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…
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…
The first skyscraper was built in Chicago and completed in 1885 after William Jenny won an 1883 building design contest by the Home Insurance Company. The first skyscraper at 138 feet had a 10-story design using a metal cage covered in stone for fireproofing. Preventing fire in downtown Chicago was a major concern after the great fire of 1871 destroyed much of the city’s business core. In 1890 two more stories were added to the Home Insurance Company building raising its height to 180 feet. The Home Insurance Company building was demolished in 1931.
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.
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.
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.
