Hertz Changes Its Award Pricing Overnight
Joe Cortez May 23, 2019
Flyers hoping to redeem their Hertz points for a premium auto may find themselves disappointed in the new award chart. The rental car company has changed its pricing overnight, driving some awards upward of 50% from their previous pricing.
Members of Hertz’ Gold Plus Rewards program are facing increased award pricing for free rental car days due to an unannounced change. First discovered by FlyerTalkers on May 21, 2019, Hertz increased their award pricing without announcement to their members.
Under the new award chart, changes vary wildly based on the type of car requested. A breakdown by The Gate with Brian Cohen shows the full impact of the devaluation.
Free rental days only increase by around 11%, with four rental day standard awards increasing from 1,325 points to 1,500 points. However, the major hikes come with specialty vehicle rentals. These awards increase by 50% from their previous prices, with four-day awards climbing from 4,000 to 6,000 points.
But the steepest increases come with the weekly rental awards. The standard price for a free weekly rental is going up from 2,750 points to 3,750 points. With an AnyDay reward, the price climbs from 5,500 points to 7,500 points. And if you decided to rent a specialty vehicle for a week, the standard price will increase from 4,400 points to 7,500 points – an increase of over 70%. Hertz AnyDay rewards for a weekly specialty rental will increase from 8,800 to 15,000 points.
In addition, weekend rental awards are abolished under the new award chart. Instead, every rental day is a daily rental day, and subject to the new pricing. As a result, the standard price of renting a specialty vehicle climbs from 825 points on a weekend day to 1,500 points – an increase of 81.82%.
FlyerTalkers are not taking kindly to the new award chart. On the forums, David Simon claims a Hertz customer service representative told him the company “’redesigned the program to be more beneficial’ to its customers.”
“Which of course is why they implemented this without notice either before or after,” David Simon continued. “Complete stealth devaluation and in terms of percentages – one of the biggest I can ever remember.”
FlyerTalker klanfa was more forward in their comments: “Massive indeed and the lack of notice is just disgraceful,” they wrote. “You’d think maybe [President’s Club members] would get a heads up.”
The current devaluations appear to only affect the United States. Other parts of the world where Hertz operates appear to be under the previous award chart.
[Image Source: Shutterstock]
Is this the same company that has had around 30 customers arrested for Grand Theft Auto because they have an admitted IT flaw concerning returns that they refused to correct? That Hertz?
All these devaluations create a real climate of cynicism. These companies must think either the current economy will last forever or they'll just do like the airlines and merge into only 2 or 3 companies (which is well on its way, BTW). As for Hertz, I did notice that for the first time in ages I got airlines miles for a car rental from a HLE neighborhood location. Previously the Hertz program was the only reward option for that. I think it's an either-or, so I'll probably go with airline miles to either Delta or Southwest. Though they could ruin that as well unannounced. People are gonna get trained to just ignore these programs and look only at price.
Anyone who still rents from Hertz deserves everything they get. Car reported stolen, devaluation, car downgrades, whatever. I transferred all my Hertz to UA points 2 years ago. And good luck finding award availability. Maybe if you want a cargo van.