A few years ago the Radisson Rewards loyalty program split into two based on a couple of regions. Radisson Rewards Americas was purchased by Choice Hotels and incorporated into the Choice Privileges program, while the Radisson Rewards program covering the rest of the world continued as its own entity.
Following a massive unannounced devaluation, the remaining Radisson program held even less appeal for most people. Despite that, there’s a double status match opportunity that can get you top-tier VIP status which could come in handy for a couple of years. This comes via an initial status match to the Club Avolta loyalty program which will also save you 10% on duty free purchases at participating retailers.
The Deals
- Get a status match to Platinum status with Club Avolta
- Direct link to status match offer.
- If you don’t have a Club Avolta membership already, you can earn 100 bonus points when being referred. Here are our referral links:
- Get a status match from Club Avolta Platinum status to Radisson Rewards VIP status.
Key Terms
- Club Avolta – receive Platinum status for 12 months.
Quick Thoughts
As noted above, there are two parts to this double status match.
Club Avolta
First off, you need to match to Club Avolta Platinum status. If you’re not familiar with Club Avolta, it’s the loyalty program for thousands of duty free stores and airport restaurants worldwide. Platinum status gets you a 10% discount on airport shopping and 5% off food and drink at participating outlets, so that itself could generate some nice savings. It’s not just niche stores and restaurants either – Hudson stores, Burger King, and thousands more can be found.
To take advantage of those savings, go to the ‘Rewards’ tab in the app, tap on the 10% (in-store purchases) or 5% (dining) discounts images and then tap ‘Use Reward’. That’ll display a QR code to use when checking out to obtain the discount.
The status match procedure is straightforward. You apply here for free and you can match from both airline and hotel statuses. You can match to Platinum status from low level airline status levels such as Delta and United Silver and American Airlines Gold; even Southwest Companion Pass holders are eligible.
Hotel status levels that are even easier to obtain are eligible too. For example, Hilton, Marriott and IHG Gold statuses are all eligible, as is Hyatt Explorist, Wyndham Platinum and more. All of those status levels – with the exception of Hyatt – are obtainable via various different credit cards, so there’s a good chance that you have something eligible.
The terms state that it can take up to three business days for the match to be approved and up to five days for it to reflect on your account. However, when I did this match recently it was processed much faster than that. You do need to provide confirmation of your existing status, so I provided a screenshot of my Hyatt Globalist status. Club Avolta didn’t ask for any kind of confirmation of activity with Hyatt, so if you have status in a program with otherwise zero activity (e.g. IHG Platinum status from a credit card or a targeted Delta Silver promo), that should be sufficient.
Radisson Rewards
Once you have your Platinum status with Club Avolta, it’s time to match to VIP status with Radisson. Unlike the Club Avolta status match, there’s no landing page for the Radisson match.
Instead, you’ll find details in the Club Avolta app.
- Direct link to download Club Avolta app – Google Play
- Direct link to download Club Avolta app – App Store
Click on the ‘Rewards’ tab and then scroll down until you see the image for the Radisson Rewards status match that you can see at the start of this post. If you don’t see it there, Head For Points shared that you should be able to get it to display by changing your home airport at the top of the app to ‘Shopping’.
Either way, that’s not really necessary as the steps involved don’t actually require the ability to see those details in the app:
- Sign up for Radisson Rewards if you haven’t already and make a note of your membership number.
- Take a screenshot of your Club Avolta status in the app which displays your status level, name and account number. This can be found in the ‘Wallet’ tab.
- Send an email to loyaltypartnerupgrade@radissonhotels.com with your Radisson membership number and the screenshot of your Club Avolta status.
It can apparently take up to 14 days for the match to be processed, but I don’t know what the realistic timeline is. After matching to Club Avolta recently, I went to do this second stage of matching to Radisson, only to realize that I already had Radisson VIP status from this now-expired opportunity from last year.
Radisson VIP status benefits include room upgrades to the best category (with suites only being available at select properties), free breakfast for two people, early check-in and check-out (not guaranteed), one free piece of ironing per stay, access to exclusive VIP areas in select hotels (whatever that may be), exclusive benefits at your designated favorite hotel and more. While that’s not as good as Hyatt Globalist benefits, having VIP status could still provide a ton of value on stays.
Another potential benefit of obtaining VIP status with Radisson is the opportunity to parlay that into status with other programs. For example, if the only status you have across all programs is Marriott or IHG Gold status, that’s generally not going to be sufficient to match to meaningful status level elsewhere. However, being able to match that to Radisson VIP could subsequently open up the chance to match that status to others, provided those other status match opportunities include Radisson as an eligible program.
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Will this upgrade Choice Rewards?
I got an email saying I was denied because i’ve done a status match before with statusmatch dot com. Strange because they weren’t specific.
It seems most of the stores allow you to earn points but don’t offer a discount. Other than their duty free stores, where do you get a discount? I was hoping I could get a discount at Hudsons, but it doesn’t look like you do.
I haven’t had a chance to test that out yet. However, if you go to the Rewards tab and tap the 10% off image, that’ll hopefully give you a discount at Hudson.
How is this for those of us that matched to VIP from the expired promo and still have it? Is there a strategy for us here that you can add to the post, considering that many of us likely did that?
On the Radisson side, there isn’t really anything to do as you already have VIP status.
That said, it’d be worth getting Club Avolta Platinum status now as we don’t know when that’ll expire. I’m assuming our Radisson VIP status will expire at the end of the year, in which case you could then match from Club Avolta to Radisson provided the partnership between the two is still running early next year.