Late last year it was announced that Starwood/Marriott members would start enjoying some additional benefits with Hertz car rental
- SPG members get discounted rates and 200 SPG points per Hertz rental
- SPG and Marriott elite members would get status matched to elite status with Hertz
With regards to the second point, the status match page has gone live with the following mapping of tiers:
- Marriott Rewards and SPG Platinum members receive Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Five Star status
- Marriott Platinum Premier and SPG Platinum Ambassador members receive President’s Circle status
Here are the benefits that each tier offers:
You can see that President’s Circle is really the tier you want to have, but unless you’ve hit the absolute top tier with Marriott or SPG you’re going to have to make do with mid-tier status. Again, it’s better than nothing, and given that there really aren’t a lot of shortcuts to rental car status in Singapore this is still worth getting. Remember, once you have elite status with one major car chain you can match it to National Car rental, Sixt or Avis.
- National Car: Go to the link here and fill out your details
- Sixt: Open a Sixt account here. During the registration process, you should see a link titled “Card Upgrade” where you can submit proof of your competing status. If this does not appear, simply email customer service at sixtcard@sixt.com
- Avis:Â Open an Avis online account here (Singapore addresses cannot be entered, you’ll need to give an address in the States), complete your profile and email profile.update@avisbudget.com with the subject line status match, a screenshot of your competing status and your Avis wizard number
For what it’s worth, my Hertz President’s Circle did not get matched to Avis President’s Club, I got Preferred Plus Premium instead with a request to contact the sales department via phone for consideration for President’s Club.
Hopefully you were able to jump on the free President’s Circle status offer for World Mastercard holders when it was available a few months back. I did, and my status has since been upgraded to reflect President’s Circle, so I won’t need to take advantage of the SPG offer for a while at least.
I’m going to be renting a car on the US leg of my RTW trip and look forward to reporting back on the PC experience. I understand the elite experience can be hit and miss, but in general airport locations tend to recognize elite status more than neighbourhood/off airport locations.
