The Offer
- National car rental is offering free executive status until 2/28/20 for American Express cardholders that aren’t currently National members.
- After completing your first rental using any American Express card you will also earn six Emerald Club credits towards a future rental day (this is enough for a free rental day)
The Fine Print
- Offer valid for new members only enrolled via this promotion between 9/16/18-1/31/19. Get six Emerald Club Credits you can use toward a future rental day after you enroll in the Emerald Club at nationalcar.com/axec between 9/16/18-1/31/19, rent one time from National and pay with any American Express Card.
- Offer is subject to and requires enrollment in the Emerald Club program. Rules and Conditions and Master Rental Agreement found at www.emeraldclub.com. Rental day offer is valid at participating National Car Rental locations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Latin America, Caribbean, and in Europe, for National Car Rental brand reservations serviced by Enterprise.
- The six Emerald Club Credits you can use for a rental day are applicable toward the base rate but do not include taxes, government charges, surcharges, concession recoupment fees, fuel and other optional items, which are the responsibility of the renter.
- Emerald Club points will be credited 24-72 hours after a paid rental. For Executive members, the rental can be used for up to a full-size car.
- The rental day expires 12/31 of the calendar year following the year in which the credits were earned.
- Executive status is valid through 2/28/20
- . To maintain Executive status, member must meet the standard qualifications of 12–24 rentals or 40–84 rental days during the full calendar year 2019.
- This offer is made exclusively to and is only valid for American Express Card Members.
- Fulfillment of the offer is the sole responsibility of the participating American Express merchant.
- Please note that National does not accept Prepaid Cards for charges authorized in advance, although Prepaid Cards may be used to settle the final bill.
- Check to make sure Prepaid Cards are accepted before attempting to use your Prepaid Card to take advantage of offers for this merchant.
Our Verdict
Executive status is second tier and normally requires 12 paid rentals or 40 paid rental days in a calendar year. You can view the full benefits here. Basics are you get a guaranteed upgrade when you reserve using the Midsize rate. You can also leverage your National status to get status with other car rental programs:
- Avis. Send an e-mail to [email protected]. You should receive Avis Preferred Plus status
- Sixt. Send details to [email protected] and receive platinum status.
- Hertz. Send e-mail to [email protected] and receive Hertz Gold Plus
- Enterprise. Unknown
- Europcar Privilege. Unknown
Not as good as the free Hertz Gold Plus Rewards President’s Circle Status offered earlier in the year.
Hat tip to One Mile At A Time
hmmmm weird… just signed up with my amex gold business using the above link…. I didn’t get executive status but the starting tier…. it also states on profile page that I need 12 rentals for executive….
nevermind…. it shows AMEX E,,, EC executive now… thanks
CSR offers this benefit and you don’t have to be a new member. It also doesn’t expire as long as you have CSR.
Recently signed up for National Exec via CSR link but haven’t rented. Used the AMEX link above to sign in and switched contract the ID to AMEX. I have my first rental this weekend. I prefer to book rentals with CSR but I’ll try to change the payment method after the rental. Hopefully it’ll trigger the 6 credits even though I didn’t sign up completely new through AMEX.
Updating to say it didn’t work. I paid for the rental with my AMEX but 1 week later and only 1 rental credit.
The Amex Platinum already gets you executive status with National right?
I believe so
Do any AmEx cards offer free Primary CDW? If not, then I wouldn’t be so quick to pay for any rentals with an AmEx card.
Ink offers it as primary for every business rental, and secondary for non-biz, so, it’s basically my choice nowadays.
Nope, not even Platinum.
FWIW, Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, and United MileagePlus Explorer offer primary coverage on all domestic rentals.
Rent with a card that provides primary coverage and only keep it on that card if you have a wreck. Otherwise change payment at dropoff to an AmEx card. What I do every rental.
When you drop the car off ask the check in clerk to “keep the ticket open” so you can go to the desk and change to a different card. They are used to this (for this very reason).
hah, gtk
not unless you buy the $19.95 supplementary coverage per rental from amex.
Thank you for this, I wasn’t aware of this “benefit”. Just enrolled my cards, seems better than using my primary insurance and cheaper than rental companies.
delete
You can get this and Avis Preferred Plus if you have a World Elite Mastercard. Just call Mastercard benefits number at â€(855) 802-1387‬
Interesting, don’t suppose there is any online link explaining this benefit?
After an extensive amount of searching, found this link.
https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/Avis2-US-2018/offer.html
Now to see if I can find a NAF World ELITE MC (not just AF waived the 1st year).
this used to be a published benefit and specifically mentioning Avis Preferred Plus. However, this year I’m only seeing mentions of “Avis Preferred.” so as far as published benefits go, it’s no longer offered.
The link I posted states the following:
Mastercard Amenities
– Up to a 35% saving on each rental
– Complimentary membership to Avis Preferred®, where available
– Other special promotions, subject to location and availability
EDIT: NM. It doesn’t say “Avis Preferred® Plus“.
FYI, I purposely left my erroneous response up as I find it annoying when people go back to say “NM,” then delete their original thought, leaving others to wonder what it originally said (sort of like the post directly below this one, which simply says “delete”).
Since the initial Executive status does not require any rental charges to be placed on an Amex card, this should stack with a CSR UR booking right? I would be looking to get the benefits of executive while booking through the UR portal and not having to pay the insurance because of the CSR.
Bullet point 2 says “using any American Express card”
“…you will also earn six Emerald Club credits”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I see nothing about having to pay with an Amex to get the executive status?
That’s correct. You just need an amex card to register, you don’t have to use it to make a booking. Just keep in mind if you did use an amex card you’d get the 6 credits and that’s enough for a free rental
I haven’t tried it yet, but am in the process of attempting, but Enterprise’s status match website (https://statusmatch.enterpriseplus.com/) states they’ll match Avis Preferred Plus with Enterprise Plus Gold. Presumably you could get National Executive => Avis Preferred Plus => Enterprise Plus Gold