BosEurFlyer

I’m looking to stay in Europe for two nights and need 100K Carlson Cold Points. I have Amex MR and Chase UR points. Your ideas are welcome.

sdsearch

Must the two nights be at a Club Carlson hotel? Where is this? Club Carlson is tricky to quickly earn points with no stays, unless you have a lot of 3-day car rentals coming up soon:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/club-...er-edited.html

Chase UR points only transfer to hotel programs that use Chase. Club Carlson doesn't have any credit card yet, and we don't yet know which bank they will go with for the credit card they expect to debut late this year.

I'm not sure about AMEX MR, but if it doesn't transfer directly to Club Carlson, I don't think there's any indirect transfer.

BosEurFlyer

The stay doesn't have be at Carlson, but the Radisson Blu in Amsterdam is really nice. There are some IHG properties in AMS but the redemption rate for the Crown Plaza that's in the city (nice location) is not that great; with points and cash it used to be 15K + $60 and now it's 25K and $60 Avis is a nice offer but I don't have a need to rent a car.

benzemalyonnais

Stay at the Amstel.....makes the cp look like a hix.

That Radisson is also available on FF rate for 80 €

BosEurFlyer

The Amstel does not have rooms available for my travel dates. Also, no FF rates my travel dates @ the Radisson

benzemalyonnais

Hmmmm bad luck...Amstel is really special

The PP Victoria is just as central as the CP, although I've never strayed there

sdsearch

Amsterdam has tons of hotels in tons of hotel programs. It'd probably be a lot easier to find a good Hilton HHonors property and cover way more than you need (especially with cash + points rates) with one HHonors AMEX app plus up to two at a time "two browser trick" Citi HHonors Visa 50k offers (see MilesBuzz! for a thread on that). HHonors is the only hotel program I know of where there are two creidt cards from competing banks both with singup offers, and furthermore where one of those (the Citi) can be "aggressively" churned (as of recent experiences by FTers, anyway).

Club Carlson points are (without staying at them a lot or -- at the moment -- renting with Avis a lot) much harder to get. Club Carlson's claim to fame is that you earn points at least twice as fast on paid stays as in other programs, but the opportunities to earn points fast without paid stays are few.

It'd be one thing if you were going to some (non-capital) Scandinavian city where Radisson might be almost all there is (of chains you recognize from the US), but Amsterdam?

BosEurFlyer

@benzemalyonnais great idea on Park Plaza Victoria...they do have 80 euro FF rate but for one night only....I still need to figure out how to collect 50K points for one more night.

@sdsearch there is a Hilton Double Tree property that is nice, but it would cost 22K MR points per night. As far as CCs, I've opened a few CCs lately and for now I'm taking a break.

I was wondering if there is a website where Amex MRs,DL,BA or JB miles can be exchanged for Club Carlson points?

benzemalyonnais

The Doubletree is on the other side of the street of the Victoria, and consequently not as desirable. It's not a bad hotel, but not something I'd go to AMS to stay in...Your trip must be soon since there's no availability on FF. You are however CC Gold? Are you staying on a weekend (Fri-Sun, Sat-Mon)? You can use the 2-for-1 rate as a gold member, which will probably work (it usually does) for the Radisson and will make it 100 a night. If this doesn't work, and you're still out of options you can look at the other Park Plaza Vondelpark. It's not central, but it's also not isolated, and it's a 3 minute ride in. Amsterdam centre is smaller than you think......really it's only 2 minutes more of your time than the Doubletree, and lots of touristic things are over in that general area anyways. I haven't stayed there personally, but it's there for the taking!

sdsearch

First, it is in general very hard to transfer to most hotel programs. Sevearl airlines (AA, Virgin Atlantic, Hawaiian) transfer to Hilton HHonors (however, none of the ones you listed), and AA also transfers to Priority Club. Amtrak transfers to Choice and Hilton (but only if you have status at Amtrak or $200 in Amtrak purchases that year!). I don't know of any other hotel programs it's possible to transfer into from airlines. And the vast majority of airlines don't allow you transfer out. Generally, the transfer direciton is hotel to airline, not airline to hotel.

Second, even if there were, it would likely be a poorer ratio than 22k per night (what the DT would cost you in Amex MR points).

However: Many airlines now allow you to outright book a hotel with miles. So you should look into whether you can do that with DL, for example. (I know that you can do it with both AA and UA, but I haven't kept up with DL.) Sometimes it's buried in their "vacation" packages, sometimes it's elsewhere on the airline site. That kind of redemption won't necessarily be as good a value as hotel points outright would be, but on the other hand it may work with a much wider variety of hotels (since it's going through a third-party booking engine behind the scenes, not related to any particular hotel).

Also, by "airlines" I don't mean Amex MR. Amex MR gives you choice of places to transfer into (many hotel programs besides HH, even if not Club Carlson), and doesn't it also allow you to book hotels directly with MR points somehow? (But again, since booking directly involves them "paying cash" to a booking agency for the hotel rate, it's not necessarily going to be less than 22K unless you choose a less expensive hotel.)

Have you tried going to a booking website such as booking.com and looking to see if there are well-rated (booking.com has tons of reviews of its own, plus you can also cross-check on TripAdvisor yourself if you wish) hotels that are much cheaper than the ones you looked at? Often some of the hotels that are not affiliated iwth a name brand have to discount more because they're "harder to find", but that doesn't mean they're bad. (I am familar with booking.com because I've used it for smaller cities in Europe that had absolutely zero chain hotels in any chain, and thus using points at good value was out of the question, no matter how many points I had in which program!)

BosEurFlyer

Thank you guys for your input/suggestions. I went ahead and booked Hilton Double Tree. I was able to get one night for 17.5K and 54 euro. For the second night I transferred Amex points to Virgin Flying Club which I’m now transferring to Hilton for 2HH for 1mile. When the points post I will book the second night for 35K points. Since I’m expecting to receive HH Gold status soon, I’ll be getting free breakfast and possible a room upgrade at this property.