The Ultimate Guide to Hertz Gold Plus Rewards

Hertz has one of the most comprehensive car rental loyalty programs – Gold Plus Rewards. Along with an in-house points system, it also has a few status levels, plenty of redemption options and multiple airline partners. It’s also possible to earn frequent flyer points on your booking instead of Hertz rewards points. Our guide will help you decide what points or miles to earn on your next car rental with Hertz.

The basics of Hertz Gold Plus Rewards

The more you hire with Hertz, the greater your status level in the program. But if you’re a high-flying member with Velocity Gold or Platinum status, you can also enjoy elite Hertz status for at least a year.

1. Gold Status

It’s free to sign up for a Hertz Gold Plus Rewards account, and you automatically start at the base-level Gold status. Doing so grants you a few useful perks:

• Ultimate Choice, where you pick any available car in the lot, within your membership tier level. This could mean you get a better car than what you booked.
• Earn 1 point per US$1 spent.
• Ability to use points for rentals and rewards.
• Free additional driver (spouse or partner in the US and other participating regions only).
• After seven rentals, enjoy Five Star status for a day.

2. Five Star Status

After 10 rentals or US$2,000 in equivalent spend, you’ll reach Hertz Five Star status. In addition to the Gold benefits, you also get:

• Wider selection of Ultimate Choice vehicles.
• Earn 1.25 points per US$1 spent.
• After fifteen rentals, enjoy President’s Circle status for a day.
• Car upgrades as available.

3. President’s Circle Status

After 15 rentals or US$3,000 in equivalent spending, you’ll reach Hertz President’s Circle status. In addition (or instead of) the Five Star benefits, you also enjoy:

• Widest selection of Ultimate Choice vehicles.
• Earn 1.5 points per US$1 spent.
• Guaranteed car upgrades.
• Dedicated Hertz Rewards line.

There is also an invite-only Hertz Platinum status, but no information about that tier is published on Hertz’s website.

Getting Hertz elite status for free

Velocity Gold and Platinum members can also nominate a one-off match to Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Five Star or President’s Circle status respectively, which would help with getting upgrades and better service when renting with Hertz. The American Express Platinum Card also offers complimentary Five Star status for as long as you hold the charge card.

Using Hertz Gold Plus Rewards points

Hertz rewards points can be redeemed for car hire. It’s hard to put a value on Hertz points as it depends on how much cash you’re saving by redeeming points. It’s also crucial to note that only the base rate is covered by points. You still need to pay for all the fees and surcharges.

Here are some of the rates required for a Standard Reward in Australia, which is limited in capacity compared to AnyDay Rewards. The whole list is available through the link above.

Specialty vehicles include Premium, People Mover, Prestige, Adrenaline & Dream (excluding the Audi R8).

Hertz Rewards Points don’t expire as long as you earn or redeem points with eligible activities at least once every 24 months.

Earning frequent flyer points instead of Hertz Rewards Points

Hertz has arrangements with many airlines worldwide to earn frequent flyer points on your rentals instead of Hertz Points. We’ll cover a few of the major airlines below.

Virgin Australia

Velocity members can earn bonus Velocity points on Hertz rentals. Within Australia and New Zealand, that starts at 4 points per AUD $1 spent, with tier bonuses of up to 6 points per dollar for Platinum frequent flyers. Everywhere else, a flat rate of 800 Velocity Points to 1,600 Velocity Points is offered per booking, which could be a great deal if you had multiple cheap and short car rentals.

Cathay Pacific

Asia Miles and Marco Polo Club members of any tier can clock up to 500 Asia Miles on eligible leisure rentals outside of Asia. Leisure rentals within Asia, as well as work/government rate rentals worldwide, earn 250 Asia Miles.

Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer and PPS Club members can similarly earn 500 KrisFlyer miles on eligible leisure rentals outside of Asia. Leisure rentals within Asia, as well as work/government rate rentals worldwide, earn 250 KrisFlyer miles.

Members can also earn 2 KrisFlyer miles per 1 USD spent on eligible chauffeur-drive services through Hertz in Asia, including airport pickups and half/full-day chauffeur services.

This is a past offer for earning KrisFlyer miles with Hertz. Look out for future ones!

Emirates Skywards

Similar to Velocity, Emirates Skywards offers members miles per dollar spent on Hertz bookings. These rates apply to eligible rentals worldwide. While the earn rates used to range from 2-3.5 miles per dollar, depending on status, you’ll now earn a flat 5 Skywards miles per US$1 spent.

Alaska Airlines

Another favourite of Point Hacks readers, the ever-versatile Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan earns miles with Hertz rentals.

Bookings of 1-4 days will earn 50 miles per rental day (up to 200 miles maximum). Rentals of 5 days and more earn a flat 500 miles in total, although this can be as high as 2,000 miles when there is a 4x miles promotion. However, a ‘Frequent Flyer Surcharge’ of US$0.75 per day (up to US$5.25 per rental) now applies if you want to earn miles.

Comparing Hertz Rewards Points and frequent flyer points

We’ll compare the approximate value of points or miles earned in two scenarios – a cheap AU$78 one-day hire and a longer AU$1,068 seven-day hire, both with or without top-tier status.

We understand that everyone values points differently. For this exercise, we rely on our baseline values for airline points and miles, and a nominal value of 14.3 cents per Hertz point (based on 700 points required to redeem a full-size vehicle worth $110/day in Sydney).

Scenario 1: AU$117 (US$75) one-day hire in Australia

Scenario 2: AU$1,245 (US$800) seven-day hire in Australia

*Top tier status assumes Hertz President’s Circle, Velocity Platinum or Skywards Platinum.

Remember, these are based on normal earning rates. When there’s a promotion to earn bonus points or miles with a particular program, the numbers may change and you could get a better deal elsewhere.

• For shorter and lower-cost bookings, you may want to credit to a frequent flyer program that has a flat rate, such as Asia Miles or Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer. These both earn 500 miles for rentals outside of Asia (e.g. in Australia), regardless of the cost. Earning Hertz points is a solid option as well – as long as you think you’ll actually earn enough points to redeem for a free rental (minimum 700 points).

• For longer and more expensive bookings, it’s best to consider a ‘points per dollar spent’ model. Want to earn airline points or miles? Velocity Frequent Flyer, and to a lesser extent, Emirates Skywayrds, are both strong contenders. But Hertz’s own Gold Plus Rewards comes out on top, especially if you’re spending more than US$700 a booking.

Summing Up

Hertz points are quite valuable on a per-point basis, particularly if you’re angling for free rentals. But for people who infrequently rent cars, having some frequent flyer points added to your existing balance may be better than earning a small number of Hertz Rewards points in yet another loyalty program.

Having said that, we appreciate that Hertz has put a lot of effort into creating its own in-house ‘frequent drivers’ program. For Australian readers looking for airline points or miles, the tie-up between Hertz and Velocity (Virgin Australia) is probably your best bet, unless you’d rather earn Skywards miles with Emirates. For shorter bookings, Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific) and KrisFlyer (Singapore Airlines) are worth considering as well.

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