Free days soon usable internationally?
 

Good evening, everybody.

I just called the Emerald line to book a reservation for a car in Italy next week, and asked when I'd finally be able to use free rental days in Europe, and the rep stunned me by saying September 1st. She couldn't book it in to my reservation right now, but suggested I call after September 1 or work with the local station to get the days applied.

Did anybody else know about this? I don't recall seeing it in a newsletter or Emerald Club email.

Yay!:cool:

US and Canada only as far as I've known. Perhaps the representative thought you were asking about 1-2-Free which starts around 9/1 (end of August)?

The representative was quite clear in saying that I could redeem from my stockpile of free days on my 10-day rental out of FCO. Hoping she wasn't mis-informed, as that would be quite a nice win.

I'll report back next month when I'm back. Hopefully this marks a new expansion of the program.

Also - would you happen to know if I can redeem Enterprise $100 coupon vouchers (converted from Amex MR points) on a National booking served by Enterprise? Seems Amex doesn't have National as a redemption offering anymore (only Enterprise, Hertz, and Avis). Which does seem rather foolish given that Amex offers Exec status at National with the Platinum card, but...:rolleyes:

Don't believe so, same company but seperate booking system. You would have to make an Enterprise booking to redeem any Enterprise coupon. Same applies for National.

Well, but landeej is talking about a National reservation "served by Enterprise," meaning booked through National but actually delivered at an Enterprise location. My guess is that reservation may well be in the Enterprise system.

My recommendation would be to call the local station itself and ask them.

Can anyone confirm whether or not this actually happened? Tried a mock reservation in Verona and doesn't seem to accept free days still.

Hi - I'm sorry for not updating this thread.

NCLSEA - long story short, no. LocAuto were an absolute mess picking up in late August, and when I called back on Sep 1 to try to apply free days to the remainder of my booking, I was told that the prior rep had been severely misinformed. Thereafter followed over two dozen email and phone exchanges, which I will summarize below.

National *will* allow you to redeem free days as of mid-September in the UK, Ireland, France, and Germany. This is, of course, in addition to the old list of Canada, Aruba, Belize, the Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Curacao, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Tortola, and Trinidad & Tobago.

The caveat here is that you must call National to book for you across into Enterprise's system, and they don't have full visibility to local inventory. I was in München in late September, was told by National that they had no cars (and would not for a week), picked up a Hertz vehicle, and happened to stop by the Enterprise counter on my way to pick up my Hertz rental. The manager looked shocked and said he could put me into a car right there (I ended up going back the next day and got a Jag XF from him). National customer service subsequently confirmed via email that their phone agents do not have all inventory visibility to Enterprise's stations.

Now - going back to LocAuto in Italy. If Rome is any indicator (and I am a fluent Italian speaker) - do not expect to be treated the way you would at any other National location. Extra drivers are charged at 50EUR per day - elite status doesn't matter, nor does any corporate rate code. There is no computer connection - you will and must stand in line before they take your license information and a carbon paper imprint of your credit card. They pulled a massive bait-and-switch with the car level I reserved, but that car thankfully had a mechanical fault the first day of rental and after arguing they gave me a much improved replacement vehicle.

Good luck. Hope this helped.

Free days soon usable internationally?
 

Interesting. Was able to book free day at DUS into a BMW 3er using iOS app. However Audi A6 does not show even thought I'm executive elite.

I'm surprised they haven't updated the T&Cs.

National in Europe was sold off from Europcar to another group recently (Per what someone told me at Geneva airport)

Looks like the website now allows web free day bookings to most of the countries landeej mentioned above. This is a nice improvement to the Emerald Club.

Kind of surprising there hasn't been any significant announcement of this new benefit, no?

Now I can stop letting 7+ free days a year expire!

Free days soon usable internationally?
 

Tried booking out of Florence with standard free days on the website and I get a "coupon not valid" error.

Unfortunately, Italian rentals are handled by Locauto, and free days aren't usable there. France, Germany, Ireland, and the UK (in addition to the Caribbean locations I listed upthread). Just used a couple of free days I was losing in the UK, and they went off without a hitch.

Anyone notice that in the UK there are limited eligible Enterprise locations? I'm in Sheffield and there is an Enterprise location quite near, but it doesn't show up on the list of locations on National.com when searching for UK locations. Nearest is Leeds or Manchester airports.