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Choice Privileges bought Radisson Americas last year and since as soon as the merger was announced, those with Radisson points have wondered whether and when — and at what rate — our Radisson points would become Choice Privileges points. We now have our answer: starting today, members with both a Choice Privileges account and a Radisson Americas account can exchange points between the programs at a rate of 2 Radisson Americas points to 1 Choice Privileges points. This capability is already live.
The Deal
- You can now exchange points 2:1 from Radisson Americas to Choice Privileges (or vice versa)
- Direct link to the exchange page
Key Terms
- Radisson points transfer at a ratio of 2 Radisson Americas points to 1 Choice Privileges point
- Points can be exchanged in both directionsLive
Quick Thoughts
Choice Privileges has announced today that members can now exchange points between Choice and Radisson Americas.
I’m a little disappointed in the 2:1 ratio as both Tim and I had predicted a 1:1 ratio for simplicity’s sake. That said, I expected it to be an automatic conversion, and thus I expected pushback from Radisson Americas members who felt like their points were “cut in half”. Because they announced it as a, um, choice (see what I did there?) it makes more sense to me that they offered the 2:1 conversion. That’s pretty spot on with the difference in value between the programs, so while I’m disappointed and a little surprised I can’t really complain. Long-term, I’ll get more value out of my points as Choice Privileges points thanks to things like Nordic Choice hotels and the partnership with Preferred Hotels.
On the other hand, the ratio may be interesting to Citi Premier cardholders. Since Citi ThankYou points transfer 1:2 to Choice Privileges points, this means that Citi Premier cardholders could indirectly transfer 1 ThankYou point to 4 Radisson Americas points (that’s 1 Citi point to 2 Choice points and then 2 Choice points to 4 Radisson points). There may be situations where Radisson Americas properties become a solid deal at that ratio.
Linking my Choice Privileges and Radisson Americas accounts seemed a bit tricky. The press release says to log in to your account at either Choice Privileges or Radisson Americas and follow the prompts, though I didn’t find it intuitive to find the exchange information on either site.
In my Radisson account, I had to hit “Redeem” in the top menu bar and then find the Choice Privileges Exchange tab. There was no link from the main “My Account” page.
That gives you a button that brings you here on the Choice Privileges site. I couldn’t seem to find that page starting in my Choice Privileges account, but that’s where you need to go to link the programs and exchange.
While the exchange looks like it happens on the Choice Privileges site, the linking is done through Points.com, so you’ll be prompted to connect your Choice Privileges account to Points.com if you haven’t linked it before. Then you’ll be able to select Radisson as a transfer partner, though if you haven’t linked Radisson with Points.com, you will need to click a link below the Radisson Americas logo to “Register this account” with Points.com. There were a few steps of 2-factor authentication with Choice, but overall the process wasn’t terribly difficult to set up.
Once it was set, I was able to swap out the direction of the transfer either from Choice to Radisson Americas or from Radisson Americas to Choice. The ratio is 2 Radisson Americas points to 1 Choice Privileges point.
After completing the transfer, I received a prompt saying that the transfer could take up to 24 hours to complete and be reflected in my Choice Privileges account. I wished it had specified that before I made the transfer (it didn’t matter for the purposes of my test transfer but it might in a situations where you have to make a quick redemption). However, the good news is that despite the prompt the points transferred immediately. I had to go to my Choice Privileges account page and “refresh” the page and the transferred points were there (and taken from my Radisson account).
Overall, it’s great to see that members finally have the ability to move points between Radisson and Choice. I am a little disappointed that points don’t transfer 1:1, but realistically the ratio is still fair enough, and the ability to choose if you want to move points and in which direction is beneficial (meaning that you could transfer from Choice to Radisson if you had a great redemption). I do wonder when Radisson will get completely folded into Choice, but this makes sense as an intermediary step while they figure out how to combine systems.
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Do you need to have Radisson points in your account to see award availability? I have tried multiple locations for multiple dates that show availability for cash rates but none for award nights.
Did you find the answer for this one ? I am having the same issue for Europe, for US I can see
I have points in my account now and have tried many more dates/cities since and still see no award availability even though paid nights are available. I messaged them on twitter after I posted this about the Radisson Blu in Dublin and it was 118k points for
1 night even though the cash rate was $135. They couldn’t explain why I wasn’t able to see availability.
I think it’s better for most people as I expect many folks have taken advantage of daily getaways or other easy methods to acquire choice points which are now more usable. I have a trivial amount of Radisson points that can be topped up or transferred at approximately accurate value with this change.
Are Choice redemptions typically half the price of Radisson Americas redemptions for a similar property in the USA? Typically I am looking at 20-30k per night for a Country Inn & Suites.
It’s hard to make a blanket statement like that. They are typically worth twice as much money toward the cost of the hotel. Choice has a much wider range of properties. And they can be a terrific value in places like Scandinavia, where you can often get well over 1c per point (maybe 2).
Preferred Hotels terms state:
Has anyone booked a room for 3+ people? Is that the “third-person fee?”
Nick, does it make more sense to transfer these points into Choice or to Radisson non-Americas?
I have plenty of Choice points but no Radisson worldwide points.
Radisson non-Americas really decimated their program. I’m all for diversifying, but I think you’d be hard pressed to do better with them. Without a clear plan in mind, I would rather have Choice points.
Would appreciate details; I travel to Europe pretty frequently and there are Radissons everywhere, even on Svalbard.
However, do you know how to check the points rates for hotels at http://www.radissonhotels.com? Once I log in, I am back to the Americas site and cannot check their hotels in Europe.
I exchanged all my Radisson points to Choice, and it came through in about 10 minutes.
Anyone get a Permission denied when trying to do the exchange?
YES, ON THE choice side when trying to link to points.com get the permission denied error
Anyone have a solution?
Not sure if you’re still stuck, but I figured it out.
It was actually unable to link Choice with Points.com properly, even though Choice’s website seemed to indicate they were linked. I figured out it was tied to my email address, and changing it fixed the issue. I’m not sure if it was changing the email at all, or if I was changing it to one that I had previously used when establishing the connection (I can’t remember if I’ve ever used another email with Choice in the past).
I never converted to Radisson from Club Carlson? Do we need to do that first?
Thanks
It’s been about 5 years, but as I recall it was automatic at a certain point. Of course if you also haven’t had any activity in that time points would have expired,
Thanks. I was able to find the accounts and was able to login into Radisson americas site. All points were there because of the annual Club Carlson credit card anniversary bonus. Got them linked to Choice as well. Moved all wife’s points from her Radisson to mine as well since I am Platinum for 2 more years somehow. Had no idea since I hadn’t logged in since Club Carlson to Radisson transition. Thanks again
Did transferring points reset the expiration date of either program?
I transferred from Radisson to Choice. The Choice expiration did reset, Not sure about the Radisson side.
Same here. There doesn’t appear to be any way to check expiration date on the Radisson side. Choice shows expiration date in the app and it did reset.
Thanks for the replies. For some reason I am unable to login to Radisson and the password reset email never arrived, so I can not test it myself yet. I still have about 160k points left, largely from the deal in 2012 to get 44k-50k per brand https://frequentmiler.com/club-carlson-rocks-my-world/ .
Be sure that you’re on the Radisson Americas site, At first I was accidentally on the non-America site and experienced exactly what you did.
Yep, that was it, thanks for the tip. I have 170K points in there, not doing much yet but maybe I will find a Choice way to use them.
Radisson expires after 24 months of inactivity and Choice after 18. Since it’s a backburner program for me, I might leave them in Radisson for this reason. The Preferred Hotels options sound interesting, but it’s odd that many are ineligible for point redemption.
I think a lot more of them have become eligible for point redemption over the past year for what it’s worth.
exactly my thoughts – where can I keep them the longest! I wasn’t sure of the expiration rules for either choice or Radisson… so TY for this info!
Another option is getting the Choice Visa because it has no annual fee and keeps points alive. I see that last summer it came with 32k points. Not sure if I’ll bother with that yet
thanks for the suggestion – I am not overly excited w/ Choice options yet. That might changed and then the Visa would likely make sense.
Did the transfer reset the expiration clock on either/both programs?
Quick edit above: You said that you could indirectly transfer 1 Citi point to 4 Choice Privileges points. I think you meant 4 Radisson points.
Thanks for the info!
You’re absolutely correct. Fixed. Thanks for commenting.
Zach beat me to it. Thanks for your humility in recognizing the errors over the years. I appreciate the clarification as I was wondering the same.