A whopping 20 airlines have partnered with a car rental company—all in one fell swoop. SkyTeam and its 20 member airlines announced that Hertz will be its first ever non-airline member. That means SkyTeam frequent flyers will receive a host of rental benefits as well as airline mileage accrual.
Exact details were fairly limited in its press release, but SkyTeam elite members will receive a special code to enter at booking to denote their eligibility.
While an airline and rental car partnership is nothing new, this is indeed the first time an entire global airline alliance has offered its frequent flyers benefits of this kind. SkyTeam, arguably the weakest alliance, beat both Oneworld and Star Alliance to the punch.
Hertz has global coverage with more than 10,000 rental locations across the globe, covering all of SkyTeam’s network of 1,072 destinations.
Unfortunately for Hertz status holders, it doesn’t seem like benefits will be reciprocal in-the-air. This makes sense as many credit cards like the Platinum Card from American Express already come with Hertz Five Star status—a solid benefit as it stands with one-car-class upgrades and a 10% bonus on Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Points.
Hertz already works with more than half of the SkyTeam partner member airlines, so it was a progressive move for us to extend our relationship to the full alliance. —Vincent Gillet, VP Marketing, Hertz International
For Delta status holders, a partnership with Hertz already exists, but for a host of other airline customers around the world, it will be a welcome—albeit small—benefit. Will it steer flyers towards SkyTeam? No. However, it looks to be a decent perk for existing customers and is a sign of further non-airline alliance partnerships to come.
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3 comments
I hope it doesn’t mean that the United partnership goes away.
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