paid out of pocket, but are great deals with the free days.

Back to back rentals might get you a better bang, but probably not, since weekly rates are generally less on a per-day basis than non-weekly (4 day or less) rates. But, you just have to play with scenarios online to see what works best.

Doing back to back rentals is not that bad, but the 2nd leg of it (assuming you are just returning a car to the same place you are then renting again from) will not get you a "rental credit" for elite qualification purposes.

Hope that helps.

To add another point, I don't think free days are worthless by any means, but as you note, sometimes they are not as useful as other times.

For example, I have 3 12F days and 3 "regular free days". I'm using them for an upcoming Arizona vacation, where PHX rentals are sky high because of the time of year and also because of airport fees. I'm basically paying ~$75 total for the 6 days (all taxes/fees), with a minivan rental for the first 3 days (when I need it) and switching to a full size for the last 3 (when that's sufficient). It would normally cost $400+ for a full size, not to speak of the costs to reserve a minivan, which are far more (as opposed to EC/EE roulette). Of course, it took me months of playing around with different scenarios to finally come up with this scenario...

I'd like to point out that the 1-2-Free days are combinable with whatever corporate code you use (entitled or not - that's a separate debate). However, the 1-2-Free days are treated like any other coupon (I believe) so if the location is close to "selling out" they could be rejected.

dcchi is right; if you have just a single 12Free day, then it won't make much sense to use it on a multi-day rental because you will most likely be able to apply a corporate coupon, for free.

Save the 12Free day for a one-way, or mid-week one-day rental.

Thanks for all of the help and ideas, everyone. I knew I came to the right place to seek advice!

Actually, the best use of free days is one-ways out of expensive markets.

But if you have both 1-2 Free days and regular free days, redeem them wisely. The two types are not combinable, as was already said. 1-2 Free days are easier to earn, and yield a fullsize reservation, but only 3 can be redeemed at a time. Regular free days are harder to earn, and allow regular Emerald Club members to reserve a midsize, but up to 7 can be redeemed at a time. So redeeming a regular free day for a one day one-way is not as valuable as redeeming a 1-2 Free day for this purpose.

Actually, the best use of free days is one-ways out of expensive markets.

^

But if you have both 1-2 Free days and regular free days, redeem them wisely. The two types are not combinable, as was already said. 1-2 Free days are easier to earn, and yield a fullsize reservation, but only 3 can be redeemed at a time. Regular free days are harder to earn, and allow regular Emerald Club members to reserve a midsize, but up to 7 can be redeemed at a time. So redeeming a regular free day for a one day one-way is not as valuable as redeeming a 1-2 Free day for this purpose.

How could a regular Emerald Club member have more than 2 free days (excluding the 1-2 Free days)? The free days expire and the end of the next year, so someone could earn a day in 2012 and have one from 2011. Earning more than 1 credit in 2011 would mean that one is Executive in 2012.

Earning more than 1 free day in a year would imply that one is now Executive. Having 7 free days would mean that one is probably Executive Elite.

12F days seem to have some value over in the coupon connection...I think I saw one for 4k Amex MR points.

Because of the stacking issues, I tend to use the 12F days in two ways;

1. For leisure rentals that don't involve a Saturday night. For example, I have a traditional Thu-Fri rental in Vegas each December that eats up two of them.

2. To make my work life easier. I'm using a couple of them this month so that I can fly MDW-SDF, go to a conference, and they fly LEX-DCA, because the SDF-DCA I need is obscenely expensive. Otherwise, I'd have to fly a much later SDF-CLT-DCA and waste five hours of my life. The LEX-DCA plus a free rental costs a smidge less as the SDF-CLT-DCA plus two days of non one-way rental, so my employer is happy, and I'm happy.

Shouldn't cause problems. You will not get a 2nd emerald club credit for the consecutive rental and will likely have to switch cars, though that varies by location.

Back to back rentals are good to use when redeeming 12F especially when redeeming for more than one day. I used one 12F coupon and combined with a three day weekend rental. So I got in essence two days free on a four day rental. Additionally I was able to use the Continental 1K bonus code 5030085 and a $20 coupon and then for the 12F I switched to credits and was able to earn a credit.

But definitely best use is for one way rentals.

Actually, the best use of free days is one-ways out of expensive markets.

But if you have both 1-2 Free days and regular free days, redeem them wisely. The two types are not combinable, as was already said. 1-2 Free days are easier to earn, and yield a fullsize reservation, but only 3 can be redeemed at a time. Regular free days are harder to earn, and allow regular Emerald Club members to reserve a midsize, but up to 7 can be redeemed at a time. So redeeming a regular free day for a one day one-way is not as valuable as redeeming a 1-2 Free day for this purpose.

+1. Best use is OW rentals and places like HNL/KOA, and ANC/FAI.

Again, thanks for all of the advice everyone. I did back-to-back rentals and not only saved money for the 12F and coupon days but also saved money because the car rate went down as well! ^