Amex Platinum card holders must re-enroll for Hertz benefit (or possibly all car rental benefits)

Holders of the Platinum Card® from American Express get quite a few benefits in exchange for the card’s high annual fee and some of these benefits require a card holder to enroll. Well, if you’re a card holder and have enrolled for the Hertz car rental benefit (or possibly any of the car rental benefits), you now need to re-enroll.

Amex Platinum car rental benefits

Holders of the Platinum Card® from American express and the Business Platinum Card® from American Express (both primary holders and authorized users) get complimentary elite status with three of the bigger car rental agencies – Hertz, Avis and National

Upon enrollment, card holders are given:

• Hertz Gold+ President’s Circle status
• Avis Preferred Plus status
• National Car Rental Emerald Club Executive status

Personally, I don’t get much (or any) use out of the rewards currencies that these programs issue as I don’t rent cars directly from the rental companies often enough to build up any kind of meaningful balance.

On the rare occasions when the rental companies aren’t charging considerably more than the price aggregator sites, I do, however, find some of the elite status benefits to be useful, so these can be worth holding.

The issue

Amex is now sending out emails to holders of its consumer Platinum card (and, I assume, holders of the Business Platinum Card) informing them that “[d]ue to a new and improved enrollment experience for your Hertz Status Benefit, re-enrollment in the status benefit is requested by December 31, 2026, to continue enjoying Hertz Gold+ President’s Circle benefits“.

That’s the exact wording from the email which I received and that would suggest that the re-enrollment need is limited to Hertz. However, when I logged in to my Amex account, all three of my rental car elite status benefits had “enrollment required” next to them so it’s possible that card holders will need to re-enroll in all three programs.

Bottom line

If you hold a Platinum Card® from American Express and use the rental car benefits, you’ll probably need to re-enroll with Hertz Gold+ (and you may need to re-enroll with National and Avis as well) thanks to a “new and improved enrollment experience”. I’m not sure how an improved enrollment experience leads to existing card members being un-enrolled, but there you have it.