Details: Brutal Radisson Rewards Program Changes

This makes absolutely no sense (or cents) at all. Radisson already had arguably the worst-known loyalty program of a major chain. Radisson also already had arguably one of the worst hotel portfolios, especially after losing its U.S. hotels. Now you completely destroy whatever value the program had? This is either incompetence or malpractice. If anything, Radisson should be adding value to its program since its hotels are not attractive propositions for many customers.

From a pure loyalty standpoint, there is no compelling reason to stick with Radisson unless you’re already a top tier member.

The road to becoming top tier is hardly rewarding.

I guess I am one of the 0,001% who actually sort of benefits from these changes in the short term. Got a Radisson Gold Status via Status Match from HH Gold this year (until 02/23) because I had a 5-night-stay with no other points alternative. Now with the changes, Gold turned to Premium and the 5 nights (which amounted to nothing before) is already enough to extend the Premium Status until 12/23. That gives me 10 more months of Status to use my points.

In addition, the new system lets me use my 18k points directly as a discount now, whereas before the "cash & points" seemed optional as my 1-2 hotels that I was targeting did not offer that before and I would've first had to buy at least 12k more points (15k redemptions were pretty much nonexistant).

So yeah, actually quite beneficial to me in the sense that it gives me more time and makes it easier to get rid of my remaining points which did not amount to much. And let's me focus on Hilton Honors, whereas before I considered maybe changing 1-2 stays to Radisson to at least reach the 30k for a 1 night redemption.

And who wants to stay in their properties? They have some nice properties in the Nordic countries where bigger brands are few and far between, but on the whole Raddison is never going to be a first choice over Hyatt, Marriott, IHG or Hilton. Especially with the loss of the North America properties.

Just booked one night at Radisson BLU Zürich for next June, 113,044 points. Will transfer my remaining balance to Radisson hotels America. Can this be done online?

As someone that is fluent in German and just read the other blog article you referenced....Not sure that one reader telling him that the redemptions are working out at 15000 points for Euro 30 is a reliable source. Is this actually published somewhere or are we making assumptions on 1 blog reader of YHBU's blog?

Sample bookings I tried this morning for a few different hotels in different countries with different currencies in Europe came out to $2.80 per 1,000 points value when paying with points as a Club member.

A quick check shows about $0.0027-ish US per point at a few locations I was looking at. But this overstates the value because you are also using the points to offset the cost of taxes which weren't generally charged on point redemptions before (outside of occupancy type taxes). Haven't decided if I'll transfer them back to US or just burn the last of my points in Europe ASAP where I can use them quickly and be done with this dumpster fire of a loyalty system.

I just tried a booking for the Radisson Blu Abu Dhabi Corniche.

Total cost for one night is AED 556 (USD 151). If I redeem the entirety of my 150K Radisson Rewards points via "pay with points", the cost for one night is reduced to AED 476 (USD 129).

Thus, I can get approximately $20 for my 150K points. Yikes.

Thanks for the Update. I was fortunate that, right before the announcement, I redeemed most of my Radisson points on an Europe trip next year. While the redemption value was still not stellar, I'd imagine it is still better than the redemption value now. Furthermore, Radisson points are probably best used in Europe, as I was able to book one family room (that fits a family of 4) in cities like London and Amsterdam. I still have about 100K points left, and I will transfer these points to Radisson Americas (and redeem some nicer Radisson Blus in North America). Who would have thought splitting the Radisson programs, while confusing and troublesome at the time, becomes a saving grace for us?

I have a feeling point transfer will end soon. I was dissappointed, so I mov e d all my 420000 points to americas hoping they wpnt devalue anymore in the choice scheme...

Updating my own post...this is a dumpster fire after all now that I have figured out the tedious process of finding award redemption costs after the update. Overall pretty upset since I just moved most of my points out of the US program since I am not a big Choice fan and figured I would be better served with them in the Worldwide program since I travel frequently in Europe. Since the change I get to try and figure out if they are better in the Worldwide RR dumpster or back in the US Choice/RR dumpster. Is this change causing others to reevaluate? And if so what are you doing?

Wow. 75K was the top price on a standard room, and now that's worth $210 USD. Maybe they're doing this to account for inflating cash prices. Just moved everything back to Americas for now.

wow that's a mess guess i will be avoiding them internationally. i do still wonder about the Canada/US merger with Choice and hopefully that's a more reasonable change

We are kind of between a rock and a hard place at this point! If you park them in the US program you run the danger of Choice devaluing them significantly when the programs merge and give us a crappy conversion rate. If they give us a decent conversion rate you end up with points in the Choice program with 30 day award redemption rules and pretty much low to mid-tier properties.

Question:

There are two Radisson Rewards programs: Radisson Rewards & Radisson Rewards Americas.
Do the two programs use the same co-branded credit card, named Radisson Rewards Premier Visa Signature®?

That card is dead. It was associated with the US program when the split occurred but the card is no longer available and those of us who held it have had our cards converted to a generic US Bank CC.

There is NO credit card for either program! Radisson Rewards Premier Visa was for the US program but it was discontinued earlier this year.

Based on the new earning rates, you'd have to spend well over $16,000 for that $20 discount *faceslap* Even elites would have to be spending over $4,000 for $20 off a stay? Why would anyone choose to earn points with Radisson? Makes a ton more sense to book a Radisson through OTA (like Hotels.com) now.

I wouldn't be surprised if the owners of the few good Radisson properties start converting to other brands. Loyalty programs drive revenue, especially at smaller brands with reduced footprints. The most loyal customers have to go out of their way to stay with you. Why would anyone make a Radisson property their first choice going forward? I don't know anyone who stays at Choice properties over Marriott, IHG, Hilton or Hyatt.

So this pretty much means you should book a Radisson hotel on hotels.com (buy 10 get one free) and use a card that earns well on travel expenses, huh?

Suddenly Choice Hotels is starting to look good on the haters.

Was planning a trip to the Radisson Blu Maldives... had enough points in my account yesterday for 9 nights... now those same points are worth 2 nights... lmao idk to be pissed or laugh at how comically pathetic that is

I’ve consolidated points for my husband and myself into one Radisson Americas account. Fortunately I redeemed some points last summer for my son in London at the Mayfair. Wondering if I should try to use some my 400k Americas points before the Choice consolation. I guess a complete pipe dream that they would give us any notice of what happens to the Radisson points with the Choice purchase.

@Expat, are you sure your math is correct?

BRING BACK CLUB CARLSON. It really is that simple!!!

What? Dubai: 698,214 points for AED 743.38 (US 202.39) INSANE, just yesterday that same stay was 30K. A 23 fold increase. 23X! No Way! I hope this is a glitch. If this is true all my points will be redeemed on gift cards.

If you have the misfortune of needing to stay at a Radisson, it seems even OTA travel programs like hotel.com are more rewarding than Radisson’s own loyalty program. Might as well never book direct with them.

Keep in mind that non-elite Radisson Rewards members earn 9x points per dollar spent, so the return those members are earning on stays is tiny. As a point of comparison, Marriott Bonvoy offers 10x points per dollar spent to non-elite members, and I consider those points to be worth well over twice as much.

That is just nonsense that is based on valuing a Radisson point at ~0.3cent/Radisson point and a BONVoY point at ~7cent/BONVoY point, with the redundant and bolded use of the program names designed to stress that those points currencies are like apples and oranges, and comparing just the "cents" to claim one "worth" more than twice the other makes no sense, even in travel blogosphere. Moreover, simple common sense indicates that there is no economic or financial model by which one hotel loyalty program can generate and offer twice the "value" or "worth" of any other program. If there is such a model, we're waiting with bated to be enlightened...either that or just just wake up to the facts and stop making the bogus claim.

There’s no longer an award chart. For that matter, this isn’t even like Hilton Honors or Marriott Bonvoy, where the number of points required may or may not vary based on the cash cost of a stay.

Unless I am missing something, it is unclear to me how Radisson's version of dynamic award pricing (as per the image of the Cash/points slider), which an earlier version of this post had referred to as "revenue-based", differs from Hilton's? The key question is whether Radisson award costs will be capped roughly at the prior maxima of each hotel category. If there is such a cap, then it should still be possible to achieve higher redemption values than the max value of 0.28cpp claimed in the post. In other words, it is important to wait until the implementation details are clear before making big pronouncements.

Unbelievable, I had a reservation at the Radisson Blue Maldives for 75k points per night and now they are trying to charge me an extra $120.54 per night plus taxes and fees (previously none) in addition to the 75k points per night that they already charged me. Is that even legally possible? Can they change the terms of an existing booking and try to make me pay several hundred more dollars?

Can this be taken up with corporate?

Has this happened to anyone else?

Not that One Mile At A Time, View from the Wing, etc. covered Radisson much but I feel like the worst hotel and airline loyalty programs won't change their practices until (1) owners de-flag for better chains, (2) the chain goes bankrupt, or (3) all the blogs and travel loyalty influencers speak with one voice and black list a chain like Radisson. Look at Delta and Marriott. Both devalued their loyalty programs at the height of the pandemic. And yet all the blogs and influencers continue to pimp their credit cards.

Wow. What a shit show with Radisson. The hotel I was looking at changed from 30000 points per night to 120000 points per night. Terrible this change. Never again will I use Radisson.

Exactly same. Over a day the points I have is worthless.

This is the sort of garbage that should be reported to the Consumer Protection Bureau. Any program is free of alter its terms and conditions or even make wholesale changes to the program itself. But what it cannot do do is to retroactively alter reservations to charge more than a consumer paid before the programmatic changes. All reservations that predated the changes must be "grand-fathered" and honored as per the original T&C or the entire enterprise is a huge scam!

The hotel that I was looking for went from 30000 points to 262788. Just horrible

There is an interesting feature you didn't mention: Discount Booster. Instead of 27pt/$ as a Premium member, you can choose a 20% discount on the room rate (an extra 10% over regular members) and only earn 9pt/$ as before. That makes status a lot more rewarding than many other programs - even at a value of around 0.2ct that's around 12% "reward rate"... After only 3 stays/5 nights. Radisson is like the Cashback card of hotel programs...
My Gold status was extended as Premium to 12/23 as well...

I have 550,000 points in the international program and 5000 points in the US program. I think I will transfer to the US program. I do hope the US program does merge with the Choice program. I just noted my "favorite" Holiday Inn is now a Choice hotel. The hotel does have a wonderful view of the city if you know what room to book. I don't have any status with Choice so I need to check on a status match, though.

Most Maldive hotels also charge for boat/air local transfer from MLE - get ready for that also in your bill, and yes I have also seen these extra "fees". Plus they sometimes only fly once a day as well so don't miss the only time.... I sometimes get the feeling the points/miles game died in the pandemic as well.

Devaluation is bad, but losing upgrades as an ex-platinum member is even worse. Technically we still get the best available room, however, we're now merged with the gold level (VIP level has the same qualification requirement as gold level used to have), which means that in practice, we won't get many substantial upgrades anymore as there will be way too many people competing for them.

Goodbye Radisson, you used to be a nice chain.

just tried booking a hotel in rome and my 446,000 points are virtually worthless whereby if i knew this change was coming and booked the room last month I could have gotten my 5 nights totally free with points to spare! back to radisson america the points go.

I have been on the phone with them every day for the last 5 days. Worst hotel point program. I have accumulated 352k points. Can't even find out how to redeem the points. Said transfer the points to Radisson hotels.com so I did. Still can't see anything there on that website. It's a total joke. Basically years of collecting points for nothing, and the hotel I booked before for 15k points is now 75k points.
I can't wait to use these points and close my credit card. It's disgusting.
I will stick with IHG still the best deal. Love IHG. Radisson sux arse.

These changes are terrible. A london hotel room typically costing £320 (Mayfair Radisson) on the old program was available for 75,000 points. The same hotel room now requires 150,000. In effect Radisson just made my points worth 50% less.

I can't even find a way to perform a search for European hotels prices paid in points. I've been clicking around the appropriate website (radissonhotels.com, which shows my large point balance) for 15 minutes. Did they just stop allowing point redemptions altogether?

This is the most annoying thing ever. I had a trip planned and knew exactly how many points were required, not all of a sudden the points are no longer enough. For Radisson Umhlanga i was redeeming 15,000 points per night and now all of a sudden requirement is 78,000 points a night, ridiculous

I have been trying for months to see how many points are required for multiple cities and dates Europe and the United States and there is never award availability even though there is availability for a paid stay. Is there some trick? I'm choosing the option to pay with points. I even chatted with them on twitter and they said The Radisson Blu in Dublin was available for 140k points a night but I searched again and still no availability. (not that I would ever pay that many points).

I used to have 2.5 million points. I used 1 million points under the old programme and stayed dozens of nights with them. Since the programme changed, I burned through 1.3 million points with only ten nights to show for it. Disgusting.

Remember this is Radisson Hotel group International not Radisson Americas. Both have terrible customer service. The points might be transferrable but not elite status. Radisson Americas was bought by Choice fall 2022.

I live in Europe, the program is now worthless and offers few to no real offers. I used up my points and am leaving. There are so many better programs. Shame as this was the best in my part of Europe, now it's garage. I don't think it's new Chinese owners understand basic management