Europcar joins Nectar (and Hertz leaves) – and how to earn miles and hotel points from Europcar rentals

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Europcar is a major player on the car rental scene in Europe (the company is based in France) although it has a lower profile than the big boys, Hertz and Avis Budget.

Europcar joined Nectar last week as a new partner. Hertz and Nectar have gone their separate ways, it seems.

The Nectar earning rate is 1 point per £1 which is hardly exciting – you are basically getting back 0.5% of your spending! However, there is a launch offer. Until 7th February you will get 5 Nectar points per £1.

Here is the small print for the offer:

car must be collected in the UK
last day to collect is 30th June 2018
last day to book is 7th February 2018
only up to a 20 days rental
cannot be combined with any other offer, promotion or third party loyalty programme
points will be awarded within 8 weeks of car rental

Full T&Cs and more information about the Nectar partnership can be found on the Europcar site here.

You can also collect airline miles and hotel points with Europcar

It was possible to earn Avios from Europcar until a few years ago. It was a partner with Iberia Plus but Iberia followed British Airways into signing an exclusive deal with Avis.

You can still earn Avios indirectly via Accor as I explain later.

Whilst Avios and Virgin Flying Club are non-starters, Europcar DOES still have many airline partners:

Miles & More – earn at least 500 miles per rental

Emirates Skywards – earn up to 1,000 miles per rental

Etihad Guest – earn 500 miles per rental

Delta SkyMiles – earn 60 miles per day

Qatar Privilege Club – earn up to 1,000 miles per rental

…. plus Air Europa, Eastern Airways, El Al, Finnair Plus, Flying Blue, Loganair and TAP Portugal.

It also has a partnership with a major hotel group which can earn you hotel loyalty points (which you can turn into Avios).

Earning with Le Club AccorHotels

As you can see on the Accor website here, you can not only earn Accor points with Europcar but also redeem your points for vouchers to spend on Europcar bookings. This gets you the same value as redeeming for a hotel room, ie €40 per 2,000 points.

The earning rate for Accor is:

250 points for 1-4 day rentals
500 points for 5-7 day rentals
1,000 points for 8-days+ rentals

As each Accor point is worth 2c or one Avios point (if you convert to Iberia Plus), you will receive at least €5 of value per rental.

There is a special Accor / Europcar booking page which you can find here.

Important: do not convert Accor points into Avios via British Airways Executive Club. For weird historical reasons, the rate into BA is 2:1 whilst the rate into Iberia is 1:1. There is a minimum transfer into Avios of 2,000 Accor points. Move to Iberia and then use ‘Combine My Avios’ to get them across to BA.

Europcar is no longer a Hilton partner

Hilton cut back on its car rental partners this year. You can no longer earn Hilton Honors points when renting with Europcar. You can only credit rentals from Alamo, National and Enterprise.

You can also double dip with Europcar’s Privilege programme

Europcar has its own loyalty scheme called Privilege. Full details can be found on the website here.

The perks are modest but, importantly, you can double dip with earning frequent flyer miles or hotel points so there is no reason not to join up.

The key benefits are:

free weekend rental after three rentals in a calendar year

£10 discount voucher after your second rental after joining

express pick-up service

Do 10 rentals over two years and you will be upgraded to Privilege Executive, triggering another free weekend voucher and an upgrade on every rental. 25 rentals over two years takes you to Privilege Elite, getting you a double upgrade.

The lack of any partnership with Avios or Virgin Flying Club might mean that you give Europcar a miss given a choice. I can’t argue with that, and the poor earning rate from the new Nectar partnership doesn’t give you any extra incentive.

If the price works or they are the most convenient company in any given situation, however, you should at least find an airline or hotel partner on this list that will ensure you earn a little something for your trouble.

Category

Accor Live Limitless, Hertz and Gold Plus Rewards

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Zamfir says:

31 Jan31 January 04:27

Slightly OT, but Hertz have also removed UK members’ access to ‘Hertz Hub’ – without notice. I tried National (Executive choice) for the first time (via Hertz PC status match) last week, and was most impressed.
- AndyGWP says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 13:22
  
  What is (was) hertz hub?
  - Zamfir says:
    
    31 Jan31 January 15:34
    
    It’s an invite-only forum for discussing all things Hertz. The administrator creates discussions, polls etc – and the idea is that the customer gives their feedback on said content.
Jonathan says:

31 Jan31 January 06:11

OT but nectar related – has anyone r curved the additional 10k nectar point for taking out the Nectar Amex last October? Got the standard card ok points but 10k remain elusive. Amex say that was a nectar promo, nectar first said it would 4 statement months, then I tried again who said there was no such promotion.
- Delbert says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 06:33
  
  I took out the Nectar card at about that time and was 30k points for 2k spend and the 20k of points from Nectar posted within days of hitting the target.
  - Jonathan says:
    
    31 Jan31 January 07:01
    
    What about your remaining 10k points?
- Sam says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 07:39
  
  Remind me, what was the 10k for? It’s hit my account but I wasn’t expecting it, just the 20k
- Roger I* says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 10:19
  
  Online chat with Nectar (no e-mail available) said the remaining 10k points will be posted 4 weeks from 8.1.18. Qualifying spend completed 28.12.17.
dubs says:

31 Jan31 January 06:13

Hasn’t hertz just joined SPG?
- Rob says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 08:03
  
  Yes, 200 points per rental
Tony says:

31 Jan31 January 07:02

IME, Europcar is by a long stretch the worst of the UK majors when it comes to service. Crawling over the car on return with some kind of specialist torch looking for damage then trying to charge me for a missing parcel shelf in an estate (which wasn’t there when I picked it up) really has me done with the company now.

I will however happily wave the flag for the Thrifty who have great UK coverage, were a bargain on a one way rental and quite cheap to boot.
Alex says:

31 Jan31 January 07:29

Who is best for 1 way rental
- Rob says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 08:02
  
  Look up my article on Europcar’s £1 one way rentals.
  - Chris says:
    
    31 Jan31 January 13:44
    
    Booked a 1 way for £1 Europcar rental 2 weeks ago. Expected something like a Fiat 500, ended up in a Boxster.
    - Jon says:
      
      31 Jan31 January 14:59
      
      RESULT!
  - RussellH says:
    
    31 Jan31 January 19:59
    
    Only Europcar rental I have done was a £1 offer. We had a problem finding someone to check the car in at the end, but the actual check was extremely cursory (and we were about 90 mins late in too).
ee says:

31 Jan31 January 07:43

OT paging Ghengis…

Just read a post of yours regarding Beijing and the New World hotel you stayed at. We are staying there in March, with Residence Club and would love more information on what to expect in the lounge and when during the day. How much western food was there for breakfast and at cocktail hour? You also mentioned the Great Wall – did you do a tour or get there under your own steam? Would welcome any suggestions.
- Nadeshka says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 20:29
  
  We did a tour of the great wall that we’d recommend from Chinahighlights – was 4 hours on the wall plus lunch and return transport from our hotel in a minivan.
  We booked the “small group tour with guide” so us 2 plus 4 strangers (whole group and guide were English speaking). The bit we went to was completely deserted first thing in the morning so got a really good view and experience. It was ~$120 each in 2016.
  Only downside was the very early start in an attempt to (unsuccessfully) beat traffic – made worse as we were on the west side of the city at the Shangri-La so first pick and last drop off, so nearly a 12 hour day, half in traffic. But still worth it.
  - ee says:
    
    2 Feb2 February 07:34
    
    Thanks both, will look into both your suggestions!
Go says:

31 Jan31 January 09:29

Totally unrelated but has one managed to put through payments to hmrc last night or this morning on curve debit. I managed to put two transactions through last night but only after ringing mbna to get them to unblock. I also put one through linked to lloyds. This morning when I tried another mbna, no joy and when I rang mbna the fraud team told me the transactions weren’t even being presented to them. They put the override in place but it made no difference. The guy told me it was definitely being blocked by hmrc
- Lloyd says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 10:10
  
  Isn’t there a limit to how many payments HMRC will accept over a period of time?
  - Rob says:
    
    31 Jan31 January 15:49
    
    No, there is a limit to the number of different cards you can use. The way they write it is vague, I admit, but this is what they mean.
    - Leo says:
      
      31 Jan31 January 19:56
      
      I gave up on curve and just paid my VAT from my bank – I felt defeated. I got one £200 payment through. Next day I tried to buy a ticket at Victoria with curve and it wouldn’t work either – I then used the underlying card and it went through. After such a promising start this curve debit may go the way of the first curve card and find itself in the bin. I might try the next VAT quarter but if it requires 10 x payments say of £200 I probably won’t bother. So to be clear, I can make multiple single payments on different days with the same card (i.e the hmrc stated problem would be multiple cards?)
      - Rob says:
        
        1 Feb1 February 06:21
        
        Yes. I paid my self-assessment over 30 transactions this month.
        
        Curve is fine BUT their security is very tight. Use the card and your limit gets increased which is why I could do £1750 in one go with no issues.
Alex says:

31 Jan31 January 11:08

Europcar has always been my rental go to due to the fact that it’s the cheapest by far. I also have accorhotel ibis business it comes with europcar 20% discount. The cheapest one I always find in London is the Heathrow branch. Never have any issues with that branch, even with a slight scratch, they didn’t care. If you are worried of any charges, I’m always happy for them to charge my BAPP card, get me more points, and expense against one of those Car Hire Excess insurance I got (£40 a year).
- Alex says:
  
  31 Jan31 January 11:09
  
  I will jump to Avis Iberia whenever there is a decent promotion