benzemalyonnais

Because some people don't actually want to stay in the hotels, but rather want to listen to the blogs and assume that their completion of the stay will result in a 'FREE' 3-day Parisian getaway.

100countrygoal

Maybe I am missing it, but I don't see an affirmative answer. . . just a note that the full terms will be released on the 15th. . .

csr12621

Whoa, that's weird. This Facebook link totally CHANGED! Earlier Club Carlson responded to Nianbing Xiong's question on the club carlson's facebook page directly below her question of: "Just have a quick question: will the reservation made before may 15th but check in/out during the bignight give away promotion period, is that eligible for this promotion?"

Club Carlson said "@Nianbig Xiong..." (i'm paraphrasing from memory here), something like "while we don't want to reveal too much information before the release of the full terms and conditions, the short answer is...yes, reservations made before May 15th will be eligible for this promotion."

The fact that the affirmative response has been deleted makes me wonder if they decided that, no, in fact, stays booked before May 15th will NOT be eligible. At least that's what I'm now taking from it and not to rely on any info that has been extracted before the full t&cs are released.

greek2me

I prefer to think of it as room rate arbitrage

ma91pmh

Yes same here. Not about getting "free" nights. I spend $80 at my local radisson and earn enough points to pay for one night in london that would otherwise cost me $450. That is why I was also happy to pay $185 to outright buy 50k points on the daily getaway promo. Ymmv

stinger101

He means 1 room at each brand. Radisson, Country Inn, and Park Inn. I believe there are all 3 in Fresno.

dcpilgrim

I have all 3 properties w/i 10 miles of me (Harrisburg, PA), and I am trying to decide if its worth roughly $300 for the 138K. I am probably 2-3 years away from being in a position to cash in for a trip to Europe (need the kids to get a little older).

It would be pure mattress run type stuff. If the dates were different I could have better chances to stitch it in w/normal stays.

I worry about point devaluation. Maybe a moot point since I am not staying up till 1 AM.

mrredskin

Yeah that's really got me concerned now. I was banking on a stay park and fly promo that starts before the promo officially begins but would end after the promo starts. Hmmmmm

spankytoes

Last time bookings before the promo start date counted. They also just had a 3-day sale. The alleged T&C say that you must register before you complete your stay. I'm not worried about stays booked before the registration starts counting.

I'm more concerned whether or not we can really triple dip. The answer of FB was ambiguous and I haven't seen any confirmation referencing a different source.

lkar

Does anyone have a sense of the value of Club Carlson points in general. I'm trying to figure out whether, on a pure matress run, it makes more sense to book with cash or cash and points.

(My assumption here is that the cash part of cash and points stays earns points. The t&c restrict free nights, but I don't think that would include cash and points. If anyone knows differently, please post -- I think it throws the calculation off.)

I can book a radisson for $79 ai or for $56 ai plus 5,000 points. The pretax difference in room rates is $20. Assuming I can get a status match, the points I would earn for the stay for paying the extra $20 is 600. So, the question is, what are 5600 points worth? If points are worth more than .41 cents per point, I should not do cash and points and should take the extra points.

Or, put another way, is it worth 5600 points to save $23? Or, would you buy 5600 club carlson points for $23?

SanDiego1K

If you don't have a near term use for the miles, I'd say cash in the hand is better than points in hand. On the other hand, should the kids enjoy a night away in a hotel with a pool, then you get to decide if that has some value to reduce the effective cost of the room.

lkar

Just going on memory from coupon connection, there seemed to be a fair number of people looking to get something for about 52,000 Club Carlson points last year after first big night promo. I'm sure that many of them did ok. But it won't surprise me to see some "H: 138k Club Carlson. W: Offers" posts in a few months.

I have a specific need for club carlson points right now, so this promo comes at a good time and I would spend $300 for 138k points. I don't think, though, I would do so on spec. Maybe. I might grab 50k or something, on the theory that it's always good to have some points in various programs. I had a water heater problem earlier this year and had some points I'd gotten in some promo or other and they were nice to have for hot showers for the family. But 138k is more than I'd need for those sorts of purposes, and $300 out of pocket is real money to me.

jpdx

For me, a good use of CC points will yield a value of 1.0cpp. This can be achieved when redeeming 50k for a $500 property in Paris, or 9k for a $90 property in small town US. A great many properties will yield values in the .5-1.0cpp range, and you will occasionally see values in excess of 1.0cpp (in the case of high demand periods you can of course get lucky and yield much higher values). However, I would say in general .41cpp is poor value.

Of course there are other things to consider; namely, how much you paid for points (which may well be in the .2cpp range with the 50k promos), and whether using 5k points from your stash leaves you with an amount that's optimized for redemption. Say, for instance, someone has no interest in CC beyond playing the 50k promos, and plans to redeem for stays at 50k hotels or airline miles. If that person had one stay under the last promo, yielding 54k and will have one under this one, yielding 52k, then using 5k to save $20 is a no-brainer, as these points would only sit in the account unused. If, however, using 5k brought that person's account to 99k points total, it would be a very bad idea.

lkar

Real good stuff.

I think in the end, this issue is not a huge deal for me, at least with respect to how Club Carlson currently works. Since members can transfer to each other, it makes it a bit easier to avoid this problem if you have a spouse or other also collecting miles. Also, you can transfer to miles so long as you have 2k increments. At .4 cents per point, the cost per mile is over 3 cents per mile, so certainly not ideal. But given the bonuses on transfers of hotel points that pop up from time to time and the USAirways Grand Slam, I think I don't mind having weird amounts of Club Carlson.

dcpilgrim

I am leaning towards this approach (go for one on spec). I saw on a blog the park inn dates are potentially delayed a week (start/end dates), which actually might be of use to me, as it puts our anniversary in the period.