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Club Carlson (the loyalty program for hotel chains like Radisson Blu & Park Plaza) has a standard deal with British Airways that allows guests at Carlson hotels to earn 500 Avios per stay. The British Airways page with the relevant information is here.
Guests electing to earn Avios automatically forfeit their right to any “Gold Points” in the Club Carlson program – so you either earn Avios or points in the Club Carlson program. Not both.
At the moment Club Carlson is offering double the normal amount of Avios (1,000) to anyone booking and staying two nights or more at select brands in select locations between 1 October and 31 December 2015.
- Radisson Blu in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and North America
- Radisson in Asia and North America
- Park Plaza in Europe and Asia
- Park Inn by Radisson in Europe, Middle East and Africa
Terms & Conditions
Full T&Cs are here.
Highlights:
- Only valid for new reservations. Existing reservations won’t count
- Nights must be consecutive
- Maximum one room per stay will qualify for this promotion
- No other promotions can be stacked with this promotion.
- You must elect to earn Avios and not Gold Points
- All stays must be complete by 31 December 2015.
The full list of participating hotels is here.
Pay Less
For some this promotion may work well in tandem with discounts currently being offered at Carlson hotels in Europe and Asia Pacific. Take a look at this post for more info.
Should You Earn Avios or Gold Points?
It depends on how often you visit Carlson hotels.
If you rarely visit then it makes little sense to collect Gold Points – it will take far too long to build up a balance of points that will earn you a night (or more) at a good property. So you may as well take the Avios.
If, however, you stay at Carlson properties more than once or twice a year the proposition becomes different.
For every dollar you spend at Carlson hotels you earn 20 Gold Points in your Club Carlson account so it wouldn’t take too many nights before you earned enough for a decent redemption (50,000 points/night) or a good redemption (70,000 points/night). Note: I’m not taking into consideration the extra Gold Points you would earn if you use the Club Carlson credit card to book your stay. That would get you to a nice free night even quicker.
Radisson Blu Warwick Philadelphia – Image courtesy of Carlson Rezidor
Taking this Avios promotions as an example:
A two night stay at a participating hotel, costing $500, would earn 1,000 Avios or 10,000 Gold Points.
10,000 Gold Points is a fifth of the way to a decent free night while 1,000 Avios isn’t a fifth of the way to anything but the shortest of flights (NYC to Boston is 4,500 Avios one-way) and you still have to get back. So if you think that you may have more stays at Carson hotels in the future you’d be much better off electing to take Gold Points.
Looking at it another way:
I value British Airways Avios at around 1.3c/Avios while I value Gold Points somewhere between 0.5 cents and 0.6 cents per point (which is on the generous side but it works for my purposes).
A two night, $500 stay during this promotion would earn me:
1,000 Avios = $13 worth of rewards or
10,000 Gold Points = $50 of rewards (at the low end)
So it makes no sense for me to elect to earn Avios.
Naturally the math will vary depending on the price of the hotel room and your valuation of Avios and Gold Points so you should change the numbers to see what makes most sense for you.
If you haven’t come across the concept of valuing your miles and points then take a look at this post where I explain how I value my airline miles.
