Explanation of National Please?
 

I'm a Hertz Prez Circle and got compted to National Executive Elite. I understand the CDP's (affiliations) and PC (coupons) at Hertz. I cannot for the life of me understand the National rental page with all the spaces for Contract ID, Membership ID, Rate/Product Code and up to 3 coupons. To make it worse I don't understand where the discounts mentioned in threads here go- which are they?

I know this seems dumb, and I feel dumb. But I'll bet a lot of folks like me who are trying to transition from Hertz to National (I'd use both) are just as confused. No matter how I try and put these discounts in the right slots on the form I'm getting no where near the low rate I get from Hertz. They must be competitive so it must be I'm doing this wrong.

I felt the same way when I was trying to price out a rental from Hertz!

Welcome to National! Here's a little explanation of the booking page:

Contract ID
Equivalent of Hertz CDP. At National this is usually a seven-digit number. The stock Emerald Club Contract ID is 5007125. This usually caps the rate on a regular car at ~ $50/day, or if the rate is lower it'll give you a 10-15% discount off the lowest rate (usually, but not always). Have a read through the Contract ID thread and try several different ones until you find one that works for you. Be warned though that some Contract ID's are restricted to certain affiliations and National does check from time to time. Also some Contract ID's include the Loss Damage Waiver, most of us do not recommend using these under any circumstances in case you do get in an accident.

Membership ID
Rarely used. I think some Contract ID's require a Membership ID so as to prevent fraud.

Rate Code
Also rarely used. Equivalent of the Hertz "RQ" field. "EWEB" used to be a decent one for weekend rates but I'm not sure if it's active anymore. The rate code field is only really useful is you have to change a reservation to ensure the rate stays the same if you only changing, say, the pickup time by a few hours.

Coupon ID
Equivalent to Hertz PC numbers. This is where you get free upgrades, $$$ off, etc. Many of the most useful coupons are right on the National website, but there are others listed on this site and elsewhere. The reason there are three of them is that National does allow some coupons to be stacked, unlike most rental agencies. Others might be able to chime in about stacking coupons as I've rarely done it myself.

Hope this helps!

Coupons - only one is allowed per rental except when redeeming special promo awards that are generated as coupon codes 1-2-free promo usually.