How to Get the Best Deals on Hertz Rentals

Renting a car is one of those purchases where the same vehicle, picked up from the same lot on the same day, can cost two different people very different amounts of money. The difference often comes down to a handful of smart booking habits, not luck. And among the major car rental brands in the United States, Hertz is one of the easiest places to apply those habits, because the company offers a deep mix of public deals, member rates, partner discounts, and loyalty perks that you can actually stack to your advantage.

Hertz has been in the car rental business since 1918, operates in around 160 countries, and runs one of the largest networks of airport and neighborhood rental locations in the United States. In 2026, Hertz earned the only car rental spot on USA Today’s list of Most Trusted Brands and posted the highest year-over-year improvement of any car rental company on the Business Travel News satisfaction survey. The brand has been investing heavily in customer experience, technology, and fleet planning, all of which means more competitive pricing and better deals for renters who know where to look.

This guide walks through, step by step, how to get the very best price the next time you book a Hertz rental in the U.S. Some of these tips will save you a few dollars. Used together, they can routinely cut your total bill by 20% to 40%, sometimes more, on the exact same booking.

1. Always Join Hertz Gold+ Before You Book

The single most important thing to do before booking a Hertz rental is sign up for Hertz Gold+, the brand’s free loyalty program (long known as Hertz Gold Plus Rewards). Membership costs nothing, takes about two minutes online, and unlocks member-only rates almost immediately. There is no annual fee, no minimum spend, and no obligation to rent a certain number of times.

The reason this matters for pricing is simple: Hertz publishes a separate set of rates for Gold+ members that are often lower than the standard public rates anyone can see. Once you log in to your account before searching, those rates appear automatically. You also become eligible for promotional emails that frequently include time-limited offers, percentage discounts, and bonus points promotions you would not otherwise see.

Beyond the immediate savings, Gold+ membership delivers several real, free benefits at the basic tier:

• The ability to skip the counter at many participating airport locations and walk straight to your car
• A free additional driver for your spouse or domestic partner in the U.S.
• One point earned per dollar spent on qualifying rentals, redeemable for free rental days
• Mobile alerts that show you exactly which car is yours and where it is parked before you arrive

As you rent more often, you can climb to Five Star status (three rentals or $1,000 in qualifying spend in a calendar year) and then to the top-tier President’s Circle. Higher tiers add bonus points, faster service, and complimentary upgrades at participating locations. But even at the entry Gold tier, the member rate alone is usually enough to justify joining before your first booking.

2. Use the Right Discount or CDP Code at Booking

The most underused trick for saving money on Hertz rentals is the CDP code. CDP stands for Corporate Discount Program (sometimes called Counter Discount Program internally). It is a unique numeric code tied to a long-term partnership Hertz has with a company, association, credit card, or membership organization. When you enter a valid CDP code at booking, Hertz applies a pre-negotiated rate that is often significantly lower than the standard public price.

You may already qualify for one or more of these without realizing it:

• AAA members get access to a Hertz/AAA partnership that has been in place since 1978. The official AAA page with Hertz lists discounts on base rates, free additional drivers (who must be AAA members and meet rental requirements), discounts on prepaid fuel, the option to use a complimentary car seat, and a waiver of the young renter fee for AAA members aged 20 to 24. Each AAA club has its own regional CDP code, which is automatically applied when you book through the AAA discounts portal.
• AARP members are eligible for a Hertz discount through CDP code 2007815. Sources covering the program report base rate savings of up to about 20% for travelers aged 50 and over, plus additional benefits. You may be asked to show your AARP membership at pickup.
• USAA members have access to a Hertz partnership with their own CDP code that includes discounts, a free additional driver option that can extend to spouse and children, and a young driver fee waiver for eligible 18 to 24 year old members (subject to USAA insurance).
• Employees of large corporations often have access to a corporate CDP through their company travel portal. If you travel for work, check your company’s travel or HR site. The corporate rate is often lower than any public rate.
• Credit card holders with cards that include rental car benefits (some American Express, Capital One, and United co-branded cards, among others) may have access to Hertz CDPs and elite status as a card benefit. Cardholders of the Platinum Card from American Express, for example, can enroll in complimentary Hertz President’s Circle status.

A few important rules. Only use a CDP code you are actually eligible to use. Hertz may ask for proof at the counter (a company ID, membership card, or the credit card tied to the CDP) and can remove the discount if you cannot verify it. Public coupon code lists circulating online frequently include unauthorized CDPs that work at booking but get stripped at the counter. Stick to codes you can document, and you will save money safely.

3. Layer a Promotion Code on Top of Your CDP

CDP codes set the base rate. Promotion codes (often called PC codes or coupon codes) are short-term offers that apply on top, usually as a percentage off or a flat dollar discount. Hertz allows you to combine a CDP with a promotion code in most cases, which is one of the brand’s biggest pricing advantages over some competitors that only allow one or the other.

Where to find legitimate Hertz promotion codes:

• The Deals and Offers section on Hertz.com, which lists current public promotions
• Hertz email newsletters (the brand often offers around 10% off the base rate on the first weekly or weekend rental for new email subscribers)
• The Hertz mobile app, where Manager’s Specials and last-minute deals are frequently posted
• Affiliate and rewards portals like Rakuten, which periodically offer cash back on Hertz bookings on top of any rate you book
• Your AAA, AARP, or USAA member portal, which often features Hertz-specific seasonal promotion codes that can be applied along with your member CDP

Always test the combination before booking. Run a search with your CDP only, note the price, then add the promotion code and check whether the total drops further. Sometimes one code wins, sometimes the combination is best.

4. Compare Pay Now Against Pay Later

When you reach the checkout step on Hertz.com or the app, you will be offered two payment options: Pay Now and Pay Later. The choice between them is a real opportunity to save, but it also involves a trade-off you should understand.

The Pay Now rate requires you to prepay your rental at the time of booking. In exchange, Hertz typically gives you a lower per-day rate. Hertz has run promotions in the past offering up to substantial savings for prepaying versus paying at the counter, and even outside of promotional periods, Pay Now rates are usually noticeably cheaper than Pay Later rates for the same car, dates, and location.

The trade-off is flexibility. Pay Now rates have stricter cancellation and modification rules. If you cancel close to the pickup time or simply don’t show up, you may forfeit some or all of the prepaid amount. If your dates change, you might face a change fee, and modifying the booking can sometimes invalidate the original discount.

Pay Later, on the other hand, lets you reserve without paying. You settle the bill at pickup or return. The rate is higher, but cancellation and modification rules are typically much more relaxed.

The smart rule of thumb: if your trip dates are firm, Pay Now almost always wins on price. If there is real uncertainty (a wedding date that might shift, a business trip pending approval, a flight that could be rescheduled), Pay Later is worth the small premium for the freedom to change plans without penalty.

5. Book Early, But Keep Checking Prices

Hertz’s own 2026 travel data shows that travelers who book their rental car at the same time as their flight and hotel tend to do better on both price and availability. Last-minute bookings for popular pickup windows, especially during spring break, summer holidays, and Thanksgiving, often mean fewer vehicles available and higher rates, particularly for in-demand classes like SUVs, minivans, and trucks.

But early booking is not just about availability. It also gives you leverage. Hertz typically allows you to modify a Pay Later reservation up until pickup time. That means you can:

1. Book early at the best rate you can find
2. Periodically re-check Hertz.com or the Hertz app to see if the price has dropped
3. Rebook or modify the reservation if you find a cheaper rate for the same car, dates, and location

This is one of the most effective strategies for serious savings, and it costs you nothing. The rental car market fluctuates based on demand, fleet utilization, and seasonality. A rate that was the best on Tuesday might be beaten on Friday. As long as you have a flexible Pay Later booking in place, you are protected on the upside and can capture lower prices when they appear.

6. Time Your Pickup Day Strategically

Most travelers default to picking up their rental on Thursday or Friday, which aligns naturally with weekend trips and business travel. According to Hertz’s own data on U.S. spring travel patterns, Thursday and Friday are indeed the most popular pickup days. The catch: that demand pressure pushes prices up.

Starting your rental on a Wednesday or Sunday often results in a better chance at lower rates, since fewer renters are competing for the same pool of cars. If you can shift your pickup by even one day, you may end up with a meaningfully cheaper total bill.

Similarly, the Hertz weekend rate is a special pricing category designed for short Friday-to-Monday rentals. Depending on the location, weekend rates can be substantially lower per day than weekday rates. If your trip is short, structuring it to fall within the weekend rate window is a clean way to save without changing any other variable.

For longer trips, the weekly rate is almost always better value than booking seven individual days. Hertz, like most rental brands, prices a five to seven day rental at a flat weekly rate that works out to a meaningfully lower per-day cost. If you only need a car for five or six days, the weekly rate often still wins. Always check both options before booking.

7. Compare Airport vs. Neighborhood Locations

Hertz has thousands of locations across the United States, split between airport branches and neighborhood branches. Many renters never realize that the same car, on the same day, can be priced quite differently depending on which location you pick it up from.

Airport rentals carry a stack of surcharges that neighborhood locations do not. According to Hertz’s own rental terms, airport bookings can include:

• Airport concession fee recovery charges of around 18% or less of the rental
• Customer facility charges (commonly around $8 per day or $20 per rental, or less, at airports that levy them)
• Vehicle licensing cost recovery fees
• Other airport-specific taxes that vary by city

These add up. A car that looks like a great deal at the airport can land at the counter with hundreds of dollars in additional fees, depending on the length of the rental.

The savings hack: if you are not flying in, or if you have easy transit, taxi, or rideshare access from the airport to a nearby Hertz neighborhood location, comparing both options can save you a real amount. Some travelers even structure their trip to take a short rideshare from the airport to a downtown Hertz branch, then pick up the car there. On longer rentals, the math often works out even after the rideshare cost.

Always run the same search at both an airport pickup and the nearest neighborhood Hertz location, and compare the all-in totals, not just the headline daily rate.

8. Stack Cash Back Portals on Top of Your Rate

Once you have locked in the best CDP, promotion code, and pay-type combination, there is one more layer of savings most renters miss: cash back shopping portals.

Sites like Rakuten and similar partners often run cash back offers on Hertz bookings. Rakuten, for example, has at times advertised 2.5% cash back on Hertz rentals to portal members. To capture this, you simply log in to the portal, click through to Hertz from there, and complete your booking as normal. The cash back is credited to your portal account separately from the rental itself.

This is incremental savings on top of everything else you have already done. It does not require giving up any other discount, and it does not change the booking experience. For a $500 rental, 2.5% cash back is $12.50 you would otherwise leave on the table. Done repeatedly across the year, it adds up.

A few tips to make this work reliably:

• Start at the portal, not at Hertz.com directly
• Disable ad blockers on the portal click-through, since they can sometimes break tracking
• Do not navigate away to another site after clicking through, since that can also break the cash back attribution
• Pay attention to which booking types qualify (some portals exclude prepaid rates or specific promotions, so check the fine print)

9. Avoid the Expensive Add-Ons You Do Not Need

The fastest way to lose all your hard-won savings at the Hertz counter is to say yes to add-ons you do not actually need. The big ones to think about carefully:

Loss Damage Waiver (LDW). This is a Hertz product that, if purchased, waives your financial responsibility for damage to the rented vehicle, subject to terms of the rental agreement. Hertz’s own materials note that LDW is optional and that renters should check their credit card protections and personal auto insurance for rental coverage before purchasing. For many U.S. renters, a credit card with primary or secondary rental car coverage plus their personal auto policy already provides similar protection. Before declining or accepting, check with your credit card issuer and insurance company. AAA members enjoy additional benefit terms where customer responsibility for damage is capped at $5,000 if there is no violation of the rental agreement, which is another reason the AAA partnership is so valuable.

Liability insurance. Most U.S. drivers already carry adequate liability coverage through their personal auto policy. Verify this with your insurer before deciding.

Personal Accident Insurance. Most travelers with health insurance and life insurance do not need this.

Prepaid fuel. This can be a real convenience if you are returning the car in a rush, and Hertz lets you lock in a per-gallon price at pickup to avoid rising pump prices. But if your rental is short and you will not use a full tank, refilling yourself just before return is usually cheaper. If you are a AAA member, you get a discount on prepaid fuel, which makes the option more attractive.

Satellite radio, child seats, navigation, toll passes. Each carries its own daily fee. Decide whether you actually need it before agreeing at the counter. Many newer rental cars come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which can replace paid navigation. Bringing your own car seat is usually cheaper than renting one (and AAA members get a free car seat as a partnership benefit).

The general rule: every yes at the counter adds to your bill. Decide in advance, ideally before you even arrive at the lot, which add-ons you actually need.

10. Use the Hertz App for Manager’s Specials and Last-Minute Deals

The Hertz mobile app is more than just a booking tool. It is also where the brand surfaces some of its most aggressive last-minute pricing. Two specific features worth knowing about:

Manager’s Specials. These are heavily discounted bookings where you reserve at an economy or compact rate but the location chooses the actual car from available inventory at pickup. The vehicle is often larger than what you paid for. Manager’s Specials are essentially Hertz’s way of clearing inventory in real time, and the rates can be very attractive if you are flexible about the specific make and model.

Last-Minute Deals. Featured discounts on bookings starting in the next few days, where Hertz wants to fill cars that would otherwise sit idle. If your trip is genuinely last-minute, always check this section of the app before booking elsewhere.

Combined with the convenience of mobile reservation management (you can modify dates, change vehicle classes, and add or remove options on the fly), the Hertz app is one of the most underused money-saving tools the brand offers.

11. Watch for Seasonal and Promotional Campaigns

Hertz runs ongoing seasonal campaigns throughout the year that can produce some of the deepest discounts available. Examples of categories worth watching:

• Spring break and summer travel promotions, often tied to popular destinations like Florida, Las Vegas, and California
• Holiday season offers around Thanksgiving and the December holidays
• Weekend specials during slower travel weeks
• Specific city or destination deals when Hertz wants to drive demand to particular markets
• New customer offers, including the standard 10% off the base rate for new email subscribers on a weekly or weekend rental

To stay on top of these, sign up for the Hertz email list, enable push notifications in the Hertz app, and follow Hertz on social media. Brand emails are often where the best public promotion codes first appear, and they typically have an expiration window of a few weeks, so acting fast pays off.

12. Take Advantage of Hertz Monthly Rentals for Longer Needs

If your need for a vehicle is going to stretch beyond a week or two, do not just book a long daily rental. Look specifically at Hertz Monthly Rentals.

Monthly rentals are priced as a flat rate for 30 days at a time, and the effective daily cost is typically much lower than booking week by week. Monthly rentals are useful for:

• A car in the shop after an accident or major repair
• Long consulting assignments or temporary relocations
• Extended road trips spanning multiple states
• Bridge transportation between selling one car and buying another
• Trying out a vehicle class long-term before deciding whether to buy

Hertz publishes monthly rental terms and rates on its website, and the same CDP codes, member rates, and pay options apply. For the right use case, this is one of the largest dollar savings opportunities Hertz offers compared to booking shorter durations.

Putting It All Together: A Sample Booking Strategy

Here is how a savvy renter would put these tactics into practice for a five-day Hertz rental in the U.S.:

1. Join Hertz Gold+ before searching, so member rates appear automatically.
2. Identify the best CDP you qualify for (AAA, AARP, USAA, employer, or credit card benefit) and enter it during the search.
3. Compare airport vs. neighborhood pickup at all-in totals, not just headline daily rates.
4. Shift the pickup day to Wednesday or Sunday if your schedule allows, to take advantage of better-priced demand windows.
5. Layer a promotion code from the Hertz Deals page, an email offer, or your AAA/AARP/USAA portal on top of the CDP.
6. Compare Pay Now vs. Pay Later for the same booking. If dates are firm, Pay Now is almost always cheaper.
7. Click through from a cash back portal like Rakuten before completing the booking, for incremental savings.
8. Decline add-ons you do not need at the counter, especially LDW and liability insurance if you have other coverage in place.
9. Set a calendar reminder to recheck the rate a week before pickup if you booked Pay Later, and rebook at a lower rate if one appears.
10. Use the Hertz app for any reservation modifications, and to scan for Manager’s Specials or last-minute deals if you have a future flexible trip.

A single one of these tactics can save 5% to 10% on a booking. Layered together, savings of 30% to 40% on the same vehicle, dates, and location are very realistic, especially when a CDP and promotion code combine with Pay Now pricing and a cash back portal.

Why Hertz Is a Smart Choice for Deal-Seekers

A lot of what makes Hertz great for getting deals comes down to the depth of the program. The brand combines a massive U.S. footprint, a free loyalty program with genuinely useful perks, deep partnerships with AAA, AARP, USAA, major employers, and credit card networks, a wide fleet spanning economy cars through luxury and electric vehicles, transparent pricing tools, and a long-running set of payment and reservation options that give renters real flexibility.

Hertz has also been openly transparent about how to save money on its rentals. The brand’s own published travel data and consumer guidance recommend booking early, picking up midweek, joining Gold+ for free member rates, and adding flight information to protect reservations against delays. This is not just marketing. It reflects a company that is comfortable helping you spend less because the long-term loyalty of happy, returning renters is more valuable than squeezing an extra ten dollars out of a single booking.

For a brand of this size and history (more than 100 years, around 160 countries, recent Q1 2026 results showing the strongest revenue growth in three years), that combination of scale, transparency, and customer focus is hard to match. Hertz earned recognition in 2026 as the only car rental brand on USA Today’s Most Trusted Brands list and posted the highest year-over-year improvement of any car rental company on the Business Travel News satisfaction survey, both signals that the brand’s investments in customer experience are translating to real-world results.

Getting the best deal on a Hertz rental is not about luck or hunting for some secret coupon. It is about a layered approach: sign up for Gold+ for free, use a CDP code you legitimately qualify for, add a promotion code on top, compare Pay Now versus Pay Later, time your pickup day strategically, compare airport and neighborhood locations, stack a cash back portal, and decline add-ons you do not need.

Do those things consistently, and you will routinely pay 20% to 40% less than the rate the average renter pays for the same car, on the same day, from the same lot. Combine that pricing discipline with Hertz’s strong network, broad fleet, free loyalty program, and modern booking tools, and you have one of the most rewarding car rental relationships available in the United States.

The next time you need a car, do not just type your dates into Hertz.com and hit search. Spend ten extra minutes applying this checklist. Those ten minutes, repeated across a year of travel, can easily save hundreds of dollars while still putting you in the same quality vehicle you would have rented anyway. That is the smart way to rent with Hertz.