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One of the feel-good milestones of travel is achieving elite status within a loyalty program. The recognition that we are a valued client and the perks, upgrades, discounts, and extra points elite status affords us can be a huge incentive. It's one of the most significant driving forces behind loyalty programs.
What feels even better is when we can attain elite status without needing to be a loyal customer — almost like having your cake and eating it, too! At this time, car rental benefits might be an even better bonus than airline or hotel benefits, considering the direction the travel industry is headed.
Recently, we updated our posts on the best methods for acquiring hotel status for free and how to get elite status with a frequent flyer program without flying. Now, let's show you how to achieve elite status within rental car rewards programs without the required number of paid rentals.
Benefits of Rental Car Elite Status
Rental car rewards programs generally don't hold the same aspirational value or appeal as their hotel and airline counterparts. However, the idea of coming off a long flight, skipping the lines at the car rental counter, and scoring a free upgrade to a more luxurious vehicle is certainly enticing.
The benefits of attaining elite status with a car rental company can include:
- Going straight to the car without waiting in line at pick-up
- Free upgrades to a better vehicle
- Guaranteed availability
- Less paid days to receive free rentals
- Discounted rentals
- Increased points earning on rentals
- Having the car delivered to you on arrival
- Free second driver (typically limited to a spouse or domestic partner)
We won’t be covering every car rental rewards program in this post. Instead, we are focusing on the ones we feel provide the best value with an easily-attainable path to elite status.
Earning Car Rental Elite Status as a Credit Card Benefit
American Express Platinum Cards
Both The Business Platinum Card® from American Express and The Platinum Card® from American Express offer elite status with Avis, Hertz, and National Car Rental, in addition to a huge array of other travel benefits. Make sure to enroll to get the following benefits:
- Avis Preferred: Get Preferred Plus status. Skip the line and paperwork and go straight to your car. Plus, get a complimentary upgrade when available. Use AWD discount code A756900 to receive discounts on your rental.
- Hertz Gold Plus Rewards: Get Hertz President's Circle status. Bypass the counter, pick your car, and go. Plus, get an extra driver for free. Use the Amex Corporate Discount Code (CDP) 211762 to save on your rental, receive a four-hour grace period on returns within the U.S., and get a one-car-class upgrade (when available).
- National Car Rental Emerald Club Executive: Get Executive tier status. Choose your car and receive automatic upgrades when renting at least a full-size car. Plus, earn a complimentary rental day after six qualifying rentals.
Enrollment is required for select Amex benefits.
Visa Infinite cards
If you're a cardholder of one of the Visa Infinite cards, you'll be granted elite status in several programs as well. These include:
- Avis Preferred: Get Preferred Plus status. Save up to 30% off rentals when using promo code “S107100.”
- National Car Rental Emerald Club: Get Executive membership. Choose your car, guaranteed upgrades, 25% discount on rentals using promo code “5030849”, and fast-tracked rewards earning.
Visa Infinite cards used to come with Hertz Gold Plus Rewards status. Now, you'll get certain benefits — like upgrades and bonus points — when using the Visa Infinite CDP #2150933 at booking.
Similarly, you can get up to a 30% (minimum of 10%) discount when booking rental cars through Silvercar. You must use your Visa Infinite card to pay for the rental. You can also try using the promo code “VISAINF20” at checkout.
Examples of eligible Visa Infinite cards include:
- Chase Sapphire Reserve®
- United Club℠ Infinite Card
- U.S. Bank Altitude™ Reserve Visa Infinite® Card
- Crystal® Visa Infinite® Credit Card
- Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
Select United credit cards
United cardholders could get Hertz President's Circle elite status until December 2021. Now, United has ditched Hertz to partner with Avis instead, offering cardholders Avis President’s Club status.
The following four United credit cards provide top-tier Avis President's Club elite status:
- United Club℠ Infinite Card
- United℠ Presidential Plus℠ Card
- United Club℠ Business Card
- United℠ Presidential Plus℠ Business Card
Avis President's Club grants complimentary upgrades when available, 25%–50% points earning bonus, and exclusive monthly email offers.
In addition, those with United Premier Platinum and Premier 1K status also get Avis President's Club status. More on that in the section below.
Capital One Venture X
Lastly, the Capital One Venture X offers several top-tier car rental elite statuses:
- Hertz President's Circle status if you enroll through a special link for cardholders (elevated status is good through December 31, 2024)
- As the Capital One Venture X is also a Visa Infinite card, cardholders will also get National Executive Status and Avis Preferred Plus, as covered above.
Credit card travel protections
Elite status is not the only way you can save on car rentals using credit cards. A variety of cards offer primary rental insurance as a benefit. Eligible cards include the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card. See our post on the Sapphire Preferred Auto Rental CDW for details.
Related: Best Credit Cards for Rental Car Insurance
Get Rental Car Elite Status Through Airline Elite Status
Delta Medallion
Hertz: Delta has a partnership with Hertz. Silver and Gold Medallion members receive Five Star status in Hertz Gold Plus Rewards. Platinum Medallion and Diamond Medallion members receive Hertz President's Circle status. To reserve a car and earn miles, book here using Delta discount number 165385.
Sixt: Delta also partners with Sixt. SkyMiles members will receive 500 miles for every rental with Sixt worldwide. Plus, Medallion elites can match their status to Sixt. SkyMiles Silver Medallion members get Gold Sixt status, while SkyMiles Gold, Platinum & Diamond Medallion members get Platinum Sixt status.
United Premier
United MileagePlus and Avis have a partnership agreement that offers MileagePlus Premier members the following levels of elite status:
- Premier Silver and Premier Gold members will receive Avis Preferred Plus status.
- MileagePlus members with Premier Platinum and Premier 1K status will receive Avis President's Club status.
Quoting the MileagePlus Avis Worldwide Discount Code A791500 and your MileagePlus number at the time of booking will save you up to 35% on each qualifying rental — in addition to earning up to 1,250 award miles per rental.
Marriott Bonvoy
Hertz and Marriott also have teamed up, although this partnership isn't as good as it used to be. Marriott Rewards and SPG elite members used to qualify for up to President's Circle elite status with Hertz. Members can earn bonus Bonvoy points with Hertz rentals, and there's also a status match available.
After disappearing for some time, there is once again a status match from Marriott Bonvoy Elite status levels to Hertz Elite status. Marriott Bonvoy members can get either a fast track to Five Star, full Five Star, or President's Circle status:
- Bonvoy members with Platinum Elite status can get Hertz Five Star after only seven rentals instead of 10.
- Titanium Elite status matches to Hertz Five Star.
- Ambassador Elite status matches to Hertz President's Circle.
Five Star status achieved through Platinum Elite status will be valid for 12 months. Five Star or President's Circle status matched from Titanium or Ambassador Elite will be good as long as the Bonvoy status is maintained.
Check out our full article on how to status match between Marriott and Hertz.
Earning Car Rental Elite Status via Status Matches
Once you have elite status with any of the major rental car agencies, one of the easiest ways to achieve it with another program is to apply for a status match. Both National and Hertz have a formalized status match process that can be found via the links below.
Statusmatcher.com also has plenty of data points on other status match opportunities. For example, while Sixt doesn’t have a formal status match program, StatusMatcher has numerous confirmed status matches for Sixt from other car rental, hotel, and airline rewards programs. Ditto with Avis. In fact, we even have a guide to status matching with Avis.
Final Thoughts
Earning elite status with car rental rewards programs can provide members with upgraded vehicles, preferential treatment, priority access at the reservations desk, discounts on rentals, and more. And although rental car elite status doesn’t hold the same appeal as an upgrade to a suite at The Ritz, it certainly can improve the experience of renting a car.
Do you have any tips or tricks we’ve missed for getting elite status with rental car rewards programs? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
I have Hertz Presendential status via AdventureX card. The prices at Hertz are almost double what you can get at other car rental agencies though.
having all of this information in one place is definitely convenient. The biggest problem I have had with rental cars lately is just the availability! Seems like there is a lot more demand and a lot less cars than before all of this COVID stuff.
I’m not sure about more demand, but there’s definitely less cars. When enormous revenue dried up during the pandemic, they literally had to sell portions of their fleets to surivive. Now, it’s a matter of building them back up.
Still not really comfortable renting a car just yet. Either way, I still prefer credit my earnings to airline or hotels miles and points instead.
Unfortunate that some of the more “value oriented” car rental companies (Alamo, Budget, Thrifty, etc) aren’t on the list here….looks like a missed opportunity for some of the other Frequent Flyer programs (talking to you AAdvantage…..) to pick up some new partners and offer some elite benefits such as free upgrades when the cars are available.
Quote “ The Amex Platinum and its partner in points, the Business Platinum Card, are always sitting at the top of rewards card favorites although, in this case, the World Elite MasterCard family have them beat.”
So I see the Amex and Visa cards in the post. I did not see Which cards in the post are World Elite MasterCards? Thank you.
Ah sorry about the confusion there. I removed that sentence, as it’s based on old info. The Citi Prestige (a World Elite MC that’s no longer available to new cardholders) used to have solid rental car elite status perks. And, it seemed that all World Elite MC cards had rental car elite status perks for a while. However, we couldn’t confirm either are still available. So, we removed the World Elite section of this post.
Thank you for clarifying.
Nice that chase does the visa infinite for the sapphire series but would be great to add more perks!
I know that National will match status from Hertz and vice versa. So if i ask National to match Hertz president circle. Do I still keep president circle status with Hertz or I lose it?
Hope you will understand what I trying to say.
Hi! You won’t lose your status by having another company match. National is trying to steal your business away from Hertz when they match your status. This shouldn’t have any effect on your Hertz status.
I never tried that and not even thought about it. Will try it for sure to check either it is working or not.
I use to be a ‘Paid’ Platinum with Hertz and Hertz discontinued the program and moved me to the President’s Circle which isn’t working out well. Anything new you are aware of that would work to get me back into the Hertz Platinum Program?? I am a Marriott Platinum Elite, Delta Diamond, Amex Delta Reserve card…? Any thoughts would be appreciated….
I don’t know of any way to get there other than excessive spending with Hertz.
Dan,
Best Western Elite will match any other status you have almost anywhere. I have SPG Gold Status from a Credit Card, matched to Marriott Gold. Take a look at statusmatcher.com. Best Western does not even require proof of status if you call them, I am not encouraging untruthfulness just stating a fact. I did it via a web form. I believe National will also match to many other status programs. You can then use that to match the other players.
Hi John!
How did you get Best Western Diamond Select status without never staying?
You can also match elite hotel statuses to Rental Car Status. I matched Best Western Diamond Select to Sixt Platinum, having never stayed at BW or rented a car with Sixt, I wanted free second driver for upcoming Sixt rentals.
You say “United MileagePlus and Hertz have a reciprocal agreement”, but reciprocal typically means it works in both directions; it looks like this is one-way recognition, UA–>Hertz, I can’t get UA status by having Hertz PC…
Excellent point, I’ve updated the language to reflect that it is a partnership and not reciprocal agreement.
Contacted MC Elite Travel Services twice in attempt to get Sixt status upgraded from Gold to Platinum. Mastercard reps acknowledge that they are currently having issues with Sixt contract. MC Travel Services says that Sixt Platinum status is still a benefit but Sixt refuses to upgrade status.
Wow; first time I’ve heard this. I’d continue to push.
I just git the chase sapphire preferred. Can I get the avis/national/silvercar status in my husbands name instead of mine as he is our designated renter/driver? If not – can we still make him the driver once we pick up the car (or change the driver to him after the rental has been booked)?
Interesting. I did not know you can get rental car status with these credit cards. Another thing to keep in mind when opening up a new credit card.
This is really helpful – we just got a World Elite MasterCard. Though I agree, I would not have signed up for the card just for the rental car company elite status, it sure is a nice additional benefit. I’ll have to call to make sure we get signed up before our next trip. Thanks for doing the research!
Is the rental status through the World Elite MasterCard still available? I know it’s only a few weeks since this was posted, but the links were all broken a few days ago, and now none of them even show up on the benefits page.
It is still available. I’ve updated the links after double-checking with MasterCard as yes, the pages have changed.
National: http://nationalcar.com/offer/mastercardelite
Sixt: http://sixt.com/cwt-platinum
Thanks, Howie!
Do you keep the rental statuses as long as the card is open?
Yes.
This looks interesting, i am going to investigate further! Great article.
Sometimes makes sense having two cards one private and one for business so to have two profiles. Some choices, such as the level of insurance, are stored in your profile and usually cannot be changed.
Thanks a lot for this article, very interesting to read this!
I was thinking about renting my first car during a trip with Hertz.
The reliability of certain rental benefits is sometime questionable when overseas. Companies like Hertz may not always honor rewards, though earning seems not to be affected. Have been dealing with occasional issues in Germany for the past 2 years.
How does this work? I have a rental with National coming up but I cannot figure out how to get status in their Emerald Club
It depends on the credit card product that you have. The Guide to benefits of any card will explain the process to obtain elite status with any specific program. Calling the number on the back of your card will get you to someone to explain it for your specific card product.
Slim pickings with Canadian credit cards to qualify for car rental elite status.
Good to know!
I used to try to collect the points with Hertz and others but I finally gave up. Just when I almost had enough for a day free with Hertz, enough of my points expired that I lost the opportunity. This was in spite of having some recent activity. When I called they said the points I earned did not extend the life because of some technicality that I did not know of or find on the Hertz website. This was also in spite of being a Chase United Presidential Plus credit card holder. Bummer
sixt has been very good about upgrades
Good news but i don’t know if it works in the other way. If you are Hertz president circle member did you become Delta Platinium ?
No, you do not.
Good to know! Thanks also for including the link for statusmatcher.com. We found a couple of useful things on there as well.
Most folks probably assumed this, but just as a reminder, the Chase Sapphire Reserve also includes rental status.
Interesting read but I never really rent cars except on the occasional trip. Walking, public transport and Uber are my preferred choices intuit order.
Good to know there’s rental car status with these cards.
Many large firms have negotiated free elite status for their employees, so check with your travel department.
Excellent tip!
Yes. I got free elite status for Hertz and National using my corporate account numbers.
if I close the credit card do still keep the status ? thanks
Based on the experience of others I’ve received with Hertz and National, Yes. That said, I would say YMMV
though the title suggest “free” status, it is connected to a credit card ?
Yes, but you’re certainly not paying for the card to solely get rental car service — I really see it as free given the value otherwise associated with any of these cards — some of which have no annual fees.
Hey Panka, some of the credit cards are giving free status, for example, having any CC that carries the World Elite Mastercard branding will get you status with the rental car programs associated. There are plenty of NO ANNUAL FEE credit cards out there in the world that carry the World Elite Mastercard benefits. So even though the status is associated with a CC, it is free as getting a credit card with NO ANNUAL FEE is incredibly beneficial to your own credit score and to your future travel plans. If you regard CCs negatively in your mind, you’re missing out on so many valuable travel and life benefits. Of course, if anyone has had trouble managing credit in the past then yes, avoiding CCs in order to stay out of trouble is preferable.
This does sound intriguing! How do you guys keep track of all this?! You poor things reading through all the fine print. I love the idea of skipping lines and getting free upgrades on cars. Never did I realize that there was no guarantee that they would have a car for me. Found out the hard way that I still had to pay to a higher car when the type I ordered wasn’t there! Was not happy! Now I know and am very careful when I go to certain cities. This would really be helpful to me! Thank you!