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The following offer is one of those rare moments in miles and points collecting when the stars align and you can take advantage of two great offers at the same time. This one focuses on getting status with Accor and using that to leverage status with Hertz.

Hotel Status update:

Le Club is the loyalty programme of the Accor hotels – brands like Mercure, Sofitel and Ibis to name but a few. It is not a chain that I am particularly familiar with, but fellow InsideFlyer writer Joe loves it, and I have been working my way through a number of stays to try them out!

The loyalty scheme is free to join at the base level, Classic, although this doesn’t really do much. The number of points earned per stay is dependent on the brand you’re staying at and the status level you hold. A calculator to work out how many points you should earn can be found here. These points can be redeemed for  a discount of 40EUR per 2,000 points, which has become a stronger prospect given the beating that Sterling has taken against the Euro in the last month.

To progress to the next level, Silver, you need 2,500 points or 10 stays. To be honest, a free drink and a late check out for this level is not really worth that much given that it might take 10 stays to obtain.

More useful is Gold, earned after 10,000 points or 30 stays, which gives a welcome drink, VIP treatment and an upgrade as standard. This is only topped by Platinum which gives all the above, plus access to the Executive Lounges regardless of room type. To reach Platinum you need 60 nights or 25,000 points. Having Gold or Platinum could be worth a lot as the upgrade or access to the lounge should include a free breakfast.

Importantly, there is a short-cut to Gold which means that you can benefit from the upgrades without having to spend a month staying in hotels.

One of the chains in the group is Ibis. They offer a Business Card for a payment of £65.

This gives 10% off the standard room rate in Ibis hotels, as well as 10% off breakfast and off the bar bill. The most important benefit, however, is the instant uplift to Gold Le Club status.

A payment of £65 for the card will therefore entitle you to an upgrade on your next stay at an Accor hotel. As an example, at the Sofitel London Heathrow where I was staying at the end of September, a Superior Room will cost you £239.20 and a Luxury room (with Club access) £283.30.

At the above hotel, for example, your Gold card should get you an upgrade worth £44, getting most of your £65.00 expense back from single stay. If you have several stays, or a long one planned, this could be very worthwhile indeed.

You can sign up for the Ibis Business card, and Le Club Gold status, here.

But this gift keeps on giving!

Once you have got your status, you can then use it to leverage status with Hertz for all your car rental needs. Sign up here for your free membership to Hertz Gold Rewards (or to upgrade your existing account) where you will get instantly upgraded to Five Star Status for a range of benefits:

As an example. a two day hire from Heathrow in November would cost about £60. However, with your free Hertz status, you would get an upgrade to the category above, in this example worth £15, plus a free driver which is £12 per day.

On this one rental alone you would accrue £39-worth of savings. Even if you had no intention of staying in an Accor hotel ever, but needed a week’s car hire with 2 drivers, you could save money with this trick!

Even better, is that the Accor/Hertz status promotion also gets you 900 free Hertz Points, as we have written about before. 900 Hertz Points is enough for one day of free car hire, or can be transferred into 500-1200 airline miles or hotel points!