Hertz - new to Hertz

Hi folks...I will be using Hertz as my rental company since my new work mandates hertz...I have always used budget before.

Anyways, my question is: I am part of the #gold club. Is it better to take the hertz points or the airline points...I am with Air Canada.

And What levels are there in the HErtz club program? I expect to have weekly rental for the next 6 months.

The big question becomes do you think you will be able to use your AE points in the future to get seats? Also consider the new $25 booking fee and $50 fuel surcharges being placed on AE tickets (domestic only). That raises the cost of your "free" ticket to $75 + taxes and fees.

You can consider Marriott points as well. I was going to do this instead of AE points but when I realized that I would make SE this year I can use my points whenever I want to with no extra penalties or blackouts. If you don't hold status it's something to think about.

Also think about how many rentals will you be doing in a year and will you be able to use any of the accumulated points in a reasonable time frame. Maybe AE points will be the way to go after all.

Sorry if I only created more questions. Others will have opinions to consider as well. Good luck.

I am putting all my points into Lufthansa M&M program. Although I am Elite with Aeroplan, I only put in 35K to get the lounge, quasi-useless upgrade certificates etc. My rentals every year add up to 1 Intra-Europe flight, or 1 NA-Europe every 18 months or so, not bad for justing renting a car someone else will pay for.

Hertz 5-Star is for 10 rentals per year (independent of length of rental) and President's Club is 40. For these status's I don't think it matters if you take miles or points. You can do a 'Search' to look at posts on benefits (mainly occassional vehicle upgrades upon arrival).

Your selection of rewards (Hertz points, Airline miles, MR points, etc) depends upon you. For me, when I vacation I will need a flight, a hotel and a car so I take Miles when I fly, Hotel points when I sleep, Hertz miles when I drive.

For Hertz points you get one point per dollar (not including taxes and fees). Go through the Hertz website and see the Hertz Awards. Compare this to what their partners will give you. Then determine which you prefer.

I don't know about Canada, but in the US Hertz now charges a surcharge for air miles on certain airline programs. I know that AA is not one of the airlines with the excise tax surcharge, and the hotel programs seem to be exempt from the excise tax surcharge.

Since the miles from car rentals are a pittance anyway, I generally use them to keep programs like AA active. With AA and many other programs, any account activity pushes the miles expiration date out by three years.

Other than that, I've been taking ZE1 points for rentals. My assumption is that for a vacation or leisure rental somewhere, sometime, the car rental awards will come in handy.

If you search around here, others have done an analysis that dictates to them that for rentals less than x days, they take Marriott Rewards points, because they get a flat 500 points per rental in that program, but for rentals longer than x days they go with the air miles. I don't bother with that anymore, I just take the ZE1 points and occaisionally steer a rental or two to one of my dormant FF accounts to keep it active.

-David


[This message has been edited by LIH Prem (edited 05-22-2003).]

I only do 1 day rentals as well and put the mileage in my LH account (500) each time. So far in Canada there is no surcharge to post there. Didn't know about Marriott though... have to switch over and top up for the next hotel level.

Thanks all for you replies..
Another question...how easy is it to claim points on hertz for rental awards?
Is there online tracking of accounts and reward request on their website?
I tired navigating the site and don't seem to find where I can check account balances.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by killerbrew:
President's Club is 40. </font>

It's only 20 for Canadians so make sure to sign up for #1 Gold. You should have it in no time as a Canadian. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

There is a place on the web site to check your ZE1 balance and account activity. Log in using Internet Explorer (Netscape and Mozilla do not work with the new Hertz web site, unless they've corrected that recently .. the frames don't work correctly), click on "My Account", then on that frame, there's another menu bar below the main menu bar, click on "#1 Awards", which brings up your account balance, with instructions on how to claim an award. On the right hand side of that page, there's links to lists of awards, etc.

-David

As of yesterday, the Hertz web site still didn't function properly with Netscape. You can't view existing reservations for instance. But I digress.

What I really wanted to point out is that there is no surcharge for FF points when you accrue Air Canada points on your rentals.