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Radisson’s latest promo is unusual in that you can earn bonus points on award stays. That is, you can use points to book the stay and then earn points from that stay thanks to this promo. Stephen Pepper has full details about the promo here: Radisson Q1 2019 Promo: Earn Up To 120,000 Bonus Points (Award Stays Count).
Many years ago Radisson Rewards (Club Carlson at the time) ran a promo where they offered 9,000 points per award night. Since the lowest price hotels cost just 9,000 points per night, it was possible to stay for free as long as the promo ran: pay 9,000 points, get 9,000 points back. The current promo isn’t as generous, but it still makes it possible to stay a long time in a category 1 Radisson for 20 days for a very low net cost in points.
The promo offers the following bonus points:
- Stay 1 night, earn 1,000 bonus points
- Stay 2 nights, earn 3,000 bonus points
- Stay 5 nights, earn 10,000 bonus points
- Stay 10 nights, earn 50,000 bonus points
- Stay 20 nights, earn 120,000 bonus points
If you max out the promo by staying 20 nights at category 1 hotels, you’ll pay 9,000 x 20 = 180,000 points for those 20 nights. And, as long as you remembered to register for the promo, you would get back 120,000 points. Your net cost: 60,000 points = 3,000 points per night. That’s a steal.
You can find all Category 1 hotels here.
The only problem? You would have to stay 20 nights in dumpy hotels.
Are you going to do this? If so, please share your plans. And, don’t forget to register! Here’s the registration link.
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[…] Hotel promo makes it possible to stay 20 nights for net 60K points (3K per night) […]
Radisson Jodhpur is supposed to be really nice.
I am not
For those in the US: there’s only 1 hotel in KY that qualifies so if you aren’t traveling abroad, don’t bother searching
Great, I was planning to go to …Erlanger, KY … anyways!
(Actually looking at where this is, it’s plausible somebody might stay here on a trip to Cincinatti. It’s even close to the airport (CVG)
maybe helpful?
https://www.radissonrewards.com/fgp/hotelcategory/displayhotels.do?category=1
Thanks. Added this link to the post.
[…] Hotel promo makes it possible to stay 20 nights for net 60K points (3K per night) by Frequent Miler. I always forget that Radisson promotions include award nights. Are there any good category 1 properties where this could be worth it, or is it a waste of time to try and max it out like this? […]
[…] Hotel promo makes it possible to stay 20 nights for net 60K points (3K per night) by Frequent Miler. I always forget that Radisson promotions include award nights. Are there any good category 1 properties where this could be worth it, or is it a waste of time to try and max it out like this? […]
This concept works pretty well with category 2 hotels also. 15,000 x 20 = 300,000 – 120,000 = 180,000 net (9,000 per night, under $35 per night using RRV of .38 cpp.)
Great crearive way to use points. Wish I could stay 20 days.
Thanks, love these kind of deals.
Puerto Varas is a beautiful Chilean city. Try the lucuma ice cream
I spent a night at this Park Inn a couple years ago. It’s not a bad hotel (a little old), but it had good location and is in a nice resort town. And it’s now the right season to stay there. I’m not sure how many people would want to grab a flight to the Chilean Lake District and spend 20 days in Puerto Varas (a week would be good), but hey, I guess you could. 🙂
Otherwise, it’s nice to know about promos that give you back points for award stays. I utilize the Hyatt offers fairly often. Radisson just doesn’t have many properties.
Too late for this promo. But the Bratislava Category 1 was a great hotel. Unfortunately, it is category 2 now.
why bother to post this when your last sentence references “dumpy hotels”? No one using Boarding Area wants to stay at “dumpy hotels”. Just another post to draw people to your headline and hope for advertising revenue….
I wrote this because I think it’s cool to think up ways to maximize value from promos. That said, I’m 100% sure there are readers who are interested in cheap hotels (which I described as dumpy to be mildly funny).
I don’t worry about ad revenue. If I did, I wouldn’t write about Radisson at all.
Gotcha you, but the article might have been more helpful if you listed a few hotels that require the fewest points that are not so “dreadful”
For those interested you can find category 1-3 maps for Hilton, Radisson, Marriott/SPG, and Hyatt at:
https://screwtheaverage.com/blog/budget-award-travel-2018-category-1-2-3-hotel-maps-hilton-radisson-marriott-spg-hyatt
These maps are a great way to plan out mattress runs, and capitalize on promotions such as this one!
Happy award travels!
I found the post interesting. And I appreciate you Greg how you even post and respond to “negative” /
“opposing” comments (Unlike my deleted comment awhile back on an article by Stephen Pepper). Radisson Blu Cairo looks nice. Lots of choices in India. Unfortunately – not going to either. Though if I had time and I wanted to visit India again (which I don’t), this would be the time to do it. To Tobyk – does FM have to connect every dot for you in an article? Isn’t that what MMS is for?
Ridiculous…He posted a blog the day before regarding the same promo and then just changed it up. Of course, all bloggers are interested in revenue which is why they post on BoardingArea. When a blogger has a ” headline” that makes you think there is “potentia” value to the promotion but then basically says its not worth…the only conclusion one can draw is that they are looking for traffic…I rarely comment on posts because I find them helpful. this was not because the “title” is completely misleading..
As I said, I wrote the post because I find it interesting to think up hacks and to share them. Stephen wrote the post yesterday and it got me thinking this afternoon when I saw it in my inbox. That’s the whole story.
Tobyk, you should definitely start your own blog.
Thanks quasimodo. I’m surprised to hear that a comment of yours was deleted. We generally don’t do that unless a comment uses profanity or hate speech, attacks another reader, etc. It’s extremely rare that we find the need to delete any.
If you delete comments that attack other readers then why didn’t you delete Daniel’s comment which clearly did this? Oh … it’s ok if they attack readers who criticize your blog.
Thanks for pointing out that comment. It is now deleted. Believe it or not, I don’t spend 24 hours a day moderating comments. I’m sure many, many similar comments have slipped past me.
The Cairo property would be badly located in Heliopolis.
Agree with you! Made no sense… but even if he did not put “dumpy hotel” it’s still the same to draw you to the site.
I read FM at Boarding Area, and I’ve been known to stay at “dumpy” hotels.