Park Inn is the upper midscale hotel brand of the Carlson Rezidor Hotels Group. The Park Inn 1 + 1 promotion earns 44,000 points with a single stay at a Park Inn from May 22 to July 22, 2012 for the first 20,000 Club Carlson members to register.

Park Inn 1 + 1 Registration.

Most Park Inn properties are located in Europe which is why this promotion launched at 3:00pm Pacific time, 6:00pm Eastern on May 21. The time was midnight May 22 in France and Germany and other European cities where Park Inn is a more abundant hotel chain.

There are currently only ten Park Inn hotels in the U.S.

• Park Inn by Radisson Fresno, California
• Park Inn by Radisson Harrisburg West, Pennsylvania
• Park Inn by Radisson Dallas – Love Field
• Park Inn by Radisson Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan
• Park Inn by Radisson Tulsa Airport, Oklahoma
• Park Inn by Radisson Toledo, OH
• Park Inn by Radisson Hotel & Water Park, Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Park Inn by Radisson Sharon, Pennsylvania
• Park Inn by Radisson DFW Airport South, Irving, Texas
• Park Inn by Radisson Houston North Hotel & Conference Center, Houston, Texas.

Register now if you really think you will get to a Park Inn during this promotion. This is a great offer for the Europeans, so maybe don’t take up one of the 20,000 slots for 44,000 points if you have little hope of getting to a Park Inn by July 22.

Looks like I’ll be taking the wife to the Sierra Nevada mountains via Fresno in a few weeks. Time to see some big trees.

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…

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…

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.

Budget offer link.

Avis offer link. Read More…

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.

Read More…

The Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group Global Business Conference 2012 last week in Nassau, Bahamas is the third annual conference I have attended. This is the annual conference bringing together hotel owners, managers and parent company executives for the hotel brands of Radisson, Country Inns & Suites, Park Inn and Park Plaza hotels.

The Radisson hotel chain has puzzled me for a decade as I tried to understand the difference between several different Radisson brand names like Radisson in the USA and Radisson SAS, then Radisson Blu in Europe and Radisson Edwardian in London.

The variability in earning points in goldpoints plus depending on whether your hotel stay was in the U.S., Asia, Europe or Africa was another confounding aspect of the hotel loyalty program. Goldpoints plus had the feel of IHG Priority Club and InterContinental Ambassador, another program where hotel brand acquisitions brought together a European/international program with a US based hotel loyalty program and an odd mix results.

This Loyalty Traveler post will attempt to share the basics of the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group for readers who may have recently joined the Club Carlson program after the 2011 Q-4 Big Night Giveaway for 50,000 points with one hotel stay at a Radisson. This is an overview of the hotel chain and I will follow up with another post describing the Club Carlson loyalty program in detail.

Ambition 2015

In 2010 the Carlson Hotels company launched a five year initiative – Ambition 2015 – to create a stronger global presence as a major hotel company and hotel loyalty program.

Two years ago in Orlando the company executives pledged an investment of 1.5 billion dollars to support the five year improvement plan.

Read More…

February 14 is Day 1 of a 25% discount sale for participating Radisson, Country Inns & Suites and Park Inn hotels in the U.S.

• Sale ends February 16 11:59pm Central Time.
• Bookings available for stays February 14-February 29, 2012.
• Discount is 25% off standard room rate.
• Radisson Hotels sale
• Country Inn & Suites sale
• Park Inn sale

Remember Club Carlson offers online booking bonus and currently has the Triple points promotion for hotel stays through March 16, 2012.

Club Carlson – January 10 – March 16, 2012 Triple Points for all hotels worldwide is 60 points/$1. Club Carlson already has the fastest earning program for free nights and triple points gets you there so much faster. The highest category hotel reward night requires about $800 in hotel spend. Most hotel loyalty programs will require $2,000 to $4,000+ for a free night at their top hotels – even with promotion bonuses. LT post January 11.

Life in the slow lane

I am seriously suffering through the worst internet service here at the Sheraton Nassau Resort that I have experienced in years. $40 resort fee includes high speed internet. This data flow may have been high speed in 1995.

On the other hand I have a suite room I love and the patio doors are open letting the sounds of birds and waves fill the room space.

When I get a decent internet connection I’ll share photos of the Sheraton Nassau.

I’m outta here.

Gone to beach.