Hertz And United Cut A Big Mileage-Earning Opportunity

ByEdward Pizzarello
a plane flying in the sky

My favorite car rental promotion for the last few years has been a Hertz deal where you can earn as much as 2,750 United Mileage Plus miles for a one-day car rental.  I’ve written about it off and on over the past few years and I’ve used it frequently.  It’s really hard to beat that many miles for a one-day car rental.  Even National Car Rental’s popular One, Two, Free promotion isn’t as lucrative, IMO.

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Even though the promotion was recently extended until the end of July, 2018 One Mile at a Time is reporting this morning that Hertz and United are making a major changes to the terms of the deal.  Going forward you’ll need to have a minimum 2-day rental to earn maximum points as opposed to a one-day rental.

One-day rentals under the new promotion terms aren’t awful.  How many miles you earn will depend on your status:

  • 500 miles per rental for general members
  • 750 miles for credit card holders
  • 1,000 miles for Silver and Gold elites
  • 1,500 miles for Platinum, 1K and Global Services elites

That’s still probably the best return for a one-day rental in most cases.  National’s One, Two, Free is better if you have multiple one-day rentals in their promotion period.  Keep in mind that promotion is not available most of the year.

The Final Two Pennies

I don’t have a ton of one-day rentals, so this won’t hurt me too much.  As a United 1K elite, 2,750 miles for my normal 2 to 3-day car rental is a still a pretty darn good deal.  I rent 30-40 cars a year.  My normal plan is to credit enough rentals to the Hertz Gold Plus Rewards program so that I can afford to book one-way award rentals.  That’s a sweet spot in their program for me.  I’ve manage to save thousands of dollars a year on one-way rentals by keeping a pot of Hertz Gold Plus Rewards points lying around.  For everything else, I’ll continue to credit to the United offer.

I’m a little upset that Hertz appears to have changed this one midstream, previously promising that the old offer would be around until July 31, 2018.  That means some people may earn fewer miles in July than they were planning on.  I do expect Hertz and United will honor existing bookings.  I know folks who booked a lot of one day rentals to take advantage of this lucrative promotion to earn a lot of miles.  If you’re a one-day rental sort of person, this change is probably a sad one for you.

The post Hertz And United Cut A Big Mileage-Earning Opportunity was published first on Pizza in Motion

My goal in life is to fill my family’s passports with stamps, creating buckets of memories along the way. You’ll find me writing about realistic ways for normal people to travel the world, whether you’re on a budget or enjoy luxury. I also enjoy taking us on the occasional detour to explore the inner workings of the travel industry.

2 Comments

  1. I fall into the one day rental category. I miss the 5,000 points per rental, and now I’ll be discontinuing the program. It’s been good to me, though, so it’s tough to complain. I have 80+ rentals for this year already, nowhere near some others, but I think it’s time to call it quits on this one. It was a good run.

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