How to earn miles and points with Enterprise Rent-A-Car

How can you earn frequent flyer miles or hotel points with Enterprise Rent-A-Car?

Compared to Hertz or Avis, Enterprise is definitely in the second tier when it comes to earning rewards in airline or hotel programmes. However, you can’t let the tail wag the dog, and you may find yourself somewhere where Enterprise is the most convenient or cheapest option regardless.

For a UK resident, you can see the partners available on this page of the Enterprise website.

What are the best Enterprise Rent-A-Car partners?

The problem is that none of the partners are very generous, frankly.

Our favourite car rental reward is the partnership between Hertz and Virgin Atlantic – see here. You will earn 1,000 Virgin Points per rental, which is potentially worth £10 if you spend the points wisely.

You can only dream of such a return from a short Enterprise rental.

Here are your options:

Virgin Flying Club

You earn 100 Virgin Points per day, with a cap of 1,200 points per rental. I would value this at £1 per day. Full details are on the Enterprise site here and the Virgin Atlantic site here.

Lufthansa Miles & More

You earn 500 Miles & More miles per rental. I would value these at £5, which makes it a good deal for 1-2 day rentals. The downside is that Miles & More has no useful low value redemptions, so this is only worth considering if you already have a balance with them. Find out more on the Enterprise site here.

Radisson Rewards

Radisson Rewards is the hotel loyalty scheme for Radisson Blu, Radisson RED, Park Plaza and Park Inn.

You earn 300 Radisson Rewards points per rental. This is incredibly poor, given that I value a Radisson point at 0.33p. You are looking at earning £1 of points, irrespective of the length of your trip. However, if you have a Radisson Rewards account and do not currently collect miles with Virgin Atlantic or Lufthansa, it might be your best chance to get a reward you would actually use.

You can find out more on the Enterprise site here. Oddly it is not promoted on the Radisson Rewards car rental partners page here.

Flying Blue

Flying Blue is the Air France and KLM airline loyalty scheme.

Interestingly, Flying Blue is a revenue based partnership. You earn 4 miles for every €1 or equivalent you spend with Enterprise.

There is no cap, which makes this a good option for longer higher-priced rentals. Take a careful look at the small print about which charges do and do not count when calculating your ‘qualifying’ spend.

Turkish Miles & Smiles

This option is less likely to be of use to a UK resident. You earn 100 Miles & Smiles miles per rental day, with a maximum of 1000 per rental.

Conclusion

As you can see, Enterprise has a thin range of partners if you book via the UK site.

As none are offering huge sums of miles, I would recommend taking points in a scheme where you are already collecting, irrespective of how good or bad the rate. It is better than having a few ‘orphan’ miles in another programme which end up expiring, unused.

If you have balances in any non-European frequent flyer programmes, it is worth looking at Enterprise websites in other countries. There may be other options available.

The Enterprise Rent-A-Car UK home page is here.