How you can redeem points and miles for car rentals

2 weeks ago 7

If your holiday plans include renting a car, listen up.

From credit card discounts to negotiated rates for groups and companies, it's no secret that there are many ways to avoid paying full price for a rental car. You can even get rental days for free using points and miles. In this guide, we'll highlight how you can redeem rewards for your next car rental and save some serious cash.

Using rental car rewards

Most major rental car companies have loyalty programs that let you earn and redeem points for car rentals. Here's a quick overview of what you should know about the most popular rental car rewards programs.

Avis Preferred: Avis Preferred members earn 1 point per dollar spent on rentals and at least 100 points per booking. You'll need at least 700 points for a free car rental with a base rate of up to $50, and there are no blackout dates. Plus, you can rent various accessories for 250 points per day.

Budget Fastbreak: Budget doesn't have a points system. Instead, members currently earn $25 in Budget Bucks for every two qualifying paid rentals. You can use Budget Bucks to save money on future rentals.

Dollar Express Rewards: Redemptions start at 500 points per day on the weekends and 625 points per day on weekdays. Since members earn 1 point per dollar spent on rentals, earning a free day takes at least $500 worth of paid rentals. Note that there are blackout dates for rental redemptions — check out the list of dates here.

Enterprise Plus: Enterprise doesn't have an award chart, so the number of points you'll need for a free day will vary based on the details of your rental. Members earn 1 point per dollar spent on paid rentals, and elite members earn 10% to 20% bonus points.

Hertz Gold Plus Rewards: Free Hertz rentals start at 950 points per day at the standard level, although blackout dates apply; free rentals without restrictions start at 1,900 points per day. Base-tier Gold members earn 1 point per dollar spent on rentals, while Five Star and President's Circle members earn a bonus of 25% and 50%, respectively.

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National Emerald Club: Like Budget, National doesn't have a points program but instead allows members to earn credits for free rental days based on the number of days you rent a qualified vehicle. You earn one credit for every qualified car rental when renting between one and seven days. If you rent for eight or more days, you'll earn one credit per four days.

How to redeem credit card rewards for car rentals

If you have a card that earns cash back or transferable rewards, you can redeem your rewards for car rentals.

Although the process varies slightly from one card to the next, cash-back rewards are typically the easiest. For example, if you have a cash-back rewards card like the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, you can request cash back as a statement credit or bank deposit and then use it to effectively pay for your rental car (or any other expense).

You can also use Capital One miles to reimburse yourself for virtually any travel-related purchase charged to your card within the last 90 days. You can redeem Capital One miles at a fixed rate of 1 cent per mile. For example, for a $100 rental car charge, you'd need to redeem 10,000 miles.

The Chase Travel℠ portal is another place to redeem points for car rentals. If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, your points are worth 1.5 cents each when booking rental cars through the portal. If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, you can redeem points for rental cars at a rate of 1.25 cents per point through the portal.

You can also use American Express Membership Rewards points for rental cars through Amex's Pay with Points feature. However, doing so won't give you a high value for your points.

Should you redeem airline miles for car rentals?

Some airlines allow members to redeem frequent flyer miles for rental cars, but don't expect to maximize your rewards this way. Airlines often provide much better redemption rates for flights.

But, to give you an idea of what to expect, here's how many miles you'd need for a given one-day weekday car rental at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) booked through three major carriers: American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.

American Airlines

American Airlines' new AAdvantage Cars platform allows you to use miles to book car rentals through a variety of agencies. If you hold American Airlines status or a cobranded American Airlines credit card, you'll get a discount on the price in miles. To check rates, start your search here.

This may not be the best use of your miles. For example, the 15,557-mile midsize rental above costs $87 when booked directly through Thrifty, giving you a value of 0.56 cents per mile — far below our November 2024 valuation of 1.6 cents apiece for AAdvantage miles. What's more, you could book this rental through Thrifty and reimburse yourself with just 8,700 Capital One miles — saving yourself 6,857 American miles.

Alternatively, you can book Avis and Budget rentals with cash (and perhaps reimburse yourself with credit card rewards) at this link, and you'll earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points on the purchase.

Delta Air Lines

Delta partners with most major car rental companies, allowing you to earn at least 2 SkyMiles per dollar spent on rentals when you book through Delta's portal — but you don't have the option to pay with miles. The only way to redeem Delta SkyMiles for a car rental is to book a bundled package through Delta Vacations.

To do so, search for a vacation package here. You'll need to choose your hotel and flights first, then add a rental car as an extra. Toggle the price from dollars to miles to see how many SkyMiles your vacation will cost. A basic car will be included in the package price, but you will see options to upgrade for an additional cost.

It's harder to redeem your miles for car rentals when the rental must be part of a vacation package, and it's harder to gauge how much value you're getting for your SkyMiles. But for travelers who collect SkyMiles, this is a nice option to have.

United Airlines

You can redeem United MileagePlus miles for Avis and Budget rental cars here. As expected, this isn't the best use of United miles.

This midsize, weekday rental, which costs 17,100 miles through United's portal, costs just $87 on Budget's site. This comes out to a value of 0.5 cents per mile, less than half of our November 2024 valuation of 1.35 cents each for United miles. You're better off booking with cash directly through the car rental agency or a third-party travel platform and reimbursing yourself with credit card rewards.

Bottom line

Redeeming points and miles for rental cars often won't provide the best redemption value. As a result, we'd typically recommend using cash-back rewards to offset the cost of your rental or redeeming rewards from a rental car loyalty program instead.

You can get a decent redemption value when you redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points for a rental car through the Chase Travel portal, but there are often better ways to maximize Chase points.

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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