ORD-TGU

Deal or no Deal?
https://promotions.united.com/offers/p2m
Convert Club Carlson points now and you’ll earn 100% more miles than usual, up to 25,000 Bonus Miles.

250,000 Club Carlson = 25,000UA plus another 25,000 UA Bonus Miles = 50,000 UA?

Do I have that correct?

cln

i see:

Enjoy 30% bonus award miles when you convert hotel points
For a limited time, your points-to-miles conversions can earn you a special bonus. Exchange hotel points for miles and earn 30% bonus award miles, up to 25,000.

eponymous_coward

Yes you do.

That being said, you have to have a pretty high valuation of UA and low valuation of CC to make 5 CC --> 1 UA work.

And I see:


Convert Club Carlson points now and you’ll earn 100% more miles than usual.*

nacho

I'm very tempted by this because we don't value CC points that much.

ORD-TGU

Yes, and Yes.

But I have too many CC points and few desired properties to redeem. Also the earning rates of CC vs UA is higher.

I'll (reluctantly) do the transfer.

SanDiego1K

I'm struggling with this. I'd love to hear someone talk it thru.

My stream of consciousness. I'm seeing a lot of Radisson properties at 70K points/night. If I paid for those properties, I'd pay roughly $200. If I moved the points to United, I'd get 14K points. I value those United points at roughly a penny each, so $140. But then there is the issue of whether I have more Club Carlson points than I will use in the near future. I do, but then again, it's nice when I head somewhere in northern Europe rich in Carlson properties and I get a free night. It's not an obvious decision.

kenban

For me this is just not worth it. But it depends on how you utilize the points. I have found myself spending my points at lower end properties like Country Inn & Suites locations at airports. These hotels are mostly 15k points a night. Sadly this is getting harder because hotels are leaving the program, or they are increasing in category.

If you find yourself unable to use the points, unable to use them at a decent value, or earning them faster than you can spend them this transfer makes sense.

nacho

I don't use the points in Europe (based in Scandinavia), there are a handful of Cat 1&2 properties in Germany which are definitely worth the redemption (it's off the beaten track so you need to "get there" to use it).

Wanted to use it at DEN Country Inn and Suites but they are undergoing a major renovation and people said stay away until it's done.

What I'm trying to redeem is Radisson at COS - 28k/night vs $100 so it's pretty ok.

Apart from that I can't see myself redeeming the points - so will probably move some points to UA.

ORD-TGU

I had the same dilemma as you, but what convinced me is that CC has generous ongoing offers all the time. So on the earning side, it is easier to accrue points. On the redeeming side it is tougher to get exceptional value.

On the other hand, for me, it is more difficult to earn UA miles with revenue based flights, and more likely to get exceptional value during peak times or business class on redemptions.

Hope I'm correct.

SanDiego1K

I agree, and this is why the valuation I gave above is almost irrelevant. My stash of UA miles is dramatically down because I find UA partners excellent redemption value for biz class internationally.

Kremmen

I see plenty of Radissons at 70k too. At $200 in cash, that's .286c/pt, when my historical return before recent devaluations was around .7c/pt. Awful. Years ago, Club Carlson/Radisson Goldpoints was good value in Europe. Not any more. I went to Northern Europe in August and didn't find a single Carlson property which was decent value for points bookings. I did, however, find some good value IHG properties in Finland.

.357c/pt is better, but still poor value. If you were to transfer them at 5:1, you'd need to be able to redeem for better than 1.785c/mile. I flew back from that same Europe trip to the US on a United award. 57.5k miles in C. A paid ticket would have cost ~$2000 each way. ~3.4c/mile.

I transferred all my points to UA the same day I saw the offer. It roughly doubles their value for me. Not even a remotely hard choice. Bye, Radisson. A shame you gutted your scheme, but nice that you gave me a way out.

I wonder how long they take to post?
[ETA: 8 days for the base transfer]

eponymous_coward

I value CC at around .4 cpp (can get redemption at around that pretty easy when taxes are included in hotel room costs, higher is possible as well). I can buy *A miles damn near any time via AV at 1.5 cpp or thereabouts because AV runs frequent sales... so a 5 CC->1 UA (which really means 1 *A) conversion isn't worth it as far as I am concerned. Why don't I just buy some AV miles with the cash I saved with a CC redemption instead of pushing them to UA?

I might think UA was better if they hadn't relentlessly trashed THEIR program with devaluations... as it stands I have ~15k UA miles, with no real desire to acquire more beyond cleaning out the account at some point.

Club Carlson has easy acquisition IF I can use them. Sadly I often can't. So I burned 28K on a ~$120 PDX hotel room instead of turning them into 5.6K UA miles...

Kremmen

I guess it depends where you go and how you define value. In, say, Oslo, I could find a redemption "worth" .432. It's an over-priced hotel in a business park where I'd not want to stay. (Radisson Blu Park Hotel, Oslo) Every hotel I'd consider staying at comes out at .326 or less. (Yes, this is just one city, but this is the pattern I've experienced for the past few years, city after city, which is why I've been accumulating points and never spending them.) I used to value CC at .4, but I'd have to say .3 is more realistic now.

It's hard to substitute AV's Lifemiles for UA's MileagePlus and pretend they are in any way equivalent. UA's web site works. AV's totally sucks. I've checked every UA award I've booked in the past couple of years and precisely zero of them have been bookable on AV's site. They either have too many connections, or AV's site simply doesn't display some sectors for no obvious reason, or they have stopovers (the MP "Excursionist" replacement for stopover can be very valuable) or they exceed the 8-hr transit limit. (The Europe-USA booking I mentioned above included a >8 hr overnight transit in FRA.) I really wish LM was a drop-on replacement for MP for *A flights, but it is simply isn't. You can supposedly get around some of this by doing all the research on a site that actually works (e.g. UA) and then emailing them the details and trying to get them to ticket it, but that is a massive time-waster which mightn't even work.

eponymous_coward

Mostly replacement value for a hotel room. Their US footprint where I use most of my points isn't great but it's workable in a few places I go to (Portland, Dallas), though it usually means I'm staying in Country Inn and Suites. As a Hampton Inn replacement that's fine- a basic hotel room in a limited service chain works when I am the one paying the bill. I basically used a CC promo on top of my existing balance as a buy 2 get one free (and the two nights I bought were $80 hotel rooms, the one I redeemed for is $110, so a bit better than that).

Hard for you, maybe. I couldn't care less. The only way I'm getting substantial balances in AV or UA is paying cash for them (since my CC balance was a whopping 28k and a few hundred miles in change, and my UA balance is in the very low five figures); I don't need to fly UA or *A in my home port (and given UA's program and their Basic Economy tickets, don't want to). Buying UA miles generally mean I have to invest over $1000 USD at a time to get their best mile purchase rates. Not so AV (I can get away with a few hundred and buy the rest when I want to ticket, which limits my downside risk of devaluation). I have AS miles (or other random bits and bobs) if I want stopovers or more complicated itineraries than A->B plus a shortish connection in C. My next AV award is SEA-TPE-BKK in BR J with a four hour stopover on the exact date I wanted to leave as an overnight redeye, which will hopefully get me acclimated pretty fast. Not the first time AV's plan has met my needs like that, either.

As such, I'd rather buy AV at 1.5 cpm than convert CC->UA at an effective purchase rate of around 2 cpm. Your mileage probably varies, which is fine.

tth6133

For UA Elites and UA credit cardholders, availability of award tickets on UA is significantly better so UA miles are more valuable than other *A miles for redemption on UA. Also, UA miles are clearly worth more than either AA or DL's currencies at this point. AS miles are still more valuable but they can't be used for *A flights (other than, perhaps, some SQ flights in the future).