Hertz is in bankruptcy yet last year their stock was a favorite of Redditors on the Robinhood app. They’ve been sending customers to jail when they fail to mark rental agreements as extended, or fail to mark a car back into inventory and rent it again.
Now they’ve sent out a message seemingly at least as customer-friendly as everyone else: that they were pausing points expiration through December 31, 2021. But their fingers were crossed.
Then they sent out a second email – sorry – we are not pausing your points expiration, we are only doing that elite members of their program.
- They won’t extend points to all members during the global pandemic
- They won’t do it even after telling members that they would
We sincerely apologise for the communication emailed to you on 25 January advising that your loyalty points would be extended until December 31, 2021.
Unfortunately, the points extension does not apply to your membership tier.
As a Gold Plus Rewards® member your points balance remains unaltered, unless of course you choose to rent a Hertz vehicle and thus extend your loyalty points and the period you can redeem them.
To make matters even more ludicrous, the email from Hertz saying ‘no, we won’t extend your points’ goes on to pitch the customer on renting even more from them to earn elite status,
The good news is the information we gave you on how to update your elite status more quickly was correct and is worth repeating.
So much for George Clooney claiming in 2009’s Up In The Air that Hertz isn’t stingy with their miles.
They were once the business traveler go-to. Hertz is expected to file a bankruptcy re-organization plan this summer. Does it even matter?
Yea, that is crazy.
I do have to say, in fairness, and I’m a very frequent car renter across many brands in the Western part of the US, that the Hertz experience for me, remains unchanged. Other than the usual volatile change in pricing from day to day, week to week, that is reflective of the entire car rental industry, I really have not noticed much difference. I’m not “loyal” to Hertz, but certainly have no hesitency in utilizing their services when pricing at a particular nearby location offer the availability…
They’re also losing corporate accounts to other companies left and right. My firm just dropped Hertz and picked up National. .
I lost 25,000 points due to expiration just recently. In my state non-essentialtravel is still strongly discouraged, but Hertz took away my points for not driving a few hours to the closest location to rent a car I don’t need. I can assure you that my company and employees will never be renting from them or their subsidiaries again.
Who collects Hertz points?
Given the spelling of “apologise,” I wonder who precisely is composing and sending the email. Presumably not someone at their Florida corporate office (or anyone in the United States for that matter). The spelling suggests someone in Europe or perhaps even an outsourced team in India.
Hertz needs to partner again with OJ Simpson. Together they can search for the real killer of customer loyalty.
They did something similar in spring/summer 2020 sending an email with a button or link that returned a message indicating that points expiration would be extended, but I saw posts on FlyerTalk indicating that they were expiring points. I contacted them via email and they told me points would expire in accordance with their usual policy. To preserve most of my points, I reserved a few hours local rental in September (only about 10 mi from house) with points, but when I went there to complete my rental, Hertz was not even operating there (it was a hotel location). I called the other local office that the hotel staff gave me and explained what I was doing and why, and the staff member was able to complete my rental without my going there, but yeah, Hertz is a dumpster fire.
Hertz, even if it survives, will have hard time ever earning my business again. There are other rental companies I can and will use to the exclusion of Hertz.
National is the way to go…best rates and best cars.
I rented a car Sept 18 2020 in tijuana mexico airport. But because I had problem with my card I cancelled the rental. I was told I would be refunded in 24 hours. Still waiting. Today is Feb 7 2021
I spent 800 dollars for a car rental and paid for it myself.because my car was having work done on it they said to just call after the rental was completed and they would post miles to the account
After rental they changed their mind and said I am ineligible to earn miles or points
Next time just choose the cheapest rate.Lesson learned.Hertz Sucks
Never again
Most rental car companies are a mess. It’s also hard to get what you would consider the best deal available. I want to like Hertz as they are the only company that seems comparable to National on ease of car rentals (get in and go, bypass the counter) but they just seem so disorganized. Rental car companies that charge you a fee to credit the rental towards airline programs is just one of many un-customer friendly practices.
As far as bankruptcy, I think most travel-related companies will be doing strategic bankruptcy to recover from the impact of Covid. It’s all about timing at this point.
If you are a corporate traveler, you should just switch to National. It’s a no-brainer, since their service is so much better.
I haven’t gotten any of these emails.
Customer service in UK also knows nothing about such an extension.
I suppose this is only for US members?
Can anybody confirm?
I used to be loyal to Hertz by default and didn’t even shop the competition unless the price was truly outrageous (sometimes would happen in Europe). When our corporate account switched to Avis, I even ignored it and kept renting Hertz due to some poor experiences with Avis. However, after several serious customer service failures, I’ve switched to National and haven’t looked back. National is what Hertz used to be. The only downside is that they don’t have the same premium airport locations (Hertz always seems to be front and center at airports, perhaps reflecting their prior glory).
We can debate airlines and FF programs all day long, but I don’t know how anybody who rents cars with any frequently wouldn’t rent with National. To me there’s just no comparison.
@Jerry I 100% agree…National is by far the best at present.
I let my Hertz points expire several years ago and haven’t looked back. There’s something very liberating about not being tied to a loyalty program.
My take is that Hertz is the only car rental company you can earn points through taking surveys on E-rewards. I’ve lost track of the number of week-long rentals I’ve gotten using points, having to only pay the taxes. I will be hopefully going to Hawaii this Aug./Sept. for about 3 weeks and my car rental is covered using points through Hertz for the whole time. There were also a couple of times I got super rates in Hawaii for a fully loaded SUV that I couldn’t pass up on. It was around $250 all-in both times for prepaying. I had one totaled in a wreck on Kauai(head-on collision, wasn’t my fault) and when I finally got back to the Hertz rental place, they promptly gave me another SUV, the same make and model just a different color so I am overall pleased with the company and loyalty program. I only wish you could use their points worldwide; there are few countries internationally that will take the points.
Just got a great rate for $100/week with Hertz in Phoenix. It was a Priceline purchase, but they let me apply my gold # to the rental at the counter. Upgraded me from lowest economy to a full size SUV! But, ya, I will be warry if I need to extend the rental. This was an off airport rental.