At the beginning of the global travel slowdown due to COVID-19, travel companies took time to develop a response about what to do for their customers. The priority was figuring out how to deal with cancelations. Policies changed over time as companies realized this situation wasn’t going to be over in weeks or even months but, in fact, will last months into years.
Now that the reservations part of the problem was addressed, the next issue was with loyalty programs. Frequent travelers were worried about their status being downgraded and infrequent travelers were faced with their points expiring due to inactivity.
Programs have taken different approaches as to how to extend status or to keep points from expiring. Hawaiian Airlines came up with a genius way to extend points until the end of the year. Hertz, on the other hand, isn’t automatically extending the expiration date for your points unless you tell them, and even that process has a catch.
I noticed an email from Hertz the other day. I’m skimming over most of these because I can only read so many times how during these unprecedented times “random travel company” is thankful for my loyalty and they’re making changes for my safety.
I did notice something different about this email. It mentioned claiming expired points and had a link that I needed to click.
During these extraordinary times, we want to give you extra peace of mind. That’s why we’re extending current members’ Hertz Gold Plus Rewards® statuses through January 31, 2022. Plus, if you have points expiring between March 13 and June 30, you may extend them until December 31, 2020.
Please check your email for details and take action by June 1.
So not only do you have to ask Hertz to extend your points if they’re close to expiring (or expired on or after March 13th) but the only link to extend your points is the one being sent in an email. I clicked on the link.
Points will be available starting June 1st and be valid until the end of 2020.
One thing to remember about Hertz’s points is that they expire on the expiration date, even if you have a reservation to use the points booked for after that. You have to either book a rental with Hertz that earns or uses points before the end of the year. No making a booking in December for June 2021. Your points will expire at the end of 2020. You also can’t book a reservation with points and then cancel it to extend your points.
The most interesting thing to me was that I did have Hertz points that expired this year but I thought they expired before March 13th. Maybe I was wrong and they’ll show back up in my account on June 1st.
A second interesting thing was that only one of our accounts received an email. The other account has points that are due to expire in the last quarter of 2020. No mention of extending those points until the end of 2020.
So if you have Hertz points that were expiring between March and June, make sure to check your email associated with your account. That’s the only place Hertz will contact you with a unique link to extend your points until the end of the year.
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
8 comments
How do you find out when your points expire? And does having status affect this at all?
Well, I got this email as well, but it didn’t have a “click by” date. I clicked it around June 10th, thinking that I had until June 30th, but no dice. Basically Lesley at the 1awards desk was zero help. After three back and forth emails, she told me not to write in again as it wouldn’t be answered. I lost over 21,000 points, which is in the neighborhood of 3 free weeks of a rental car. Has this happened to anyone else?
Happened to me Mark. Any luck in getting it resolved?
Yes i had 50K points and i did click the extend and it didnt work. Very upset they are gone
zero help from customer service. I cannot get my expired points reinstated. very upset too.
I got hosed as well. I called a few times and no luck – Hertz was completely disinterested in doing anything to retain me as a customer or recognize that I have been a loyal/premiere customer for ~15 years. Pathetic by Hertz. I am a bit shocked in the customer service (particularly considering COVID). If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
same experience here, lost huge amount of points…feel voilated
Not not did they make extensions difficult, people who canceled their reservations because of COVID lost their points entirely. Hertz stuck to their initial policy of “book with points and cancel, you lose your points.” My husband lost several hundred points when he canceled his reservation at the start of all the craziness.