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Car rental company Hertz is running a very interesting promotion in association with Accor Hotels’ loyalty programme ‘Le Club’ – and the upshot is that everyone should be able to get at least one day of free car hire!

All you need to do, in theory, is be a member of ‘Le Club‘, and then sign up to Hertz Gold Plus Rewards using this link here.

As you can probably see, the bottom paragraph states, “To celebrate you joining our programme, you will receive One Reward Rental Day with 900 Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Points automatically deposited to your Gold Plus Rewards account after your enrolment“.

900 Points is the number required for a standard one day rental here in the UK (800 at the weekend), you can check out the full award chart here. The amount of Points required varies depending on the country, for instance in the USA you can get a one day weekend rental for just 550 Points.

Free car hire sounds great – why have you written ‘probably’ and ‘in theory‘?

Because the Hertz website is rubbish. Genuinely awful.

When I was signing up,  every time I put my Accor Le Club number in, I got an error message whenever I eventually clicked confirm.

I removed my Le Club number, and then getting confirmed wasn’t a problem – BUT my new account didn’t have the promised 900 Points in it. I sent an email to Hertz straight away and am still waiting to hear back, so I can’t 100% promise this will work – but the terms are very clear so I’m confident it will be honoured.

How To Apply

Most of the application is quite simple, but to give yourself the best chance of actually getting the Points, there is one thing you need to do that isn’t made as obvious as it should be.

Start here, then click “join now”. At the bottom of the very first page it asks for a “CDP Number” and you need to enter 826779 (which is the Accor offer code) in that box.

After that, just go through as normal and try to add your Le Club number later in the application (there’s a drop down box of Hertz’s loyalty scheme partners on page 4 of the application) , as they might have fixed it.

If it doesn’t work, delete your Le Club number, confirm your account and then send Hertz an email.

I sent my email to [email protected] – but as I haven’t heard back yet, you might also want to try: [email protected] or [email protected] instead / as well. Alternatively, you can call 020 7026 0077 or 087084488444.

(Bonus Tip: If you’ve spotted something on the award chart that you like and 900 Points isn’t enough, you can transfer Points between yourself and a spouse or domestic partner for free. “In the United Kingdom, France, Ireland and Spain please call 087084488444 and ask for a transfer of points”.)

Anything else?

YES – if you have elite status with Accor, don’t apply yet! I should have another post out very soon explaining how you can get top-level status with Hertz on top of the free car hire / 900 Points!

Hat-tip: LoyaltyLobby