I've been traveling for 3+ years, have achieved elite status with AA, DL, UA, along with Hilton, Marriott, Starwood, and Priority Club. However, I have been unable to get anywhere with the car rental programs. I usually use Budget but now think someone has to be better. Any ideas?

Avis.

Btw... Avis & Budget are the same company, but, Budget is their "lower end" service, and Avis is their higher end service.

Avis has 4 levels of membership... Preferred (for anyone), First (12 rentals/year) are for most people. The 2 higher levels (Presidents, Chairmans) are by invite only I believe and have some pretty stringent requirements.

You can learn a lot more about their program in the Avis forum. The only other company out there I'd consider is Hertz, but for me, they are usually more expensive.

Better for what?

Do you want to earn airline miles you rentals? Or do you want to earn a free rental day (not including all sorts of taxes & fees, not valid for credit card insurance but also not including insurance of its own, etc)? I find the latter to be pretty worthless, because of the restrictions, at least at Avis.

Avis (at least in Preferred and First):

(a) Won't let you earn free rental nights in most cases if you choose to earn airline miles. You have to do several rentals in which you earn nothing to earn a single so-called free rental day.

(b) Unless you earn enough free rental days to do complete rentals, they're not particularly useful, because a 5-day rental typically costs the same as a 7-day rental, for example, and so making it a 5-day rental plus 2 free rental days instead a 7-day rental saves you absolutely nothing! I guess it works best if you sometimes have need of just one-day rentals.

(c) The free rental day certificates expire too quickly for me. I had two of them for half a year, and never had a one- or two-day rental that I needed during that time. So they expired without me being able to use them!

(d) I have a credit card that provides primary collision coverage, but only if I pay for the rental in full with that credit card. Obviously, a free rental day on which the credit card is only used to pay the taxes, fees, add-ons, etc isn't going to qualify for that coverage, so you'll have to rely on your own personal car insurance on those rentals.

(e) Meanwhile, Avis keeps having very lucrative bonus promos, like 3000 AA bonus miles for 3+ day rental or even 1000 AA bonus miles for 1+ day rental. And last year they had a 5000 DL bonus miles for I think 4+ day rental which went on for about half a year.

(f) Given that I always earn miles on every rental, I have not seen a single additional benefit to the "First" status level I earned last year. All the perks of First (for mileage earners) are the same as the perks of Preferred.

Now, if you can find a rental car company which has real perks for status (perhaps free GPS or whatever), let us now. They seem to max out at "one class upgrade, when available" which btw seems rarely available for those reserving higher classes of cars (though it usually works for me to reserve economy aka subcompact and actually get a compact).

The one good thing about Avis (besides the frequent hefty mileage bonuses) is that Preferred is free, and bypasses the counter (after your first rental, and except one counter visit needed each time you change your credit card). But I think you already have something extremely similar with Budget's FastBreak, no? (Hertz, OTOH, requires something like $50/year to be able to bypass the counter.)

What do you want to get out of the car rental program?

I have been using National for many years now after doing the hop-around with Budget, Avis, Hertz and Alamo (now part of National). I have to say that nothing beats the Emerald Aisle (free) and Emerald Aisle Executive status when it comes to the experience. Make a mid-size reservation and when you get to the lot, pick any car in the Aisle (or Executive Aisle, if applicable) and drive off. Usually low mileage, good quality full-size or premium cars. For me, I genuinely appreciate the ability to pick what I drive. Sure, we complain a lot about selections that often lack creativity (like an Aisle full of Impalas) -- nevertheless, I've gotten many great rides over the years.

When it comes to car rentals, I care less about the "rewards" and more about the experience. National wins.

I tend to use National most of the time unless Avis is having a crazy promotion. My goal is to usually earn free rental car days since I have so many other hotel points and airline miles.

I have always been happy with National. Getting cars off the Emerald Isle or Executive Selection (available with 25 rentals in a year) usually gets me a nice upgrade. I probably get an SUV 50% of the time � something I�m looking for. Other times, I�ve gotten large trucks, Ford Flex, and some other fun stuff. Of course, they have the regular Mid and Full sized car there as well.

I think I get a free anytime rental night (even available for some one ways) for every 5 credits. One credit is giving every 4 days. But this is with the top status. Also with the top status, when I use my free nights they are good on anything they offer at the location including Hummers and Large SUV�s � again something I like to drive as a rental.

Avis promos can be great. But earning the free rentals outside of a promo with them was limited to weekend rentals only. At least is was last year. I earned a few and never used them. From time to time though, you can get 5,000 Delta miles for a 4 day rental or 2,000 American miles for a 3 day rental. You need to keep an eye out for the best deal for you.

Hope this helps.

I've been Hertz Gold or Five Star for over 20 years now (for free), and for most of that time have only rented once every two or three years.

Can you please explain how it's free for you if you rent only once every two or three years? Per this page:

http://www.hertz.com/rentacar/emembe...?learnMore=all

it requires $60/year to be just Gold, or at least 10 rentals annually to be Five Star (which includes Gold). (Per another page you can click through, it says there's an alternate way of getting to Five Star, with $5000+ revenue.)

Are you sure it's not perhaps something you've been "grandfathered" into because of how it worked in the past (in a way someone just starting from Hertz couldn't do now)?

I'm in about the same boat. I've gotten reactivated to Gold everytime I've asked for it -- if I've ever slipped out of it. (Same, essentially, with Avis. Actually Avis puts me at the top, while Hertz invented new higher tiers. But the benefits at Hertz haven't decayed.) But usually I've found myself in, year after year. Just from personal experience, I've always thought that they'd take the $60 if they could get it, or invoke it anytime they choose, having told us all along that it costs that. Then again, maybe they know more about me because they have access to some database. As I recall, I was first conferred it gratis because I was a UA Premier Exec or 1K, which I was surprised they knew. (Come to think of it, it was waaay back when Mr. Ferris was doing the megamerger of UA, Westin and Hertz. Got comped into Westin's, then SPG's top tiers, too, all thanks to UA's database.)

I'm sure there's a broader perspective abroad in the land...

Now, as to the OP, in my opinion, the best car rewards program is the one that currently has the best partner promotion with an airline at any given time -- AND follows through with notifying the partner! There have been some doozies of promotions that were doozies of failures on this account.

Now that Hertz Gold is free, are they the best ?

Hertz offers some great redemptions like a sporty car for 4 day weekend (camaro, charger), also premium and luxury rentals for 3 or 4 day weekends or weeklong awards. Check out their page for the awards available. we got in Hertzgold for free during a promo and got 500 point bonus for signup, combined with wife's work paying for a few weeks last year we have 3000 points between us. you can combine points with your spouse for free and on one of our long weekend vacations we will use the 3000 for the 4 day weekend sporty car rental. I will just have to use my insurance and be careful with it, because paying extra for insurance taxes or fees wouldnt make it free, and free is what makes the Hertz reward golden in my book.

They are more expensive than some, and if it isn't a company rental we usually don't care about loyalty programs or air miles if we can get the same class car for $30+ cheaper from a cheaper company (which is almost always the case) we use carrentals.com because they dont require a creditcard to hold a res, and you can cancel and rebook with them if the price drops...last trip we went to vegas and used costco travel to beat everyones price (have to have costco card)....if it's on the company dime avis or hertz is the way to go...or whatever company has the best airline milage deal for you. If it's out of pocket car loyalty programs aren't worth the extra $$ shop it to death and rebook it if prices fall before your trip.

I've been Hertz Gold (free) for 20 years, it is the best service and I would rent here every time if the rates were competitive. More often than not I find they are when you use one of the many free day or $$$ off coupons available to Gold and AAA members. Even more valuable if you need the free car seats. And always less aggravation than any of the others, though Avis and National are usually tolerable.

The points seem easy to accumulate and use, there are frequent 2x and 3x bonuses. Maybe not the best ROR compared with airline bonuses, but a great default option if you don't have time to research the bonuses every time you rent.

National Car Rental has been my favorite so far. If you are a member, you come to their parking lot with reservation on hands, pick any car you want, and check out at the parking gate and go. No need to get in line at counters. Save time and cheaper than others sometimes

Additional info re National. You already qualify for Exec status if you have an Amex platinum. This status also gives you the usual one class upgrade but, the way it works is you reserve the higher class car and pay for the class below. This eliminates the upgrade "when available" wiggle room as your res is for the upgraded car class.