Update 10/12/20: National has announced that Emerald Club Free Days that were due to expire on December 31, 2020 will be extended until December 31, 2021.
Original post: National has announced that it will be giving current Executive and Executive Eltie members a one year extension through February 28th, 2022. In additional qualifying rentals and rental days will be rolled over.
Anyone seeing this extension yet? When I log in, all of my free days still expire at the end of 2020.
Ah, I see, gotta wait a bit:
“Emerald Club free days have been extended! We’re giving members more time to use their hard-earned rewards by extending the expiration date of program free days that were set to expire December 31, 2020 to December 31, 2021. You will see this reflected in your account in the next 6 weeks.”
I guess there’s no pleasing some folks…I’m Executive Elite at National and VERY happy with their Emerald Club COVID responses. Yes I’m somewhat burning the 5 days I earned in the last ONE TWO FREE (using them for a family trip using Enterprise that I would’ve normally used my own car for). However, they extended those expiration dates AND opened it up to Enterprise neighborhood locations and then I’m especially pleased that they’re extending the regular Emerald Club free days for 12 months. Kudos.
National had some nice deal a few weeks back, good rate for luxury and elite cars.
Got BMW 330/Land Rover Velar/Mercedes GLC for $45/day, very nice for weekend drive-around.
Enterprise (same company) made the same announcement for Enterprise Plus
National has the weakest car loyalty program paired with most expensive rental rates. I’ve had this status through credit cards but haven’t used it due to their expensive rentals. Unless your job reimbursed you does anyone else use them?
I use them most of the time.
With Autoslash they are usually only slightly more expensive than their competitors.
Their customer service is, by far, the best in the industry.
And being able to choose any vehicle from the Executive selection is huge. I can consistently get an SUV or minivan at the midsize rate.
I’ve used solely National for the past year. I get a discount on personal rentals through a program from my employer and the rental cost is consistently much less than Hertz who I used to use. WIth National I don’t have to worry about point devaluations that Hertz makes, a free day is a free day for National. Their customer service has been good for me personally so far when I had issues with two different rentals.Echoing Dave, there hasn’t been a single time in which I haven’t been able to get an SUV or truck when renting (which has been important for the ski trips I’ve done) and have gotten a 4WD vehicle every time I’ve needed one.
Which car loyalty programs do you like better?
The free rental days are the easy to use in my opinion and I often get good value out of them with one way rentals. I also usually save one in case of inclement weather and I can only get a flight routed to a city within a few hours driving.
I usually go with the lowest cost car rental and often find National prices to be competitive when I need a rental for personal use. I get what you’re saying about costs as sometimes they’re multiples more expensive than other rental companies.
They’re only expensive compared to say Thrifty or other companies that I’d never use anyway. Usually cheaper than Hertz and on-par with the other majors. And the convenience of the Emerald Aisle I’d pay extra for anyway.
Strongly disagree. They have hands-down the best loyalty program in the industry if you have Executive Elite (and every year or two they run a promo granting it to all AmEx cardholders). Rent 5 times (even a $9.99 half-day special that they do occasionally when there’s too much inventory at a location), and you get a free rental cert good on anything! (Used some last year for what would have been a very expensive one-way rental in a convertible). Pay midsize rate and get basically anything on the lot.
Yes, their rack rates are high. But if you have access to a rate code (I have several avenues – university alumni, credit union, and employer), they are competitive.
Just need them to extend the One Two Free coupon expiration dates now.
Agreed!
William, or anyone:
Does anyone know if National has made any provision for the above circumstance — would love to know! Thanks!
As of last week they don’t have any plans to but it’s not out of the question. I’ve been following this thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/national-emerald-club/1477847-email-one-two-free-preregistration-open-now-83.html#post32279321