20
May
Club Carlson announced last week that a major hotel reward category reassignment will occur May 31, 2012. The full list of 264 hotels changing reward category and organized by geographic location with state and country has been published.
137 hotels going up in reward category. Read More…
Club Carlson will announce in the next couple of hours that existing reservations made prior to the May 15 launch of the Radisson Big Night Giveaway, Country Inn and Park Inn promotions will count for the promotion bonuses.
A few minutes ago I received a call from Molly Biwer, Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group. The Club Carlson team have decided to change the promotion terms in light of the inaccurate information going out on Facebook and through my blog last week that existing reservations booked prior to May 15 would count for the current Club Carlson promotions.
The good news is that this change in the promotion terms applies to any existing reservations made prior to May 15. So even if you booked in January 2012 for a stay in the May 15-July 15 promotion period for Radisson and Country Inn or May 22-July 22 promotion period for Park Inn, you can register and earn bonus points for your hotel stay. Read More…
Radisson Big Night Giveaway II repeats a similar PR fiasco as Radisson Big Night Giveaway last November. Hotel loyalty programs and their PR reps want to create social media buzz about their offers prior to revealing the promotion’s full “official” details. Without full disclosure and transparency the buzz often stings.
Update May 19, 12 noon California time: Club Carlson has decided to change the terms of the Radisson, Country Inn and Park Inn promotions to allow reservations booked prior to May 15 for stays within the respective promotion periods to count for the bonus points. There were communications errors made last week regarding this term of the promotion and Club Carlson has rectified the error by changing the promotion terms to count existing reservations. This is a fine resolution to the issue. Thanks Club Carlson. Read More…
May 2012 promotions from Top Ten hotel loyalty programs:
Links to my Loyalty Traveler posts provide more detail and promotion analysis for each offer.
Most hotel loyalty promotions are two to four months in duration.
The easiest way to quickly see a list of all hotel loyalty promotions discussed on Loyalty Traveler is to check my Loyalty Traveler Facebook page. All Loyalty Traveler post links feed into Twitter and all my tweets feed into Loyalty Traveler Facebook.
Summer 2012 hotel loyalty promotions Read More…
Loyalty Traveler has some new company-source information on the Club Carlson promotions for Radisson, Country Inn and Park Inn brands.
Update May 11: Turns out FrequentFlyerBonuses posted the Priority Club promotion last week so I am actually late with the Priority Club news.
Here are the promotion summaries I was provided: Read More…
Club Carlson normally sells points for $7 per 1,000 (limit 40,000 points in calendar year) and the Daily Getaways price is as low as $3.50 per 1,000 points with a 50,000 points purchase for $174.60 when paying with American Express.
There are two Club Carlson points offers on sale Thursday, May 10 at 1:00pm Eastern. There is no noon presale for these offers.
Members can buy 2 sets of points from each offer for a total 300,000 points for $1,042.20. There are dozens of Radisson Blu hotels around the world where six hotel nights for $1,042 or less than $175 per night will be a substantial savings on the published rates. Read More…
The verifiable facts are Club Carlson has two webpages with countdown clocks for Radisson and Country Inn & Suites promotions. These two promotions, and supposedly a Park Inn promotion, launch next week for stays May 15-July 15, 2012 in what looks to be a blockbuster follow-up to last November’s Radisson Big Night Giveaway. And I was just lamenting in my InsideFlyer column for June that summer promotions were back to 2008 levels – except for Marriott Rewards. And now Club Carlson. Read More…
Carlson Rezidor Hotels in Asia Pacific offer a special 3 nights for the price of two nights for stays through July 31, 2012. Hotel bookings using this offer must be made by April 30, 2012. This sale is for 35 hotels in Radisson, Park Plaza and Country Inns & Suites.
This offer requires a 3-night or longer stay, but only one free night per stay. The rate used for this offer is the flexible Best Available Rate (BAR).
Rate checks I made showed day of arrival or day before arrival cancellation policies.
Last year Carlson had a 3-for-2 rate that appeared to always deduct the rate of the third night, even when the third night was the highest rate. This was an advantage for stays where the last night was high like on a Sunday or Monday for business locations or a Friday for weekend destinations.
The Radisson Resort Gold Coast, Australia rate check showed a Wednesday to Saturday three night rate as giving the second night free when the highest daily rate was for the third night, a Friday weekend night. This is actually less of a discount than taking 33% off a 3 night stay.
In my initial check of hotel rates I actually found a Country Inns & Suites with a booking error offering $0.00 rates and a day of arrival cancellation policy. The 0.00 INR rate will less likely be honored than if it were a 1000.00INR rate (US$20.00), but if your travel plans take you to Ahmedabad over the next few months, then you might want to give it a go. I doubt the hotel will honor the rate though.
And remember Club Carlson offers 1,000 points for online booking.
Carlson Rezidor 3-for-2 rate in Asia Pacific.
Club Carlson has a couple of great car rental discounts and points bonuses through April 30, 2012. You earn 9,000 points from Avis for 3-day rentals and 5,500 points from Budget for 2-day rentals or 9,000 points for 3-day rentals. In addition these offers include car rental discount rates of 20-25%. Club Carlson offers its category 1 hotels for 9,000 points per night.
Do a Marriott Courtyard and a Hilton Garden Inn have about the same room rate on average? How do Hyatt Place and Starwood Hotels aloft brands stack up in room rates?
STR and STR Global package hotel industry data. I like to read HotelNewsNow.com to see hotel industry trends and average room rates, although to get detailed information about hotel brands and places requires paying for information. I stick with the free stuff.
One of the valuable STR resources for me is the chain scale hotel list that categorizes hundreds of USA and global hotel brands on a scale of six market segments from economy to luxury. Hotel brands are placed on the scale solely using average daily rate as the factor. Note: the average daily rate data was added March 7 based on Smith Travel Research data for January 2012.
Any specific hotel may have a large rate differential from another hotel in that brand, but the average rate says something about the brand overall across the hotel chain and across the USA and globe.
STR and STR Global have moved some hotel brands to a higher chain scale based on 2011 average daily rates.
• Best Western Premier moved from upper-midscale to upscale. Best Western launched a rebranding campaign in 2011 to distinguish the better hotels in the 4,000+ global chain.
All the other chains operate several different hotel brands across different market segments and Best Western finally got into the game with three tiers of Best Western, (3,000 or so hotels), Best Western Plus (1,000+ hotels) and Best Western Premier (over 100 hotels). The numbers given here are just rough estimates based on past data I have seen.
Best Western Premier moves to upscale hotels. My stay last year in Napa was a great room in an old motel style building. The room was definitely upscale.
Napa, California Best Western Premier Hotel Ivy
Hotel Ivy Napa, Best Western Premier Hotel.
Hotel Ivy Napa, Best Western Premier.
• Country Inns & Suites moved from midscale to upper-midscale. That is a huge accomplishment for Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group working to become a more recognized name in the chain scale competition.
Upper midscale includes brands like Hampton Inn, Clarion, Best Western Plus, Fairfield Inn, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express.
Candlewood Suites, La Quinta and Ramada are examples of hotel brands in the midscale segment.
Hyatt Place, Hilton Garden Inn, Courtyard, Residence Inn and Four Points are in the higher upscale segment. The bad news for Club Carlson members is this chain segment change indicates rates are rising at Country Inns.
Loyalty Traveler note: This post originally had seven hotel brand changes based on a HotelNewsNow.com article (media arm of STR and STRGlobal). I received an email on March 7 stating HNN will issue a correction on their article and only Best Western Premier and Country Inns are changing in the hotel chain scale. I deleted references to the other hotel brands originally included in this post.
Club Carlson launched March 31, 2011 as the redesigned hotel loyalty program for Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group. The loyalty program includes over 1,100 hotels globally in the hotel brands of Radisson Blu, Radisson, Park Plaza, Park Inn and Country Inns & Suites. Hotel Missoni, a luxury brand with only two properties currently open in Edinburgh and Kuwait is not yet participating in Club Carlson.
Six competitive advantages of Club Carlson
1. Members receive complimentary internet at all hotel brands in North America and all Radisson hotels worldwide.
2. Club Carlson offers the fastest earning standard free nights of any hotel loyalty program when compared to rate of base points earned per dollar in hotel spend. Top category 6 hotels at 50,000 points require $2,500 in hotel spend to earn 50,000 base points. Bonus points and elite status and online booking bonuses reduce this spend level. HHonors Points & Points earners need $3,333 to earn 50,000 points for a top tier category 7 reward. Marriott Rewards members need at least $4,000 in hotel spend to earn 40,000 points for a top tier category 8 hotel reward night.
