In early April Club Carlson first announced a huge change to the Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature® Card. For years the card offered an amazing benefit whereby the second night of every award redemption was free, which is an incredible perk. That means when staying in increments of two nights, you were basically getting 50% off redemptions.
That benefit was being discontinued as of June 1, 2015, so a couple of days ago Travis shared some great tips for maximizing the benefit before it went away.
There’s understandably a bit of confusion about when the deadline is to book with the second night free benefit, given that it’s supposed to be “discontinued as of June 1, 2015.” To me that means that May 31, 2015, is the last day to book under the offer.
However, according to the Club Carlson rep on Twitter, you can continue to make second night free bookings through 11PM CT today, June 1, 2015.
What has already kicked in, however, is Club Carlson’s category changes, which were steep. Overnight these category changes went into effect, whereby we’re seeing over 300 properties change categories, and about two thirds of them are going up in price. The biggest sting has to be how many are becoming Category 7 properties. Previously there were just 11 of them, while now there are more than six times as many Category 7 properties.
So if you snoozed and haven’t yet made your second free night bookings, you still have several hours to do this… it’ll just be under the new award chart.
Do keep in mind that in some cases the cost of redemptions went down, so this means you actually have an opportunity to book the hotels that went down in category at the new, lower costs, with the second night free benefit. For example, the Radisson Blu Amritsar has gone from a Category 3 to Category 1 property, so you can now book that for 9,000 points per night. And if you book by tonight, you can get the second night free.
Happy booking!
In case he reads this...
@Nick (2:27 am 5/31 on the last BOGO post) - you should rebook your Super Bowl weekend booking. I liked your idea and went to book it myself, and it looks like it dropped categories today and now is just 9,000 points :).
Hmmm. I just checked my reservations and I'm shocked. Kolkata, India went down from 28,000 to 15,000 and New Delhi went down 38,000 to 28,000. Agra, India and Doha, Qatar stayed the same. But thanks so much for the tip! I'm rebooking.
@ Lively -- Yep, India hotels did indeed largely go down in category!
@Robert -- you can cancel the card after booking and still use the last night free benefit for the rooms you've already booked.
Does anyone know if you need to still have the credit card when you actually check in or can you just cancel the card after booking all your 2 for 1 nights? I burned off nearly my entire balance of points this weekend and have no more need for the Club Carlson program.
@ Robert -- No need to have the credit card when you check-in.