While there was much concern about how airlines and hotel chains were going to take care of their loyal customers during the travel slowdown, not much attention had been paid to rental car programs.
Back in May, Hertz extended all member status through January 2022 and required you to click a link in an email to extend points in the program through the end of 2020. In comparison, National Car Rental had only extended loyalty benefits until the end of 2020.
It’s obvious to all travel companies that business travel isn’t recovering as quickly as was originally expected. As a response to this reality, National has announced that loyalty benefits will be extended until the end of 2021.
Elite status will be extended. Current Executive and Executive Elite members with tier set to expire on February 28, 2021 will receive a one-year extension and keep their status through February 28, 2022.
Qualifying rentals and rental days will roll over. If you achieve elite status in 2020, any paid rentals or paid rental days you have beyond your tier qualification will roll over to 2021 to give you a head start on earning toward elite status for 2022. Only the method in which you achieved elite status — either paid rentals or paid rental days — will roll over. For example: If you have 15 paid rentals this calendar year, and 12 paid rentals qualify you for Executive status, the remaining 3 rentals will roll over to 2021 and count toward elite qualification for the 2022 calendar year. If you don’t achieve elite status in 2020, all your paid rentals and paid rental days will roll over to 2021 and count toward elite qualification in 2022.
Unlike Hertz, National will also extend all free rental days earned in the Emerald Club program through the end of 2021.
We’re giving members more time to use their hard-earned rewards by extending the expiration date of program free days that were set to expire December 31, 2020 to December 31, 2021. You will see this reflected in your account in the next 6 weeks.
In May, I said that we’d be entering a world of rolling point and loyalty extensions. While some companies got out in front and extended through 2021, others only committed to a few months or the end of the year. Now that it’s mid-October with no sign of travel coming back to previous levels anytime soon, the companies who dragged their feet with extensions are having to play catch up.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 15,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
