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.
But regardless of how often you rent, you should be quick to use points and miles for rental cars. In this guide, we’ll highlight how you can redeem rewards and save money on your next car rental.
RELATED: Check Your Receipt — 5 Hidden Rental Car Fees to Spot
Use of rental car rewards
Most major rental car companies have loyalty programs that allow you to 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.
Budget Fastbreak: Budget does not have a point 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 rent.
Dollar Express Rewards: Redemption starts at 500 points per day on weekends and 625 points per day on weekdays. Since members earn 1 point per dollar spent on rentals, take a minimum of $500 worth of paid rentals to earn a free day.
Enterprise Plus: Enterprise does not have an award chart, so the number of points you need for a free day will vary depending on the details of your fare. Members earn 1 point per dollar spent on rentals paid and Elite members earn 10% to 20% bonus points.
Hertz Gold Plus Rewards: Free Hertz fares start at 950 points per day at the standard level, although blackout dates apply; Free fares 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 25% and 50% bonuses, respectively.
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National Emerald Club: Like Budget, National does not have a points program but instead allows members to earn credit for free rental days. You get one credit for each qualifying car rental. Depending on your status tier, you’ll earn a free day after five to seven rental credits.
RELATED: 9 Rental Car Rewards Programs You Need to Know About
How to redeem credit card rewards for car rentals
If you have a With cards that earn cash back or transferable rewards, you can redeem your rewards for car rentals.
Although the process varies slightly from card to card, cash-back rewards are usually the easiest. For example, if you have a cash-back rewards card like 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). can use
You can also redeem Capital One miles to reimburse yourself for any travel-related purchases charged to your card in the past 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 would need to redeem 10,000 miles.
The Chase Travel℠ portal is another place to redeem points for car rentals. If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve®, your points are worth 1.5 cents each when booking a rental car through the portal. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® card, you can redeem points for rental cars through the portal at a rate of 1.25 cents per point.
You can also use American Express Membership Rewards points for rental cars through Amex’s Pay with Points feature. However, doing so will not give you a higher value for your points.
Should You Redeem Airline Miles for Car Rentals?
Some airlines allow members to redeem miles for rental cars, but don’t expect to maximize your rewards this way. Airlines often offer better redemption rates for flights.
But, to give you an idea of what to expect, here’s how many miles you’ll need for a one-day weekly car rental at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) booked by three major airlines: American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines.
Related: 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Redeeming Frequent Flyer Miles
American Airlines
American Airlines allows you to book car rentals through Avis and Budget using cash or miles. If you hold an American Airlines Status or co-branded American Airlines credit card, you’ll get up to 30% off the value in miles. To check rates, start your search here.
You can also pay for your rental car using a combination of American Airlines miles and cash.
Plus, you can earn 2 AAdvantage miles per dollar spent on paid car rentals when you start. here. For the same dates, I can reserve an economy car starting at $164 that will earn 328 miles, plus loyalty points to get me closer to my next status tier. If I were to redeem American Airlines miles for this fare, I’d get a redemption rate of about 1.1 cents per mile, significantly lower than TPG’s July 2024 value of 1.55 cents each.
Related: Best Uses of American Airlines AAdvantage Miles
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. Portal — but you don’t have the option to pay with miles. The only way to redeem SkyMiles for car rentals is to book a bundle package through Delta Vacations.
To do so, look for vacation packages here. You must first select your hotel and flights, then add a rental car as an extra. Toggle the price from dollars to miles to see how many SkyMiles your car will be worth.
The same car is priced at $130 through Delta Vacations, offering a value of 1.15 cents per mile—the same as TPG’s July 2024 valuation for SkyMiles. It’s not a bad way to use your SkyMiles, but it’s hard to redeem them for a car rental when the rental should be part of a vacation package.
RELATED: 16 Ways to Earn More Delta SkyMiles From Using Credit Cards to Shopping Online
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.
The same $164 weekday fare I mentioned above would cost 14,700 MileagePlus miles, giving you a value of 1.1 cents per mile—down from our July 2024 valuation of 1.35 cents.
Related: Flights, credit cards and more: How to earn miles with the United MileagePlus program
Bottom line
Redeeming points and miles for rental cars often doesn’t provide the best redemption value. As such, I would generally 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 the right redemption value when you redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points for rental cars through the Chase Travel Portal, but there are many great ways to maximize Chase points.