Hertz Gold Plus Rewards is the flagship loyalty program from Hertz car rentals, and is our favorite rental car loyalty program.
There are three main benefits of getting Hertz Gold Plus rewards. They are skipping the counter, car upgrades, and transferring the points to travel partners.
Hertz has three tiers for their rewards program: Gold, Five Star, and President’s Circle. The Gold tier is free to join, but the Five Star and Presidents Circle tiers have some tough requirements.
Depending on your membership tier, you will get varying levels of rewards when it comes to earning points, free upgrades, and customer service.
Hertz Gold Plus Rewards – Gold Tier
If you’re on the basic Gold tier, then the only good benefit you’re going to get is skipping the main counter. This allows you to go to a dedicated gold rewards counter to pick up your vehicle, and can save you tons of time in a busy airport. Not bad for a free membership!
Hertz Gold Plus Rewards – Five Star Tier
If you’re in the Five Star tier, then you really start to get into the amazing benefits. To get into the Five Star tier, you will need to rent from Hertz twelve times or spend $2,400 in a twelve month period. This is no easy feat unless you have to travel frequently for work. However, if you’re a FounderCard member, then you will get this Five Star status for free!
The main additional benefit you’re getting in this tier compared with the simple Gold tier is the free car upgrade (based on availability).
With the Five Star tier Hertz you will get some sort of an upgrade over 75% of the time. We commonly get upgrades from a compact sedan such as a Nissan Sentra to a larger sedan such as a Chevy Impala. Of course, you’ll get a better upgrade from time-to-time like going from a Toyota Corolla to a Mercedes GLE – which we’ve personally experienced.
The best thing about this upgrade program is that they often give you the free upgrade online when you’re booking! This saves you the hassle of guessing whether you’ll be getting an upgrade when you pick up your car.
So how do you know if you have an upgrade when booking online? We’ve noticed this option come up in two ways on the Hertz site.
First, the site will give you an upgraded car option to select on the main screen that is the same price as the lower tier cars. For example, you might get a Jaguar XF showing up with the same price as a Honda Civic. Second, there is sometimes a banner on the booking page once you select your car asking if you want a free upgrade.
Make sure you look carefully while booking so that you don’t miss out!
Hertz Gold Plus Rewards – President’s Circle
This is the most exclusive tier of the Hertz Gold Plus Rewards program. To be in this tier, you will need to rent from Hertz twenty times or spend $4000 in a twelve month period.
The two main benefits you get with the President’s Circle tier on top of the Five Star tier benefits are the guaranteed car upgrade as well as the dedicated call center line.
The guaranteed car upgrade is especially useful at busy Hertz locations where they often neglect their Five Star tier members since most of their vehicles always get rented out. Hertz will have no choice but to upgrade you if you’re in the President’s Circle!
Transfer to Travel Partners
With both the Five Star and President’s Circle tiers you can transfer your Hertz points to their travel partners.
This benefit lets you transfer the Hertz points you would’ve received from your rental to other travel programs such as Marriott, American Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic among many others.
We absolutely love this perk because it allows us to consolidate our points into one program rather than splitting them across multiple ones. If you aren’t a part of any other rewards programs, then there is nothing wrong with keeping all of your hard-earned points with Hertz.
Since the Hertz Gold tier is free to join, we would highly recommend getting it just so you can skip the main counter. If you’re lucky enough to have the Five Star tier or President’s circle, then renting with Hertz is a no-brainer.
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