Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Radisson Hotels — the international Radisson program that includes properties outside of the Americas — has made significant changes to its loyalty program. The changes really stink. If you have points in Radisson Hotels international, you probably want to move them to Radisson Americas sooner rather than later just in case they stop allowing that at some point since you (probably) don’t want them stuck in the international program at this point. Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to move them.
How to move your Radisson points from Radisson Hotels (international) to Radisson Americas
Moving your Radisson points is easy. There are two links depending on which direction you’re transferring:
- Move points from Radisson Hotels (international) to Radisson Americas
- Move points from Radisson Americas to Radisson Hotels (international)
In either case, you’ll need to log into the Radisson account that has the points you want to move. Make sure that your name and email address match on both accounts. I haven’t tested to see what happens when they don’t match, but I don’t recommend doing that.
After logging in, you’ll be prompted to enter the number of your Radisson account on the other side (i.e. if you’re transferring from the international program, you’ll need to provide your Radisson Americas account number).
Then you’ll reach a drop-down menu that allows transfers of as few as 1 point or you can transfer larger chunks.
Once you’ve selected the number of points you want to transfer, you just need to check the box saying that you accept the terms and submit and your points should be on their way.
Unfortunately, this process may not be instant. I transferred points from Radisson Americas to Radisson International less than 2 weeks ago and that process was indeed instant (I used them to book something that I later cancelled).
This time around, the points did not move instantly. It’s only been a couple of hours so far, but know that they won’t move right away.
On the other hand, Greg moved points today and that transfer was instant for him, so YMMV.
We don’t have any indication that the ability to move points will be taken away imminently, but neither did we have any indication that Radisson international was going to wipe out award charts and decimate the value of its program this morning, so I recommend moving points sooner rather than later if you want them moved.
Do you want to move your points? Probably
One Mile at a Time has a full report on the changes, but the short version of the story is that Radisson Hotels (international) has gone to a fully dynamic pricing model and eliminated its award charts overnight. I can’t say that this is entirely without warning since they did send members an email last week indicating that changes were coming without specifying what those changes would be or when they would happen. Eliminating the award chart and going to a dynamic pricing model is a pretty radical change to implement without fair warning.
As fate would have it, the news does not improve from there.
Ben at One Mile at a Time reports finding points to be worth somewhere between 0.2 and 0.28c per point on average, with some hotels providing even less than two tenths of a cent per point in value.
Combine that with the fact that most members will earn far fewer points per dollar spent and the huge devaluation really comes into focus. Radisson Hotels (international) just won’t be a program that most readers will find interesting moving forward based on what I’ve seen from today’s changes.
All that said, you’re probably better off moving your points to Radisson Americas. You won’t get far outsized value in the Radisson Americas program, but in addition to probably getting better value than in the international program you get the hope of things getting even better if and when Radisson gets fully integrated into Choice Privileges. We don’t know if or when Choice will choose to fold Radisson into its portfolio and convert Radisson points to Choice Privileges points, but by having the points in Radisson Americas you get to at least hope that will happen and be more favorable than getting two tenths of a cent per point.
Overall, the changes are disappointing, but for now you can at least move your points to Radisson Americas and hope to do better with them there in the long run. That’s a shame since Radisson has some properties in Europe that I’d have liked to have tried — but with today’s change, it is likely that I won’t be visiting any of those properties in the future.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Hi everyone,
do you know, if the transfer of points from Radisson International to Radisson Americas is still possible? The global points transfer page is still online, but I cannot check, if it really still works, as I currently do not have any points to transfer. But I would urgently need to know it, as I would like to transfer points from my credit card first to Radisson International and from there to Radisson Americas, as my credit card only cooperates with Radisson Rewards International and not with Radisson Americas, where I would need the points.
Thanks so much for your help!
[…] RIP to Radisson Rewards program: Shocking Radisson Rewards devaluation – the value of your points is cut by half! Thank God I never transferred any points to it from the Radisson Rewards for the Americas program…which is now owned by Choice Hotels. Confused yet? If you have any of these points maybe you can still salvage some value out of them: How to move Radisson points to Radisson Americas now. […]
How can you tell if your account is International or Americas?
OK. I transferred both my and my wife’s points to the America’s program. Both were done instantly. I also read somewhere that, since Choice points are not transferrable between different members’ accounts, Radisson Americas account holders should consider transferring/consolidating their points (among household members) now, before the Choice/Radisson Americas consolidation perhaps freezes that ability. While I can find in the Radisson Americas T&C (section 4.f.ii.2.) the ability to transfer points in such a way, I can’t find anywhere how to do so. Anyone have insights on how to get this done. My objective is to combine my wife’s and my Radisson Americas points, and then – when enabled – to further consolidate with my existing Choice points to produce a Choice account with in excess of 350k points. That will at least (as it stands now) salvage the Radisson points in a manner where I can get the most value from them.
Thanks for this. Wish that I had a chance to have used the rest of my points back when this was a great program. I’ve been really anxious to go to Lonyearbyen and some other places in Europe where the redemption rates were really good but just never could make it work.
I like how they don’t allow you to transfer all your points. I had a total of 395,719 points in the original program but they only let me transfer a max of 375,000 points to Radisson Americas orphaning 20,719 points. I wonder if I come back tomorrow it I can then transfer the balance. This was the same situation with my wife’s account as well. They only let her transfer 240,000 points orphaning 11,946 points.
You can transfer the remaining points in 1000s and then hundreds and then in single digits all immediately.
I was able to do it immediately.
Thanks for the tip. worked great!
Are you also going to report on the changes?
I have now experienced something truly new and unbelievable to me, I had an existing reservation at the Radisson Blue Maldives for 75k points per night and now they are trying to charge me an extra $120.54 per night plus taxes and fees (previously none) in addition to the 75k points per night that they already charged me. Is that even legally possible? Can they change the terms of an existing booking and try to make me pay several hundred more dollars?
Can this be taken up with corporate?
Has this happened to anyone else?
Sounds like you can take it up with Xi Jinping himself, since I hear the CCP owns Radisson International.
All jokes aside, that’s bad IT work I suspect, so you should definitely call customer service. I bet many people are doing just that now.
I moved all my points from International to Americas when I found out that Choice was buying them and they have some interesting Iprefer properties…
This can go either way. Is not as if Radisson Americas is any better now that it is under Choice, granted, no changes have been made to the Americas program, but they will be coming. For someone planning on using Radisson in the US, or a Choice member, sure, take advantage. But for someone that will use it mostly in EU, might as well bite the bullet.
I disagree as the points are based on the cash rate and many Radisson properties in Europe price on the more expensive side compared to other brands. As such, you are going to get .1% to 0.3% on the expensive rate. The only way the new program works is if you are traveling when the Radisson hotel rates are inexpensive. I looked at the Radisson Blu Sydney which I have stayed at previously and I could pay about $560 in cash or use about 350,000 points for the 2 night stay. So the points were worth about .1% per point. On the other hand, the properties in London were running around $250 – $300 per night and the points rate for 4 nights was about 292,000 to 365,000. So these rates were pretty comparable to the old rates and were for the Radisson Blu 9 dials and the Park Plaza County hall which always were more expensive properties. However, $250 – $300 per night for London is on the cheap side to begin with. Not sure that I want to be at the mercy of Radisson having inexpensive hotel rates and offering good points valuations at the same time since as the Radisson Blu Sydney showed in some instances the points are now worth about 1/3 of the previous average rate of 0.3% rate that many bloggers and I valued them at.
Like I said, it can go either way. While the International program appears to be going in a dynamic manner, that is still not stopping you from going and taking advantage of NON-PEAK time. It is all a manner of planning. Choice, on the other hand already limits award booking to 30 days before and we do not know what changes would come. I feel this is a bigger issue for me, besides, Choice US properties are not something that scream phenomenal across the board, same can be said with Radisson Americas, except for the few Reds and Blues and some oddball properties in certain locations, Park Plaza in Toledo OH comes to mind. Also keep in mind that Radisson have had several properties in key markets, NYC, SFO that have been re-branded into other programs, so their presence has dwindled already. Besides, the competition in the US market is strong with HH, IHG, Marriott, Hyatt, to say some. For me, I will do my part in using my points on EU stays and take advantage of that. I never really used Radisson for US stays, as I got better use of other programs.
Agreed – while this is absolutely terrible if accurate, I still can’t think of any United States properties I’d like to stay at, so I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that I can redeem internationally for decent value down the road.
This works great for resetting the date if you have points expiring as well. I did it recently.
Where does the points expiration date show in Radisson Americas? I could only find it on the International side.
I couldn’t find it, but AwardWallet alerted me and I verified with Radisson Twitter
They have an “activity within 24 months” expiration policy. I went to “statement activity”, set a wide search range, and found my last transaction in 9/21. From there, math. There should be something easier, but I sure couldn’t find it.
I decided to email them. The form already had my information prefilled. I received a response in a few hours detailing my last points activity (transfer from Radisson International) and expiration date (end of month two years later).
Radisson continues to “redesign” their website to hide the most basic functions.
Now I can’t see a way to find point redemptions, anywhere. I literally click on the button “book now” inside the “Redeem Rewards”, and the search gives no option to price with points, in any menu.
EDIT: NVM, I read the OOMAT post and seems points are “as cash” now, so no chance ever of getting a good redemption. Just dumped my 400k leftovers into the Americas program.
Was planning a trip to the Radisson Blu Maldives… had enough points in my account yesterday for 9 nights… now those same points are worth 2 nights… lmao idk to be pissed or laugh at how comically pathetic that is
I was considering the same redemption. When the news broke of Choice buying Americas, speculation online was that the Radisson point value would take a hit, so I sent 95% of my points to International with an eye toward the Maldives. I just sent them all back to Americas, and thankfully the transfer was instant.
How I miss the good old days with Radisson! Oh well, I did manage to treat my son and his girlfriend to five nights at the Mayfair (Radisson) in London a couple of months ago, so I guess we got lucky to get in under the wire there. I now have the four accounts for myself and husband with all the points consolidated in one Radisson Americas account. I found the customer service representative I talked with surprisingly helpful.