Rapid Travel Chai

National Emerald Club has expanded earning to and award days to Mexico.

National becomes the only US car rental agency to offer awards in Mexico. Earlier this month Enterprise added UK and Germany with more European countries to come, while Hertz has several countries excluding Mexico, see here for my roundup.

Previously with National it was only possible to earn at participating US and Canada locations, and redeem at those and participating Enterprise EMEA locations.

A summary of the updated Emerald Club terms is here, and the full terms are here. There are references to participating ‘Latin America Caribbean locations’ without specifying those anywhere that I can locate.

Earning on Mexico rentals is attractive since rentals are typically not that expensive. The base rates in particular can be low, with a significant part of the total cost going to Mexico compulsory liability insurance. Award free days will not cover the insurance so free days may not be great value in many cases.

In a test for a one-day rental in Cancun, my free rental day was correctly applied:

The US$15/day liability insurance is listed in the fine print.

Manually adding the insurance you can see that is not covered by the cert.

Good to have another option. Rental agencies are far behind the times internationally with their branded locations operating as franchisees with inconsistent experience and benefits.