Club Carlson recently announced their new summer promotion: stay two nights and get 10,000 bonus points.  There’s no doubt that this is a nice bonus if you plan to stay two nights anyway.  The question I have is whether this promo is good enough to go out of one’s way for.  Is it worth booking a weekend stay just for the points?

Stay two or more consecutive nights anytime between May 13 and July 21, 2013 at any of our more than 1,000 participating Carlson Rezidor hotels worldwide to earn 10,000 bonus Points for each eligible stay.

Details about Club Carlson’s new promotion can be found here.  Make sure to register, just in case!  You can also read Mommy Points’ view of the promotion here; Points, Miles & Martinis’ view here; and Lucky’s view here.

In 2011 and 2012, Club Carlson ran promotions in which it was possible to earn up to 50,000 points for a one night stay.  There was no doubt then that it was worth booking a cheap stay just for the points.  This promotion, though offers only 1/5 the points and requires a two night stay instead of one.  So, this promotion requires deeper analysis…

Near Optimal Earnings

In the post “Earn 70 points per dollar at Club Carlson hotels” I showed how it is possible to stack multiple Club Carlson points earning options onto a single stay.  Almost all of the possibilities are unlocked simply by getting a Club Carlson Premier Rewards Signature card (or its twin Business card).  With either card, you’ll earn 10 points per dollar at Club Carlson properties when you pay with the Club Carlson credit card, and you’ll earn bonus points as a Gold elite member (which is an automatic perk of the credit card).  You could do slightly better with top level Concierge status, but for most people that is out of reach since it requires 75 nights or 30 stays to achieve.

Another way to boost earnings is to sign up for “Club Carlson for Business.”  If you are a business owner, you can get a business account and earn an additional 10 points per dollar for bookings made online.  You will also qualify for a 5% discount off their standard rates.

Here is a full run-down of points earned for a regular stay (without the summer promotion) if you have the Club Carlson credit card and a business account:

• Base earnings for any stay: 20 points per dollar
• Elite bonus (Gold members): 10 points per dollar
• Credit card earnings: 10 points per dollar
• Club Carlson for Business: 10 points per dollar
• Online booking bonus: 2000 points

So, even without a promotion, it is possible to earn 50 points per dollar plus 2000 points per stay (not per night) for booking online.

10K Promotion: 110X

By stacking the points earned as shown above, with the summer 10K promotion, you can now earn up to 50 points per dollar plus 12,000 points per stay.

Ignoring taxes, with a $100 per night stay, you would spend $200 and earn 22,000 points.  In other words, you would earn 110 points per dollar!

How much are points worth?

A few months ago, I looked at Club Carlson hotel prices and redemption rates in a number of cities.  I found that, in my sample, the per point value of Club Carlson points ranged from .22 cents to .89 cents each.  The average point value came to .43 cents.  So, 110 points per dollar is like a 47% rebate.

The math gets better with the Club Carlson credit card which offers a free night with each reward stay of 2 nights or more.  In other words, if you stay two nights on points, you only need to pay for one night!  For details, see “Club Carlson rocks our world… Again.”  So, by focusing on two-night stays, your points can be worth twice as much!  The value of points then (based on my sample) goes up as high as .44 to 1.78 cents per point with an average value of .86 cents each. 

If you value Club Carlson points at .86 cents each, then 110 points per dollar is like a 94.6% rebate!  Clearly, if you’re planning to travel anyway and if a Club Carlson hotel is a viable option, then you will do very well with this promotion.

Taxes vs. Cash Back

It’s hard to estimate how much you’ll pay in taxes since that varies from State to State and from city to city.  Credit card points will be earned for the full cost of your stay, but other point multiples shown above will be based on the stay cost before taxes.

It’s worth noting that there are a number of cash back portals that include Club Carlson properties such as Radisson, Park Plaza, and Country Inn & Suites.  For example, TopCashBack currently offers 9% cash back for those hotels.  If you start your booking from a cash back portal and click through to one of those Club Carlson web sites, you will still be eligible for all point earnings and online booking bonuses.  For a list of cash back portals to consider, please see my Sign-Up Links page.

Overall, rather than trying to estimate the effect of taxes and cash back portals, for the sake of this analysis let’s assume that they cancel each other out.  In other words, I’ll calculate the value of mattress runs without factoring in taxes or cash back.

Mattress Runs

The point of pure mattress runs is to book a hotel stay just to earn points or elite status.  In this case, we’re just talking about point earnings.  If you really don’t value the stay at all and just want to get points, then the goal should be to get points at a cost lower than their redemption value and lower than they could be bought elsewhere.

Club Carlson outright sells points to consumers for just .7 cents per point.  So, even if you value points higher than that, it wouldn’t make sense to do a mattress run if you end up paying .7 cents or more for your points.

Personally, I wouldn’t consider a Club Carlson mattress run unless the full cost was less than .4 cents per point.  The idea, after all, is to get a bargain.  However, if you are working on building up your points for a specific high value redemption (Radisson Blue Paris, for example), you might be willing to set a higher bar.

Here then are the calculations for the cost per point for mattress runs for Club Carlson hotels at various price points with the 10K promotion included:

* Points earned: This column assumes that you achieve near optimal point earnings as described above (e.g. 50 points per dollar plus 2000 points per stay before including the 10K promotion).

As you can see in the table above, booking a $50 per night room just to get points would cost .59 cents per point.  This is better than buying points outright at .7 cents per point, but not by a wide margin.  And, it doesn’t come close to my “buy” target of .4 cents per point.

So, go ahead and book a two night stay if you value both the points and the stay, but don’t book it for the points alone.

Second night add-on

Suppose you have a planned one night stay at a Club Carlson property.  Is it worth adding a second night to qualify for the 10K promotion?  The second night would get you up to 50 points per dollar for the cost of the second night, and 10,000 bonus points thanks to the summer promotion.  Here are the calculations for the cost per point for adding a second night to your stay:

* Extra points earned:  These are the points earned for the added-on second night.  This column assumes that you achieve near optimal point earnings as described above (e.g. 50 points per dollar before including the 10K promotion).

As you can see in the table above, tacking on a second night to a $50 per night stay would result in “buying” points at only .4 cents each.  As room prices go up, the cost to buy points this way increases as well.  So, if you are planning a one night stay in an extremely cheap Club Carlson hotel, it may be worth it to extend your stay to two nights depending on how highly you value Club Carlson points.

This is the third of a three part series showing how you can earn 5X everywhere without gift cards.  In the previous posts I showed how you can earn 5X Ultimate Rewards points and ThankYou points in many categories including telecom, grocery stores, drug stores, and more.  In today’s post I’ll cover what to do with spend that is outside of those popular categories.

Three Part Series

1. 5X everywhere without gift cards, part 1: Ultimate Rewards
2. 5X everywhere without gift cards, part 2: ThankYou Points
3. 5X everywhere without gift cards, part 3: Everything Else
   (this post)

5X Categories

In the previous two posts I showed how you can earn 5 points per dollar (5X) at in the following categories:

Ultimate Rewards

• Office supply purchases
• Cell phone
• Landline
• Cable
• Travel (4.28X)
• Rotating categories

ThankYou Rewards

• Gas stations
• Grocery stores
• Drug stores
• Restaurants
• Bookstores
• Movie theaters
• Video rental stores
• Record stores

5X Everywhere Else

The Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature (and its twin, Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa) earns 5 points per dollar for all purchases (and 10 points per dollar at Club Carlson properties).  By falling back on this card for purchases that do not fall into the above listed categories, you will earn 5X for all credit card purchases.

Club Carlson point value

Using the Club Carlson card to earn 5X everywhere sounds good until you realize that Club Carlson points are worth much less than ThankYou points or Ultimate Rewards points.  In fact, while it is easy to get at least 1 cent per point value from Ultimate Rewards and ThankYou Rewards, Club Carlson straight up sells points for 7/10ths of a cent each.  So, even though it is sometimes possible to get more than 7/10s of a cent value from Club Carlson points, it is wiser to earn Ultimate Rewards points or ThankYou points, all else being equal.

A few months ago, I looked at Club Carlson hotel prices and redemption rates in a number of cities.  I found that, in my sample, the per point value of Club Carlson points ranged from .22 cents to .89 cents each.  The average point value came to .43 cents.  This is far less than the value of Ultimate Rewards or ThankYou points.

Two Night Stay Sweet Spot

Where Club Carlson points shine is in booking two-night stays.  The Club Carlson credit cards come with a benefit called “Bonus Award Nights” (see “Club Carlson rocks our world… Again“).  With this benefit, when you book a two night or longer stay, the last night of your stay is free.  That means that for a two night stay, the cost in points for your stay is cut in half.  In other words, you will pay for one night (with points) and get the second night free (up to 50 free nights per year).  So, when you have the credit card and you book two night stays, the value of your Club Carlson points is effectively doubled!

Going back to my old analysis:  Where I previously saw Club Carlson point values ranging from .22 cents to .89 cents in value, you can now get .44 cents to 1.78 cents value for the same hotels by booking two-night stays. 

By using your Club Carlson points primarily for two-night stays, and primarily in properties with the best redemption values, you can get value rivaling ThankYou points and (sometimes) Ultimate Rewards.

Diminishing Returns

It’s important to realize that points have value only if you use them.  Since Club Carlson points have specific limited use (e.g. use them for Club Carlson free nights and or Points & Cash awards) and are best used in limited situations (two night stays), you may soon find that you have more points than you know what to do with.  Once you’ve reached that threshold, earning points for someday may not be the best idea.  Instead, consider other options for your “all other” spend…

Other Options

Here are a few good options for maximizing your return on “all other” spend:

Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve 3.94%

The key to maximizing value with this card is to spend exactly $10K per year. At $10K you’ll earn a free weekend night at almost any Hilton property worldwide. You’ll also earn 30,000 points from spend (the card offers 3X everywhere, 5X airline & car rental, and 10X at Hilton properties). If you value the Hilton HHonors points at .48 cents each and the free night at $250, then the earnings per dollar come to 3.94%.  Owning this card is also a great way to ensure getting free breakfast and free internet at Hilton properties (thanks to automatic Gold status).

Delta Reserve Card 3.4%

If you are a big spender and you value Delta elite status, this card is a great choice (it is, in fact, my “all other” card).  At $30K of annual spend (and again at $60K), you’ll earn 15K bonus miles and 15K MQMs (“Medallion Qualifying Miles” are Delta’s version of Elite Qualifying Miles).  If you plan carefully and end the year just above the big spend threshold (either $30K or $60K) you can maximize earnings on this card: you will earn an average of 1.5 miles per dollar and .5 MQMs per dollar.  If you use the 1.29 cents Fair Trading Price of Delta SkyMiles, and 3 cents per MQM valuation, then your earnings per dollar come to 3.435%.  For more details, please see “An analysis of the Delta Reserve credit card” and “How much should you pay for Elite Qualifying Miles?“

Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard 2.2%

A simpler option for your all-other spend is to earn 2.2% per dollar with Barclays’ Arrival World MasterCard ($89 annual fee version).  This card earns two points per dollar.  Points can be used to pay charges on your credit card statement.  If you use the points to pay for travel expenses, you will get 1 cent per point value plus a 10% rebate in points.  This is a nice no-fuss way to earn very good returns.

Summary

Here, now, is a summary of the cards needed for 5X everywhere without gift cards:

• Chase Ink Bold (or Ink Plus): 5X for office supply purchases, cell phone, landline, and cable.
• Chase Sapphire Preferred: 4.28X for travel (when booking via Travelocity through the Ultimate Rewards Mall).  You must keep the card through February of the next year to earn its 7% annual dividend.
• Chase Freedom: 5X (or 5.5X) in categories that change each quarter.
• Citi ThankYou Preferred: 5X (for 12 months) at gas stations, grocery stores, and drugstores.  To get 5X earnings, you must sign up with the link shown here.  UPDATE 5/7/2013: The Citi Preferred 5X link appears to be dead. Sorry everyone.
• Citi Forward: 5X at restaurants, bookstores, movie theaters, video rental stores, and record stores.  New applications require proof that you are a college student, but some people have reported success calling and asking to switch a different Citi card to the Forward card.
• Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature: 5X everywhere (10X at Club Carlson properties).  Please see my note about diminishing returns above.
• Other options: Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve, Delta Reserve, BarclayCard Arrival World MasterCard.  For more options, see “Best Big Spend Bonuses“.

A number of interesting tidbits have been piling up lately, so rather than covering a single topic I’m simply going to give a rundown today of things on my mind…

Amex Financial Review

Gary, at View from the Wing, wrote up a terrific piece about Amex financial reviews (see “Preparing for the Dreaded American Express Financial Review“).  He argues that its something to get through rather than to fear.  This is a must read for anyone who manufactures spend.

10% off Amazon gift cards

This week OfficeMax is offering $5 off the purchase of two $25 Amazon gift cards.  Limit 1, but if you have a nice cashier they might let you split a purchase into multiple transactions.  Make sure to buy two $25 cards with each transaction.  Ideally, pay with a card that earns 5X at office supply stores (e.g. Ink Bold, Ink Plus, etc.).  Travel Summary has the scoop here.  I’ll run over to OfficeMax soon to see if I can buy these with OfficeMax gift cards.

10% off Lowes or $10 off $50 purchase

A number of coupons were posted to this SlickDeals thread.  Please go to that thread for details and questions.  Remember that you can also get a Movers coupon for 10% off by filling out an online form, and you can double or triple dip at Lowes for extra points.  Details here: Million Mile Madness: Banking on Lowe’s; and here: Maximizing Home Improvement Spend.

How to get the Citi Forward card

Last week I said that the Citi Forward card is great, but that you can’t get it unless you’re a college student (see “5X everywhere without gift cards, part 2: ThankYou Points“).  A number of people told me about a great workaround: Call Citi and ask to change your existing Citi card to a Forward card.  I can’t promise this will always work, but some people have reported success in blog comments and in this FlyerTalk thread.  5X restaurants, movie theaters, book stores (Amazon!), and more!

Hilton HHonors program only mostly dead

Indulge the Wanderlust reports that there are still deals to be had with the Hilton HHonors program despite recent huge devaluations.  I agree.  Details here.

Club Carlson whips the competition

LoyaltyLobby ran a series of posts analyzing the “earn and burn” rates of a number of hotel chains.  On the “earn” side, he estimated the number of points that would be earned at various properties with and without elite status and with and without a branded credit card.  He then looked at how many points were needed for free nights at various hotels (this is the “burn” side).  He then wrapped up the series by showing the amount of spend required within each chain to earn a free night.  Club Carlson beat the competition by a long shot.  Here’s an example graph showing the spend required for a free night based on someone with mid tier status:

It’s interesting that Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott all came out about the same.  Club Carlson required less than half the spend of its competitors.  SPG required much, much more. 

Please see LoyaltyLobby’s series for details (or to complain about those details)

Best rate guarantee success

Angelina, author of Just Another Points Traveler, reports on her success in getting much cheaper hotel nights through the use of Best Rate Guarantees.  I need to try this trick out more often (I’ve only done a Best Rate Guarantee once).  Details here.

Last weekend, I published a Club Carlson contest where I asked people “If you had the new Premier Rewards Visa Signature Card, how would you use the bonus points and bonus award nights?”  See “Club Carlson Prizes!“

I’ve found it interesting when reading the entries to see how many people have similar goals or aspirations as each other.  Specifically, Paris and Chicago stood out to me as being extremely popular choices.  If I had to guess, I would have said that 60 or 70 percent of the responses were for Paris or Chicago.  I would have been wrong.

I took the data from about noon yesterday and charted it.  As you can see below, Paris and Chicago were both very popular but with only 18% and 9% of the vote, respectively.  In other words, my estimate was way off.  Other very popular destinations include St. Martin (10%), Fiji (9%), and London (6%).

With this contest, I’ll pick two winners who will each get:

1. A full year of Club Carlson Gold Status, and
2. A $500 Visa gift card

To read full details about the contest and to enter, please go to the original post here: Club Carlson Prizes!  No entries will be accepted after 11:59 PM EDT today (Friday April 5th). 

Note: I’m on vacation this week, so please forgive me in advance for not answering comments.

$500 and elite status could be yours… 

If you read Frequent Miler often, then you know that I’m a big fan of Club Carlson’s new credit cards (see “Club Carlson rocks our world… Again” and “Earn 70 points per dollar at Club Carlson hotels“).  As a result, I was contacted by Club Carlson’s PR firm and asked if I would post a Club Carlson give-away on my blog.  The give-away is designed to celebrate the launch of the new Club Carlson^SM Premier Rewards Visa Signature^® card.  The prizes looked pretty sweet to me, so heck yeah!

Disclosure: At the time that I agreed to host this contest I was not aware of any compensation that I would receive.  Since then, though, I learned that I would receive two free nights at any Radisson property in North America.  This has not affected my decision to host this give away, but it is a nice bonus!

Here’s what you can win…

Two people will be selected to win the following:

1. A full year of Club Carlson Gold Status, and
2. A $500 Visa gift card

In the event that the winner is already a Club Carlson Gold Status
member, the winner will be given Club Carlson Concierge status for one full year, dependent upon verification from Club Carlson.

I bolded the part about Gold members getting Concierge status because I think that’s pretty special.  While it is easy to get Gold status through a status match or by signing up for their credit card, top-tier Concierge status is much harder to come by (it usually requires 75 nights per year or 30 separate stays).  With Concierge status, you get a 3000 point online booking bonus (vs. 2000 points for Silver and Gold members), 75% bonus on base points earned, and free continental breakfast.

How to win

To enter the contest, you must do the following by April 5th 2013 (Friday):

1. Write a comment below answering this question: If you had the new Premier Rewards Visa Signature Card, how would you use the bonus points and bonus award nights? 

Only one submission per person is allowed.  I reserve the right to disqualify comments that are rude or vulgar. 

I will pick two winners at random from all qualified submissions.

Note: In order to accept the full year of Club Carlson Gold Status and a $500 Visa gift card, the individual winner must sign up to be a Club Carlson member, which they can do here. 

U.S. Bank and Carlson Inc. and their respective affiliates are not liable for any part of this contest.

Follow along on Facebook

Since the comments on this page are intended to be contest entries, please visit the Frequent Miler Facebook page to ask questions or discuss this contest in general. 

On Saturday, April 6, I’ll announce the two winners on my Facebook page here.  While you’re there, please take a second to click the “Like” button!

About Club Carlson’s Visa cards

In addition to reading my take on their new cards (“Club Carlson rocks our world… Again“), you can see details at Club Carlson’s website here.  Or, just check out this graphic:

Where to go?

If you’d like some suggestions of aspirational properties to visit once you rack up points, here are some ideas (courtesy of Club Carlson):

Radisson Blu 1835 Hotel and Thalasso, Cannes:

Radisson Blu Hotel Sandton, Johannesburg:

Radisson Blu Resort Fiji Denarau Island:

Radisson Blu Resort, Marina & Spa, St. Martin Pool:

A number of hotel loyalty programs have recently suffered major devaluations.  Here is a summary borrowed from One Mile at a Time:

• Hilton has literally destroyed their award chart for high end redemptions by adding three new hotel categories and introducing seasonal pricing
• Marriott has added a new hotel category, and 36% of properties went up in price
• Over the past couple of months Wyndham has more than doubled the cost for redemptions at their top end properties
• Starwood just announced their 2013 hotel category changes, whereby less than 50 properties went down in price while over 200 properties went up in price, and also increased the cost of cash & points by 20-25%
• Priority Club introduced a nine category award chart, which resulted in many aspirational properties going up in price

All of the above changes have made your points less valuable.  But, in most cases, there are still arguments to be made to keep the associated credit cards.  With the Marriott card, I’m no longer so sure.

In my post, “To have and to hold,” I described a few hotel credit cards that I like to keep around, not to use for spend, but for their annual free night benefits.  In that post, I listed the Marriott Premier Visa card right after the Priority Club Visa.  At the time I felt that the annual free category 1 through 5 hotel night more than made up for the $85 annual fee.  Now, I’m not so sure.

In May, Marriott will introduce a new top tier category 9 and reassign many existing hotels to different categories.  According to Loyalty Traveler, of the current 344 category 5 hotels, more than half will increase to a higher category.  This means that those hotels will no longer be available for the annual free night benefit of the Marriott Premier card.

Expiring certificates

The downside of getting free nights rather than points is that free night certificates expire.  If you don’t use them, they’re worthless.  With most hotel credit cards, the associated free night certificates are good for a year.  With the Marriott card, though, the free nights are only valid for 6 months.

Now that there will be fewer nice properties to use the free nights on, the chance of the certificates going unused increases. 

The $85 annual fee is not worth it to me

I used to be able to count on staying in a nice property with Marriott’s free night certificate.  Now, though, I think chances are good that the certificate will go unused.  I don’t plan to renew my Marriott card when the annual fee comes due later this year.

Better Options

I still love the Priority Club card.  For only $49 per year, you get a free night certificate (after your first year) for any Priority Club property in the world regardless of what category it is in.  It also offers other great perks like automatic Platinum status and 10% point rebates on awards.

An even better option for some is the new Club Carlson Premier Rewards card and its twin business card.  In addition to fantastic perks (bonus award nights & automatic Gold status), these cards give 40,000 points each year upon card renewal.  For $75 for the personal card or $60 for the business card, you automatically earn almost enough points each year for a free night at any of their properties.  Even better, the bonus award night feature means that you earn almost enough for two nights!  And, unlike free night certificates, Club Carlson points don’t expire as long as you have activity in your account every two years (which happens automatically by keeping the card).

Summary of annual costs and benefits

Here is a summary of hotel credit card costs & benefits (ignoring signup bonuses).  The point here is to look at hotel cards that offer sign-up-like bonuses every year after the first year simply by paying the annual fee.  These are roughly sorted in the order starting with the card I like most to the one I like least:

• Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa: $75 per year.  40,000 bonus points each year upon card renewal.  Automatic Gold status.  Bonus Award Nights practically double the value of your points.
• Priority Club Select Visa: $49 per year.  Free night at any Priority Club hotel. Automatic Priority Club Platinum Status.  10% rebate on point redemptions.
• Hyatt Visa Signature: $75 per year.  Free night at any category 1 through 4 Hyatt. Automatic Platinum status (free internet!).
• Fairmont Visa Signature: $95 per year.  Free night at any Fairmont after $12K annual spend.  Two free lounge visits per year.  Automatic Premier status.
• Hilton HHonors Reserve: $95 per year.  Free weekend night at almost any Hilton property after $10K annual spend.  Automatic Hilton Gold status (free internet, and free breakfast and room upgrades at many properties).  This card is notable as the only one on the list that is not a Chase card (this one is from Citibank).
• Marriott Rewards Premier Visa: $85 per year. Free night at any category 1 through 5 Marriott. Free night expires after 6 months. 15 nights elite status credit (enough for Silver status which isn’t worth much).

Through Club Carlson’s Triple Points promotion it’s possible to earn up to 110 points per dollar (or more)!  Here’s how…

Club Carlson has just announced their latest Triple Points promotion which is valid for stays from January 8th through March 15, 2013.  Here is how to maximize your point earnings:

1. Sign up for the promo

You won’t receive triple points automatically, you must signup first!  Do so here.  Club Carlson normally gives 20 points per dollar for stays.  With this promotion, you’ll earn 60 points per dollar instead!

2. Get a Club Carlson credit card

I’ve said before that these cards are awesome (see “Club Carlson rocks our world… Again“).  For earning points during stays, the best of the cards help in two ways: they give you Gold status (which means higher point earnings) and they give you 10 points per dollar at Club Carlson properties.

Both of the following cards are winners.  The personal card has a $75 annual fee and the business card has a $60 annual fee, but they otherwise are almost identical.  If you have a business, go for the business card unless you would miss the consumer protections that come automatically with the personal card.

• Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature
• Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa

3. Sign up for Club Carlson for Business

Club Carlson has a program for businesses to earn even more.  You can find details about the program (including how to sign up) here. 

If you qualify for this program, you can earn an additional 10 points per dollar for each stay (8X automatically + 2X for booking online). Even better, businesses are given a 5% discount off standard rates. 

Things get complicated, though, if you want to use a promo code.  Let’s say, for example, the AAA discount is better than the business discount.  In that case, you can use the AAA code and get business points by following this advice.  Unfortunately, if you do that, you won’t earn an online booking bonus (see “Club Carlson for business one more thing“).

So, do the math to see which works best for you.  Your options are:

• Use business 5% discount:  With this approach you get the extra 10X business points, plus the online booking bonus.
• Use a better promo code (AAA, for example):  With this approach you need to pick either the extra 10X points or the online booking bonus.  For short, cheap stays, the online booking bonus is preferable.  For expensive stays (over $200), getting an extra 10X would be preferable.

4. Book your stays through an online portal

I use CashBackHolics to find the best shopping portal.  If you are planning a stay at a Radisson, for example, go to CashBackHolics, type in Radisson and find the best cash back options.  Currently, CashBackHolics reports that BeFrugal, TopCashBack, and Upromise all offer 5% back.

5. Add up the points and savings

Let’s assume you find a Radisson for $105 per night and you follow all of the above steps…

• Use Club Carlson for Business 5% savings, so the rate becomes $99.75
• Go through shopping portal for 5% back = $4.99 savings
• Thanks to your Gold status, you get an online booking bonus of 2000 points
• Thanks to the Triple points promotion, you earn 60 x 100 = 6000 points
• Thanks to your Gold status you earn an extra 10 points per dollar, 10 x 100 = 1000 points
• Thanks to your business account you earn an extra 10 points per dollar, 10 x 100 = 1000 points
• Thanks to paying with your Club Carlson credit card you earn an extra 10 points per dollar, 10 x 100 = 1000 points

In total, you would save about 10% and earn 11,000 points.  That’s 110 points per dollar!  Free nights at some properties start at only 9000 points, so with one paid night you would earn enough points for a free night at some properties.  Even better, the Club Carlson credit card gives you a bonus award night with each award stay.  So, you can use 9000 points for two nights at certain properties!

Is this mattress run worthy?

A mattress run is where you book a hotel room just to earn points, elite status, or other perks.  110 points per dollar is fantastic, so some might wonder whether it is worth checking into Club Carlson hotels just for the points. 

First, let’s look at the above example. Suppose hotel taxes came to 10%.  In that case, you would pay $109.73 and get $4.99 back from a cash back portal for a net cost of $104.74.  For that price, you would get 11,000 points.  In other words, you would be paying $104.74/11000 = .95 cents per point.  That’s not bad, but since Club Carlson sells their points for .7 cents each, this would not be a worthy mattress run.

How about a much cheaper stay?  Suppose you can find a property that costs just $50 per night after discounts, or $55 after tax.  In that case you would earn 6500 points and $2.75 cash back.  Cost per point would be $52.25/6500 = .8 cents per point.  Again, this is a great return, but it is more expensive than simply buying points from Club Carlson.

So, unless you can find another promotion that stacks on top of this one, the answer is still “no”, the deal is not mattress run worthy.  But it’s close!

Earning points with Club Carlson has become amazingly easy.  Here’s how you can earn 70 points per dollar, or more, during your stays… 

On Tuesday I wrote about Club Carlson’s excellent new credit cards (see “Club Carlson rocks our world… Again“).  One of the things I didn’t touch on in that post was how these credit cards help to improve point earnings on stays.  I’ll show you how you can earn 70 points per dollar (or more) for short stays…

Base Earnings 20X to 35X

Be default, Club Carlson offers a very generous 20 points per dollar spent at their hotels.  Elite members earn even more: Silver members earn 25% more (25 points per dollar); Gold members earn 50% more (30 points per dollar); and top tier Concierge members earn 75% more (35 points per dollar). 

Credit Cards 40X

Since two of the new credit cards give Gold status automatically, and those cards earn 10 points per dollar at Club Carlson properties, card holders with Gold status who pay with those cards will automatically earn 40 points per dollar!

Club Carlson for Business 50X

Club Carlson has a program for businesses to earn even more.  You can find details about the program (including how to sign up) here.  If you qualify for this program, you can earn an additional 10 points per dollar for each stay (8X automatically + 2X for booking online).  By combining with a credit card and Gold status as described above, your total earnings will be 50 points per dollar!  Even better, businesses are given a 5% discount off standard rates. 

Things get complicated, though, if you want to use a promo code.  Let’s say, for example, the AAA discount is better than the business discount.  In that case, you can use the AAA code and get business points by following this advice: Club Carlson for Business final word (I hope).  Unfortunately, if you do that, you won’t earn an online booking bonus (see “Club Carlson for business one more thing“).

So, do the math to see which works best for you.  Your options are:

• Use business 5% discount:  With this approach you get the extra 10X business points, plus the online booking bonus.
• Use a better promo code (AAA, for example):  With this approach you need to pick either the extra 10X points or the online booking bonus.  For short, cheap stays, the online booking bonus is preferable.  For expensive stays (over $200), getting an extra 10X would be preferable.

Online Booking Bonus 70X

Silver and Gold members are given a 2000 point bonus for each stay booked online (3000 points for top tier Concierge members).  For inexpensive stays, this bonus is significant.  For example, consider a $75 one-night stay: 2000 points is equivalent to over 26 points per dollar.  For a $100 one-night stay, 2000 points is equivalent to 20 points per dollar.  When you combine this bonus with the earnings described above, your total earnings for a one night $100 stay come to 70 points per dollar!

How good is this?

Suppose you stay one night in a $100 per night hotel.  If you combine all of the opportunities shown above, you will earn 7000 points.  You would just need 2000 more points, along with a free Bonus Award Night (a feature of the Club Carlson credit cards) to stay two nights in a Category 1 hotel!  That’s awesome.  Another way to think of it is that 7 one night stays would earn just short of enough points for two nights at the best Club Carlson properties in the world. In other words, for $700 (+ tax) you could get seven separate one night stays plus a free two night stay at a Radisson Blu in Paris.  That too is an excellent value!

Is this mattress-run worthy?

A mattress run is where you book a hotel room just to earn points, elite status, or other perks.  70 points per dollar (or more) is pretty fantastic, so some might wonder whether it is worth checking into Club Carlson hotels just for the points.  The quick answer is no.  Let’s look at an example.  Suppose you find a cheap Club Carlson property that goes for $60 per night.  Here’s how the math breaks down for a one night stay:

• Cost: $60 + tax (let’s say 10%) = $66
• Online booking bonus points: 2000
• 50X points: $60 X 50 = 3000
• Total points earned: 5000
• Cost per point: $66 / 5000 = 1.32 cents per point

Since it is sometimes possible to get as much as .8 cents per point value at some hotels and since the Bonus Award Night feature of the new credit cards virtually double the value of your points, you can argue that the points are worth as much as 1.6 cents each.  However, Club Carlson sells their points directly for only .7 cents each.  So, staying at hotels just to earn points doesn’t make much sense under usual circumstances.

If you have top tier Concierge status, the math gets a bit better.  Instead of 5000 total points in this scenario, you would earn 6300 points.  So, this same stay would cost 1.05 cents per point.  It’s still not mattress run worthy, but it gets close!

Club Carlson often offers terrific promotions, though.  When you combine these high point earnings with a “buy one night, get one free” type of offer, for example, there is no question in my mind that Club Carlson hotels become mattress-run worthy, even for Gold members.

Final Word

Club Carlson’s generosity is astounding.  Through a combination of standard loyalty program features, promotions, and credit card benefits they have made it astonishingly easy to earn points, and they’ve made the points earned worth much more than ever before!  In the past year, Club Carlson has moved from the loyalty program I never heard of, to a nice option for burning points, to a remarkably strong contender against the best alternatives.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want more from them!  I’d love to see free breakfast become an automatic Gold member benefit as it is with Hilton (currently Club Carlson only guarantees breakfast to Concierge members), and I’d like to see more high-end properties.  And, while I’m griping, please convince U.S. Bank to drop the foreign transaction fees on the credit cards.  Do you really want us to continue using our Sapphire Preferred cards overseas?

Club Carlson introduces new credit cards.  They give us a lot to like.

Club Carlson is the loyalty program for Radisson, Park Plaza, Park Inn, and Country Inns & Suites.  A year ago, Club Carlson came out of nowhere and delighted the frequent traveller community with an wonderfully generous Radisson offer (stay one night, get 50,000 points).  Amazingly, they topped even that this past summer by repeating a similar promotion not just with Radisson, but with all of their brands.  Through a combination of real stays and “mattress runs” (where we checked in without staying), my immediate family racked up 500,000 points.  We can now use those points for 10 nights in their top properties (think Radisson Blu or Park Plaza), or as many as 55 nights in category 1 hotels!

It was no secret that Club Carlson was going to be coming out with a credit card too, but I didn’t think it would be an interesting product.  Boy was I wrong.  For a complete overview of the new Club Carlson cards, you can check out Mommy Points’ write up: More Details on New Club Carlson Credit Card.  For now, suffice to say that there are four different cards, the two best of which offer a 85K sign-up bonus, automatic Gold status, 10 points per dollar earnings at Club Carlson properties and 5 points per dollar elsewhere.  Best of all, all four cards offer “Bonus Award Nights”.  What this means is that for any award stay of 2 or more nights, one of those nights will be free.  For example, instead of redeeming 100,000 points for a two night stay at the Radisson Blu Ambassador Hotel in Paris, you can get that same two night stay for only 50,000 points!

3 out of 3 ain’t bad

Credit cards are worth considering for three reasons: their sign-up bonuses, their on-going perks, and/or for the value of the rewards earned for spend.  Most credit cards are good values for only one or two of those reasons.  Club Carlson’s new cards, surprisingly, do well on all three.  I can’t even think of another card that does that.  My favorite Ink Bold / Ink Plus cards have great signup bonuses and great category spend value, but offer very few perks.  The American Express Platinum card, meanwhile, offers fabulous perks and occasionally very good (but usually targeted) sign-up bonuses, but relatively little value in spend.

Sign-Up Bonus

The 85K sign-up bonus available with two of the new cards is good, but by itself it’s not great.  By itself, 85K points is not enough for two nights at a top property.  However, the story changes when you consider this bonus together with a couple of the cards’ perks: 5X earnings on spend, and bonus award nights.  Given that these cards earn at least 5X for all spend, by the time you have met the $2500 spend requirement, you will have earned an additional 12,500 points on top of the 85K bonus.  If you increase the spend by just $500 more, you will then have earned a total of 100K points (counting both the signup bonus and the spend).  That’s enough for two nights at the best Club Carlson properties in the world.  Now, consider the bonus award nights:  You can spend the 100K points you have earned to get two separate two night stays at any top property.  In other words, we’re looking at a sign-up bonus worth 4 nights at a top of the line Radisson Blu!  Or, if you can find a nice tier 1 property which costs only 9000 points per night, you can take 11 separate 2-night vacations!

Perks

Bonus Award Nights: For every two night (or longer) award stay, the last night of the stay is free (up to 50 free nights per year).  This means that, for two night stays, your points are twice as valuable.  The value of this perk diminishes with longer stays as a percentage of overall points spent (but a free night is always appreciated).

The surprising thing about this benefit is that it encourages shorter stays.  Marriott, Hilton, and Starwood all have reduced price award options for longer stays.  For example, both Marriott and Starwood offer 5th night free awards.  Hilton offers discounted awards to certain credit card holders (AXON awards) and elite members, but only for stays of 4 or more nights.  Club Carlson is the only program I can think of that encourages shorter stays.  This could be by design in that it may encourage people to pay for extra nights rather than redeem points.  Regardless, I find this interesting.

Gold Status: Two of the new cards automatically give the user Gold status as long as they keep the card.  Gold status makes you eligible for free room upgrades (I got upgraded to a nice suite once, for example); a 2000 point online booking bonus; 50% more points earned per stay; and an in-room welcome gift. 

40,000 points annually:  Each year that you pay to renew your card, the better two cards offer 40,000 bonus points.  Whether you pay $75 for the personal card or $60 for the business card, this is a great perk.  At $75, this is like buying points for 1/5 of a penny each (Club Carlson normally sells points for .7 cents each).  Since having the card makes those points more valuable (through the Bonus Award Nights), this is a steal.  You’re essentially getting very close to two nights at a top of the line Club Carlson property each year in exchange for the $75 fee.  Sweet.

Spend Value

It’s not unusual for me to like a card (for its perks and sign-up bonus), but to never use it for spend.  A great example of this is the Chase Priority Club card.  I love the card for its benefits that include automatic Platinum status and an annual free night at any property (including InterContinental hotels).  However, I don’t value Priority Club points enough to actually use that card for day to day spend.  The Club Carlson cards, though, have me thinking…

The best two Club Carlson cards offer 10 points per dollar at Club Carlson properties and 5 points per dollar everywhere else.  In order to estimate the value of Club Carlson points, I picked a random date and a number of cities and compared the Club Carlson advertised room prices to the number of points required for free nights.  Using that metric, the value of points ranged from .22 cents to .89 cents each, with a mean of .43 cents.  Let’s discount the mean value to account for the fact that I didn’t look for special rates (AAA, for example), and that award nights do not earn points.  Given that, I think .3 cents per point is a fair, conservative value.

Given the .3 cent value estimated above, at 5 points per dollar for day to day spend, we can estimate that points earned on spend are worth 1.5 cents per dollar.  Then, if we vow to always spend points for two night stays to maximize the Bonus Award Nights benefit, these points become worth 3 cents per dollar.  That’s a very good (and bordering on excellent) return for non-category bonus spend.

Not Chase

Chase seems to always come out with the best credit cards.  For people who already have a lot of Chase cards, or are planning to get some soon, it is good news that the Club Carlson cards come from U.S. Bank instead.  The downside is that U.S. Bank is rumored to be tougher with approvals for people who have recently signed up for lots of cards.  If that’s your situation, you might want to wait a while before applying for one of these.

Club Carlson Properties

Unlike Hyatt, Marriott, and Hilton, Club Carlson doesn’t currently have many aspirational properties.  Some people have a negative view of the properties available and so would not be impressed by these new cards.  That’s understandable.  That being said, I know that I’m looking forward to staying in some great looking Radisson Blu and Park Plaza properties around the world…

Reminder: three of the four Club Carlson mega-promos are coming to an end soon (see details here).  For those who registered for the fourth promotion (Park Plaza), you still have until August 28th to complete your stay.

Sale: Club Carlson is having a 25% off sale for select properties.  Book by July 13th.  Details here.

TopCashBack: 

• Park Plaza is explicitly listed on the TopCashBack site, so if you plan to book a room, go through www.topcashback.com/park-plaza-hotels/ rather than the Radisson link.  Like the Radisson link, TopCashBack has increased the payout to 10%, but only until July 15th (this Sunday).  If you book the room while the rate is at 10%, but you complete your stay afterwards, TopCashBack will honor the 10% rate, but you will have to file an inquiry ticket to get the full amount.
• For those who used TopCashBack for Club Carlson stays, but cash back hasn’t been recorded, go ahead and file an inquiry ticket.  I’m missing several myself (but so far I’ve been too lazy to file the tickets…).