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Radisson Rewards is the latest hotel loyalty program to announce a first quarter promotion for 2020 and it’s offering members the chance to earn up to 150,000 points for stays made through March 31st…but who should be considering this?
Radisson’s Q1 2020 Promotion
- Complete 2 Stays, earn 5,000 Bonus Points when the second Eligible Stay is completed.
- Complete 3 Stays, earn 10,000 additional Bonus Points (totaling 15,000 Bonus Points) when the third Eligible Stay is completed.
- Complete 5 Stays, earn 15,000 additional Bonus Points (totaling 30,000 Bonus Points) when the fifth Eligible Stay has been completed.
- Complete 10 Stays, earn 45,000 additional Bonus Points (totaling 75,000 Bonus Points) when the tenth Eligible Stay has been completed.
- Complete 15 Stays, earn 75,000 additional Bonus Points (totaling 150,000 Bonus Points) when the fifteenth Eligible Stay has been completed.
Headline Terms & Conditions
- To be eligible for the Promotion, you must:
- Be a Radisson Rewards member
- Register online for the Promotion prior to checkout of the first Eligible Stay
- Complete all Eligible Stays between January 15, 2020 and March 31, 2020.
- The Promotion is available at all Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson, and Country Inn & Suites by Radisson hotels worldwide.
- Eligible Members will earn Bonus Points based on the number of Eligible Stays completed at Participating Properties during the Promotion Period, not to exceed 150,000 total Bonus Points.
- Bonus Points will be credited to the Member’s account throughout the Promotion Period, when the standard points are credited, usually within 5-10 business days after the Eligible Stay has been consumed.
- An “Eligible Stay” means one or more consecutive Eligible Nights at the same Participating Property, regardless of the number of check-ins or checkouts that occur during that stay.
- An “Eligible Night” means a night at a Participating Property that is booked at an Eligible Rate, identified in the Participating Property’s reservation system as eligible to earn Radisson Rewards Points. Stays paid for by redeeming Points or Points + Cash are eligible to earn toward the Promotion bonus
Full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion page
The Math
I value Radisson Rewards points at 0.3 cents each so, effectively, this promotion is offering a maximum rebate of $450.
When looking at the rebate/stay that this promotion is offering this is what the math looks like:
Note: The effective rebate/stay is based on my valuation of 0.3 cents/point.
Thoughts
There are quite a lot of positive aspects of this promotion to keep Radisson Rewards happy:
- All Radisson properties worldwide are participating in this promotion
- A single night at any Radisson property in the world will count as an eligible stay so it’s possible to earn the full 150,000 bonus points in just 15 nights.
- 150,000 points are more than enough to book 2 nights at any of Radisson’s top-tier properties worldwide and you’ll have 10,000 points left over.
- 150,000 points can be viewed as an effective rebate of $450 – that’s pretty good going if you can limit the number of nights it takes you to earn this bonus.
- Award booking and points + cash bookings count towards this promotion.
- When you consider that a lot of Radisson properties (especially in the US) aren’t particularly expensive, the effective rebate per stay that’s available for 3+ stays ($15 and up) looks pretty good for anyone who can limit their stays to one night each.
Overall, this promotion is going to be a lot more valuable to Radisson Rewards members who are in a position to make a series of short stays (preferably 1-night stays) rather than members making a small number of longer stays…even more so than Hilton’s Q1 promotion.
Amazingly, this promotion would allow for two travelers who each spend 15 nights at Radisson properties to view this promotion in very different ways – one traveler could earn the full 150,000 bonus points by spending 15 nights at 15 different properties (and love this promotion) while the other could earn no points at all by spending all 15 nights at one property (and hate this promotion).
My suggestion to anyone who has plans to make a small number of multiple-night Radisson stays in Q1 is to try to split each of those stays across two or more properties in the same city (if that’s logistically possible and not too much effort) to maximize the earnings from this promotion.
Bottom Line
This is a very nice promotion for anyone making a lot of short stays but not a particularly good promotion for anyone planning a small number of long stays.
Still, regardless of your plans, make sure you register for this promotion (here) so that you don’t accidentally miss out on easy points if you happen to make a few Radisson stays and if you have a few long stays planned consider breaking them up into multiple shorter stays so that you pick up more points.
My email from Radisson says:
“Let your travel take you farther in 2020 — earn up to 150,000 bonus points for eligible stays, now through March 31, 2020! This includes existing paid stays, Award Night, and Points + Cash redemption stays.+”
I refuse to read the “full terms and conditions.” I once tried to find the definition of “eligible stay” for a Hyatt promotion and still suffer tremors. However, my email specifically says that award nights and Points+Cash are eligible. I’m gonna cash in a few points and go for it. How about you?
Grrrrr…I stopped the copy and paste at the point where the t&cs talk about eligible nights being defined by nights which earn Radisson rewards points and didn’t notice the sentence 3 lines later which says award nights count!
Thanks for spotting this – now corrected.
I went to the footnote. Now my mind is blown (again.) “An “Eligible Night” means a night at a Participating Property that is booked at an Eligible Rate, identified in the Participating Property’s reservation system as eligible to earn Radisson Rewards Points (“Points”). See the Radisson Rewards Terms and Conditions for more information. Stays paid for by redeeming Points or Points + Cash are eligible to earn toward the Promotion bonus.”
So an eligible night is one that is “eligible to earn points,” but stays “paid for by redeeming points” are “eligible to earn toward the Promotion bonus.”
HUH? Help me!
Yeah, that got me too (see my earlier comment).
I think Radisson has just written the t&cs poorly – I expect award bookings to count as they’re explicitly (albeit confusingly) said to count in the t&cs.