As a Marriott Vacation Club Owner, you get discounts for airport parking, Avis and Budget car rentals, and Hawaiian Airlines. I’m here to help you understand the Avis and Budget car rental options you have as an owner and how to find the BEST deal. There’s a good chance that you can save money using your owner discount, but do a little homework before you make your reservation.
BEST OPTION:
You can claim a 35% discount off of Avis’s base rate if you use the appropriate discount code. Or if you prefer to use Budget, you get a 30% off of their rate using their discount code. Before you make the reservation with this discount, compare prices of any other discounts you may be able to use. We always use our employer’s corporate discount, which has been better for us. Even if you don’t have any other discounts available, make sure you compare with Budget’s or Avis’s promotions — they have promotions all the time. At the time of this post, Avis gives 30% discount to first time users — so the MVC discount is better! Budget gives a 30% discount PLUS an Amazon gift card equal to 10% of your rental fee — a better deal than the MVC discount. By spending a little time, you can save some money and get the best deal. The direct link to the MVC discount and the corresponding codes is below:
To get same page through the the MVC website — on the right side under Partnerships is the link to Owner Benefit Levels. Scroll to the bottom until you get to Partner Offers. That also takes you to the page with the discount codes listed.
BAD OPTION:
You can use Destination Points to reserve your rental car. It takes 500 VCP’s for $150 car rental e-certificate for either Avis or Budget. Or you can use 1000 VCP’s for $300 e-certificate. This equates to a terrible value of your Destination Points — only 30 cents per point. For comparison you can expect more like $1.50 per point in value when staying at a MVC resort. The only way this option should be considered is if you have some points expiring that you can’t use any other way. Even then, trading your points for Bonvoy Points (36 cents per point), travel insurance, or even resort credit would be a better way to use your points you are trying to use before an upcoming deadline.
To use Destination Points to get e-certificates, use this link, and follow the instructions:
Use Destination Points for a Rental Car
To get to this page through the MVC website — it’s easy to find. It’s under the Explorer Collection — Car Rentals.
I made the stupid decision to trade 1,000 points for a Budget rental. We were not able to use all our points this year, and neither Costa Rica nor Breckenridge- the two places we are going- let us exchange points for resort credit – and these were banked points that would expire this year. So… I bought the $600 certificates with points to rent a Jeep for the week in Breckenridge since getting there from the airport costs a lot. I figured, the rental is about $900 (on Budget’s site with the discounts mentioned above)- so I’d only pay $300 after points. Well- it’s a scam. You have to book through a special link to use your certificates- and you cannot use discount codes- so it’s about $1500, which means it’s $900 out of my pocket anyway. So- I basically flushed those points down the toilet. Even the bad deal of trading them for Bonvoy points would have given me something. Now I have nothing. I traded 1,000 for nothing. Lesson Learned!!!!! Please learn from me- do not trade your points for rental cars- it gets you nothing.
Ouch!! So sorry it didn’t work out better for you. Hopefully, other owners will learn from your experience and save the frustration. Thanks for sharing!!!
Update- I actually spent 2,000 points for $600. I wrote them an email – they are sorry I’m frustrated and don’t feel I got value from my points using them this way. Value would mean I got something for the technically $24k I paid for those points if you calculate a point at $12. So the above article is saying you get about 36 cents- but really you are getting negative value if you think about it. It is actually a few dollars cheaper to book through Budget with no certificate. If I use my certificates, I will pay right under $20 MORE for the car. Therefore, I “bought” certificates with my points and paid them extra for them. UGH! I’ve asked them to refund my points. I doubt they will.
Painful lesson learned. Getting a car rental with Club Points isn’t a good option, but it was especially a hard hit for you. Bummer. I’m glad you contacted them.
Thank you for posting this!
Buying Avis rental certificates with MVC points seems like a scam. The certificate was never sent to me from Avis