If you have free night e-certificates from spending on the the Radisson Rewards Visa cards, you’ll want to check your account: while in my own account this afternoon, I noticed that the expiration date on my certificates has been extended to 12/31/21.
My three certificates earned in 2020 were originally set to expire in April of 2021 and Radisson later extended those to 6/30/21. I was pretty disappointed with that extension as I was finding it very unlikely that I would find any use for my certificates before expiration. This extension to the end of the year makes it much more likely that I’ll find a use for my certificates. I’m somewhat surprised that it took Radisson so long to extend them, but this is obviously great news nonetheless.
Note also that there had been many reports of people having difficulty using the certificates for a while, but I was recently able to log in to my account and click the “book now” button shown under the certificate number to book a reservation (this was just a test, so i cancelled it minutes later and the certificate came right back into my account).
As a reminder, you receive these certificates by spending $10,000 in a cardmember year on one of the Radisson Visa cards and cardholders can earn up to 3 certificates per year. The certificates are valid at any Radisson Blu, Radisson, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson, or Country Inn & Suites in the United States. My read on those terms was that the certificate would not be applicable towards a Radisson Individuals hotel (a new boutique brand that Greg uncovered recently). However, I am glad to report that I tested out one of my certificates and it does indeed work at the only Radisson Individuals property in the US.
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Are the radisson e-certs book by or stay by the expiration date (12/30/2021)?
Stay by. It won’t show any availability beyond the cert’s expiration date.
Great news after last week being told, rather tersely, that they will definitely NOT be extended. I still hope to use my 4 nights in Europe/Scandinavia where I get much better value.
The free night certificates are only valid in the US. You can use points in Europe, but the certificates have always been limited to US properties only.
Just remembered that! I used to use mine in NYC for great value. Now maybe I can get a room valued at $100 or so. Never again will I spend $10K on these cards. I will have to use my stash of points for outside the US. At least they don’t expire … yet.
Datapoint: I didn’t have the cert in my account, but was able to confirm the extension using the search functionality and inputting the free night cert code.
Oddly, my cert was extended to 12/30 and not 12/31.
Thanks for reporting.
Now, Hilton is the only major certificate issuing hotel entity that has not extended their free night certificates to around the end of 2021.
Hilton certs issued before 5/1/20 will expire on 8/31/21.
IHG extended its certs to 12/31/21 or later, I believe, except for a handful of uncapped certs that expire on 8/31/21.
Marriott extended their certs in the last couple of weeks to 1/3/22.
Hyatt previously extended its certs to a check-in no later than 12/30/21.
Now, let’s all beat up on Hilton and persuade them to extend theirs to a similar date!
Great news indeed. I was fretting about having to stay again at the once much luv’d, yet dilapidated Melbourne, FL Radisson…. before they’d gotten around to finishing renovations. Maybe by this fall, they’ll at last have finished…. (lol) On the other hand, not having to use them by end of June means I can consider using some of them for the quite nice Country Inn & Suites in Kalispell, Montana (after Glacier Park melts enough to be fully reopen) 🙂 Gives us all more time to figure out just where we’d deploy these long unused free nights…..
Hardly “free”. Spending $10K comes at a cost. Though you get points for the spend as well.
I don’t think escot was suggesting that the certificates themselves are free. The general term for hotel certificates valid for a free night is free night certificates. Not free certificates, but certificates for a free night if that distinction makes sense.
Yes, of course, but … not much value in the US (west coast).
[…] Update 5/15/21: Free nights have been extended until 12/31/21. Hat tip to FM […]
Weird how the lights aren’t on in the Radisson HQ building.
Interesting. I see a cert in my app that now has an expiration date of 12/31. But I used mine last week.
I was excited, for a minute, thinking maybe they just added a new certificate. But when I tried to do a potential booking, it just says no hotels are available for the nights I search with the cert. I wish they would just remove it or mark it as used. Go figure Radisson does not have the best IT.
Yes, their setup has been annoying like this for a few years now. For a used cert it shows the same as all the others, expect once you click on it zero booking availability will show for all dates.
I called Radisson a couple years ago complaining that there was no reward availability when I went to use the certificate. Eventually we (I) figured out that it was used already.