Free Night at Club Carlson

So it looks like we need a NYC hotel for a night in late October. As it turns out, NYC has tons of different hotel options, all of which are overpriced both in terms of cash and reward points.

We really don't need a hotel to be that fancy for this one night stay, but also don't want to stay somewhere with drunk degenerate tourists roaming around the hallways either.

Since NYC is apparently quite popular, there are plenty of different chain hotel options where my father can use his award points. Here are the options with our current point balances:

1. Starwood - 139,066 SPG points 
We normally would try to stay at Starwood hotels to maintain SPG Platinum status, but (a) we already reached Platinum for 2016 and (b) the cheapest hotels were 12,000-30,000 SPG points per night.

We probably would have selected the the Westin Grand Central, which ran $426 per night (including taxes/fees). Using points, it was only" 12,000 SPG points and also located very close to the event my parents are attending. However, those SPG points were worth 2.5 cents/pt to my father (so $300) in future hotel redemption value.

2. Hyatt - 100 Hyatt Gold Passport points, but 377,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards

For my parents' anniversary this summer, they stayed at the Andaz 5th Avenue for 20,000 points on a special promotion (normally 25,000 points). Both the Andaz and the Grand Hyatt would be ideally located for their event, but 25k Chase UR point price tags weren't cheap (those points were worth about $500 to my father). And my father sure as heck won't spend $716 in cash for another night at the Andaz (without complimentary breakfast).

3. InterContinental - 165,514 IHG points + Free Award Night

My parents had racked up quite a bit of IHG points over the years, taking advantage of their generous 2013 promotions. Plus, since each of my parents had their own IHG Visa credit card, each one received a Free Night Award for any IHG hotel in the world. After using one of them for my grandmother's stay at the Intercontinental Hong Kong for her 65th birthday trip, we still had one left that wouldn't expire until September 2016, and also over 165k in IHG Points.

If we did want to use these points, we'd opt for the InterContinetal Times Square. It ran about $555 in cash (including taxes), but would have been 50,000 IHG points (which my father would value at $400 or 0.8 cents/pt). Of course, we'd have to deal with getting through Times Square, so not a perfectly ideal location for us.

4. Club Carlson - 23,045 points + Free Night Award

Similar to IHG, we actually received a surprise Free Night Award from US Bank for having their Club Carlson Visa credit card. While not a guaranteed perk, the bank generously offered us the certificate for no real reason, though we suspect it had something to do with downgrading the other award benefits of the card earlier this year. 

23k points, however, isn't enough to stay at the single Club Carlson hotel in Manhattan - the Radisson Martinque in Herald Square/Koreatown - which runs a whopping 70,000 points (which my father values at $560 or 0.8 cents/pt). 

Our Decision

When it came down to our choices, it really was between (1) Starwood in an effort to reach 50 nights this year, which would earn us 10 additional SPG Suite Night Awards or (4) Club Carlson given we were unlikely to find another use for their Free Night coupon.

And since you read the post title "Free Night at Club Carlson," I'm sure you figured out which option we chose.

Whenever we have the choice of using an expiring coupon or points, we always redeem the coupon first. Why? Because the points shouldn't ever expire, though they are susceptible to program devaluations in the long run.

And while the coupon could have been redeemed for any Club Carlson hotel in the world (including the very expensive Mayfair in London), we were actually very limited in redemption options. After all, we only had 1 free night coupon and lacked enough Club Carlson points for a free second night. And my cheap Asian father would never pay those ridiculous cash rates for an expensive luxury city hotel. So how many near-term future 1 night stays did we think we'd have?

Comparing that to the very valuable and versatile SPG points, we'd much rather save 12k points for possibly 2-4 free award nights at lower category hotels, such as the multiple Four Points over Labor Day weekend.

The Booking

So we went online and booked the Radisson Martinique on Broadway. Per the e-coupon's instructions, we just had to enter a code while searching for hotels. As you can see, the rate came out to $0.00 for the night using the code.

Curious to see what we would have had to pay in cash, we looked at the revenue rates. That same night in the same hotel room would have cost $389 under the Advance Purchase (non-refundable) rate after taxes and fees.

Considering that certificate had a high chance of never been used at all, we were pretty happy that it came in handy after all. When we look at the hotel award redemption objectively, it didn't save my family $389, but rather it kept my family from burning 12,000 SPG points.

Which hotel would you have chosen?

Surprise From Club Carlson

A few months ago, we decided to downgrade our Club Carlson Visa when the first year was over and the $85 annual fee was about to hit. We discovered there was a "secret" no fee version of the card.

Since (a) we didn't really plan on earning points with this card after getting the 85,000 point sign up bonus and (b) didn't really find that many compelling Club Carlson hotels we wanted to stay at, we didn't think paying the fee for another year was worth it, even after the card would give us another 40,000 points.

We ended up just making some random hotel redemptions before the expiration of the Last Night Free benefit. One 2-night booking for my grandmother and aunt in Rome at the Radisson Blu and another 2-night booking at Niagara Falls for my parents and me over Labor Day weekend.

We thought we'd just sock-drawer the Club Carlson card and not really think about it again, but then yesterday, we received a surprise letter in the mail.

"U.S. Bank is committed to providing service excellence to our cardholders. In appreciation of your continued support and for being a loyal Club Carlson Visa cardholder, we are pleased to provide you with one E-Certificate for one night in a standard roomat any Carlson Rezidor hotel worldwide. Your E-Certificate will be delivered in an email from Club Carlson."

Wow, that's a very generous offer for doing absolutely nothing at all!  Where in the world should we use it?

Points and Mile Totals

Some of my classmates at pre-school have been asking me lately how many points and miles we have. I generally just say "this much" as I stretch out my hands, but in the interest of transparency, I'm willing to share our family totals to all 3 loyal readers of Lap Child Diaries.

Airlines
American AAdvantage - 600,000 miles
United MileagePlus - 400,000 miles
British Airways Avios - 215,000 miles
Aegean Airlines - 60,000 miles

Hotels
IHG Rewards Club - 113,000 points
Hilton HHonors - 104,000 points
Starwood SPG - 102,000 points
Club Carlson - 18,000 points
Hyatt Gold Passport- 600 points

Bank Rewards
Chase Ultimate Rewards - 392,000 points
Citi Thank You Points - 165,000 points

Now clearly, there are families (and even individuals) out there that have 1,000x more than we do, so we're really not trying to show off. We're just answering a question we get often, and there's no shame/pride here.

The truth is that these points and miles will only decrease in value over time. Programs "devalue" their points from time to time by increasing the prices for award redemptions, so we recommend not hoarding these rebate currencies. Cash you can save, but with loyalty points and miles, you should "earn and burn" as quickly as possible!

Any good redemption ideas for us?

Club Carlson Changes

As people in the Miles/Points community know all too well, May 31st was the deadline for several major changes in the Club Carlson hotel rewards program.

First, it was the last day to book hotel free night awards using the old pricing chart. Several top tier hotels are going from 50k points/night to 70k points/night!

Second, it was the final day to use the Last Night Free benefit that comes with holding an active US Bank Club Carlson Visa Card.

Last Minute Bookings
We had just over 100,000 Club Carlson points in our account. So we made a few future bookings this past weekend before the deadline hit.

1. Radisson Blu in Rome.  My aunt and grandmother were going to be in Italy and fly out of Rome in July, so my father booked them a few free nights at the Radisson Blu to finish off their vacation.

This hotel was a Category 5 (44,000 points/night). It was moving to Category 6 on June 1st (50,000 points/night), so we locked in two nights for a total of 44k points (thanks to the Last Night Free benefit).

To be fair, the hotel isn't that highly regarded. It's rated 3.5 out of 5.0 on TripAdvisor with a #595 ranking among hotels in Rome. Further, we could have paid $152 USD/night cash for the same stay, so it's a weak redemption value (0.7 cents/pt, even after the free last night benefit) relative to booking the expensive Club Carlson properties in London, for example. However, we'd still end up saving $300 in cash for a hotel stay that my family would need in the near future.

2. Radisson Fallsview in Ontario.  My parents still had about 56,000 Club Carlson points left without any clear identifiable need for any future 2 night stays. So we decided to book speculatively knowing that it would be free to cancel.

So for Labor Day weekend, we reserved two nights for the Radisson property at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. There was also a Country Inn & Suites (limited service hotel) nearby which was actually ranked higher on TripAdvisor, but we wanted to get a more upscale full-service hotel experience (Radisson). So we used 38,000 Club Carlson points for the two nights (saving ourselves about $183 USD/night). That equated to a respectable 1.0 cents/pt redemption.

We're not even entirely sure that we'll be going to Niagara Falls for our final summer vacation, but it was a free option to lock in the Final Night Free bonus. Worst case scenario, we cancel the booking and get back our 38,000 points to use for a free 1 night stay somewhere else.

US Bank Credit Card
Now that the US Bank credit card served its purpose and has less value to my parents, they didn't feel appropriate to pay $75 to keep the card another year. Sure, they would receive 40,000 anniversary points in the next few months (worth about $200 without the Free Last Night benefit) by paying the fee and keeping the card open.

But as you've seen above, these Club Carlson properties just aren't as exciting as those offered by Starwood or Hyatt. We really struggled to find a few properties that we'd actually want to stay at.

The only one might be the Radisson Blu Zurich Airport hotel if we were flying through Zurich on the way to Israel. However, that hotel is now 70,000 points/night, and we're likely only staying there during a long daytime layover, not even a full night.

So with that fact pattern, my father opted to downgrade this premium card to the No Fee version of the card, which had fewer watered-down benefits.

But to be honest, we have no intention of actually spending money on this card. We just wanted something active to keep our US bank relationship (and credit line) in good standing.

Conclusion
So while not our most impressive credit card churn and points redemption, we're still happy we got into the US Bank Club Carlson card program. For using this card to spend $2,500 on things we had to pay for anyway (groceries, daycare, etc), we scored $650 worth of hotel stays.