Tough to answer, because it's not apples and oranges.

A few are easy to rule out: Alamo and Budget don't offer any points at all. Their programs are strictly about making the pick-up process faster but completely lack a rewards component. (Also easy to rule out are the low-end discount tier agencies like E-Z, Advantage, Payless, Ace, etc., for the same reason.)

When it comes to companies that do award points or credits for rentals, there isn't a fixed value--it depends on your rental patterns and your ultimate goal for using award redemptions.

If you do a lot of short rentals (ideally, one day rentals), National is a fantastic program, because you earn one credit for every rental regardless of length (you can earn more credits for longer rentals, but the ROI is much lower). And if you regularly rent (or can incorporate into your travel plans) one-way rentals, National is even more fantastic, because those credits can be redeemed for expensive one-way rentals (personally, I use my credits for one-way rentals that would otherwise cost $250 instead of an economy car that would cost me $30. If your rentals are typically long and you foresee offsetting a cheap weekend personal rental, National may not be the best for you because you'll earn credits slowly and the redemptions won't be maximized. Given average earning and redemption patterns, though, you might call each credit worth about $6.

With Hertz, you earn points based on how much your rental costs: you earn one point for every dollar you spend on the base rate only (not taxes, fees, options, etc.).. Redemptions are on a fixed award chart and range from 550 points for a weekend day on a basic (economy to premium) car to 33,000 for a two-week AnyDay (no blackout dates) rental of an Adrenaline or Prestige Collection vehicle. My most common redemptions have been weekend one-way rentals (1,100 points) for premium cars, which (considering the obscene one-way rates Hertz usually charges) is a sweet spot in the award chart. It's tough to put a specific value on points, since the way you redeem them has a big effect, and depending on where you redeem, you still might be left paying dozens of dollars a day in taxes and fees, but a conservative guess might be in the 4-5 cent per point range, but you can squeeze a little more value out of them if you use them wisely (one-ways, premium cars instead of economy cars, etc.).

With Avis, you'll earn points in a similar fashion to Hertz, except Avis guarantees you a minimum of 100 points per rental day. Their award chart is unpublished and somewhat dynamic, but the cheapest you'll find awards start at is 700 points a day. (We covered Avis's new program here.) Very tough to put a specific value on the points as the award chart is so unpredictable.

Enterprise works sort of like Avis's, except it's slightly more predictable. (We covered their new program here.) The points appear to be worth about 5 cents apiece (value fluctuates slightly as their system rounds up/down as mentioned in our article). Their base value is probably slightly higher than Hertz, but your options for getting extra value above that are more limited than they are with Hertz. Of course, your overall spend will probably be less, since Enterprise tends to be much cheaper than Hertz.



Personally, I don't have a "strategy" for renting. I go for whoever's cheapest, within reason and willing to pay a small premium for one of the higher-end agencies, though if your company is paying and you value a hassle-free experience, you may put a little more value on renting from the premium agencies (Hertz, National, or Avis) with the slickest bypass-the-counter options. (That topic is covered here: How much more are you willing to pay for Hertz rentals?.) I only really consider rewards in the equation when National is running their One-Two-Free promo (when I can basically count that I'll be getting about $13 per rental day in value), when I find myself renting with National much more. Otherwise, I rent with whoever's cheapest and just collect the points as they come in. I don't claim airline points as the rental companies all charge fees for doing so that approach or even exceed the value of those points, though I do have friends who collect with foreign airline programs (where fees aren't charged) or hotel programs, and I do have other friends who work much harder than I do at chasing bonus mile promos with the rental companies and occasionally get some lucrative rewards (Avis and Hertz seem to be best for that, but by doing that, you have to remove some of the discounts and coupons that take real money off your rental, so you end up paying a higher price to earn those miles, so you have to do the math and be sure it's worth it).



We make no bones about the fact we have no love for Payless. Otherwise, to be honest, rental cars are basically a commodity these days, and other than a very small adjustment for company reputation (see the thread I linked above), there's ultimately not much reason to pay a significant sum more for one company above another. I enjoy the experience at National the most and Hertz nowadays (with Ultimate Choice) a close second and Avis a distant third, but I'm personally not willing to pay a ton more for that (some people are, though). Otherwise, Budget, Dollar, Thrifty, and Alamo are pretty much equivalent and Enterprise is similar (but has its own entire ecosystem of issues...).



Hertz's higher tiers give you a small bonus on earned points, and National's higher tiers reduce the number of credits needed to redeem an award, so those can be a little helpful. It's nowhere near the 100% bonuses that top-tier airline status members get.



We do try to tackle these kinds of issues in our blog, but admittedly with a huge (and growing) list of ideas to cover and a very small team of us generating that content, it's tough to cover everything, but hopefully you'll find some helpful information there. I do know The Points Guy and others have covered the topic of the value of rental car rewards points, too, which may be helpful in this process.

And of course, shameless plug for our system (see the links in our signature below)--if you're going to be renting a lot this year, you would probably do very well to run your queries through it. Since we search over 1,000 different coupon and discount codes and can find rates anywhere from 10-70% (or sometimes even more) lower than retail rates on other sites, you would probably end up saving a nice chunk of change over the next year. You're always welcome to reach out to us with any questions.

Safe travels!