Earn 10,000 Points Per Night With Club Carlson Mega Points

a building with glass doors and a sign

TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.

Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission which helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published.

Club Carlson has brought back its Mega Points promotion where members can earn 10,000 Gold Points per night at participating Radisson and Radisson Blu properties in the US, Canada or Latin America. The offer runs through the end of the year so there’s plenty of time to make the most of it…but is it any good in the first place?

Per Club Carlson:

What would you do with 10,000 bonus Gold Points®? That’s how much you’ll earn per completed night when you book the Mega Points rate from now through December 31, 2016 at one of your favorite Radisson Blu® or Radisson® hotels in the U.S., Canada or Latin America.

The promotion is now valid on all stays at participating hotels up until 31 December 2016.

The full list of participating hotels is HERE.

No registration is necessary but you do have to use the promotion code “MEGAPTS” when making a booking if the website doesn’t offer up a Mega Points room rate.

club-carlson-megapoints

Is the Promotion Any Good?

The answer to that will depend on what type of rate you normally book.

Some argue that to work out the cost of the promotion you should compare similar rates – by that I mean that, because the Mega Points rate is refundable, some say it should be compared with the lowest refundable rate.

I disagree.

I believe that the true cost of the promotion is the difference between the Mega Points rate and the rate you would have booked had there not been a promotion at all.

I almost never book refundable rates.

I make bookings when I’m pretty sure of my plans so I don’t see the point in paying a premium for a refundable rate.

With that in mind, I picked out a Radisson Blu hotel that I would consider staying at and I compared the rates for a random night in November:

screen-shot-2016-10-06-at-20-12-11

As I would normally use the advance purchase rate to stay at this property the cost of the 10,000 bonus points is the the difference between the Mega Points rate and the advance purchase rate which, in this case, is and that’s $47.80.

If I booked the Mega Points rate I would essentially be buying Club Carlson points at 0.478 cents each and, as I value the points at around 0.4 cents each, that’s not a very good deal for me.

How About If I Book Refundable Rates?

If you regularly book refundable rates then the math works out differently for you.

The difference between the lowest refundable rate and the Mega Points rate, in this example, is just $20 meaning you’re effectively buying Gold Points at 0.2 cents/point….and that’s an excellent deal.

Seven nights at a participating Radisson, at a marginal cost of $140 (7 x $20), would earn you 70,000 bonus points which is enough for a night at any Club Carlson property in the world.

You can get good value out of that.

As an example, the May Fair in London is regularly over $450/night (£300/€400) and even on good days it’s still usually over $380/night (£250/€335) so you’d be purchasing the room at a 63% discount!

the-may-fair-hotel-london - 28The May Fair in London

It’s worth noting that the $20/night difference between the Mega Points rate and the lowest refundable rate is not universal (although it seems to be true of most US Radisson properties) so be sure to check your other options before booking the promotion rate.

Bottom Line

If you usually book non-refundable rates then this promotion is probably not good enough to make it worth your while changing plans or making new plans just to stay at a few Radisson properties..but if you book refundable rates than that changes things completely.

I still think the Hilton promotion is the best year-end promotion we’ve seen (especially now that you can get triple points by booking via the app) but, for some, the Club Carlson’s offer isn’t bad at all.