Club Carlson devalues most of their award chart, except India

by Ajay 2 Comments

Last night, Club Carlson, the award program for the Carlson Rezidor group, which includes the Radisson, Radisson Blu, Park Inn and Park Plaza brands, announced their annual category changes. To everyone’s surprise (or maybe not!), most of the Europe and Middle-East based properties went up, sometimes jumping 2-3 categories in a crazy manner. All the new charts go in effect for redemptions booked on June 1, 2015 and onwards.

Have a look at this:

  • Radisson Blu Kuwait: Category 4 to 7, costing 70,000 points.

There are tonnes of such changes, and the list is so large that any sort of analysis may not show up any trends behind their intentions. But if you can salvage any values, please book up right now.

Club Carlson sweetens redemptions in India

One of the major markets for the Carlson Rezidor group is India, and they have over 70 hotels in India when I last checked. Most of them are around the lower categories, and again Club Carlson has followed others into reducing the number of points required for Indian redemptions. No premium properties in India really!

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Yawn! I can’t even find one property on this list which is on my wishlist of places to stay. I don’t make a detour for Carlson properties at all, with Hyatt, Starwood and IHG properties filling up most of my stays at this moment.

Does this impact your plans for a redemption anywhere?

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About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. I saw the devaluation last night and was surprised to see that properties in India were moving down the categories. Perhaps the weak rupee is the reason. However, some of the properties I want to redeem (like Country Inn, Goa- now a cat 1!) are not available for redemption till Feb 2016.. Not impressed :X

    Reply

  2. Nobody stayed at Carlson willingly. Was only done because they were cheap with last night free bennies. Now, they’re not cheap, so why even bother?

    And why are they raising award prices when the dollar is so strong? If anything, properties should be dropping categories, not zooming up.

    Reply

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