asterion

I thought it needed to be a Radisson Blu stay? Sorry to tired to read Ts&Cs

TravelGuy1965

Edit: About 2 hours ago I didn't get the 'already registered message' but now I do.
Next Step is knowing for sure if I make the 50k.

Very Odd, I tried for the heck of it and I don't get that.... It just goes through the same thing and at the end shows the same exact message of "You are now registered"

janetdoe

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyalt...0-dec-30-2011/

GUWonder

When you originally registered did you use your account number or email address or both to register? The answer to the question does not make any material difference for those who register, but I'm just trying to figure out how the delay worked out.

jbvideo

If you have registered, try registering again. It will tell you that you are already registered for the BIG NIGHT GIVEAWAY offer, and to receive your bonus points, stay with us before Dec 31, 2011

pawtim

When I registered my family members (and myself) I kept getting an error message when using the account number, saying something like "please enter a valid number or email". So, I tried again with our email addresses and got through.

Odd problem though. I wonder why it happened, and hopefully doesn't indicate trouble for us.

Anyone else find this?

BillyBaloney

The link is still up, so that tells me that 50000 people aren't storming the website to sign up. I was probably one of the few that waited until the clock struck midnight.

I did not experience any error messages when I signed up, to answer the last post.

Does anyone know how long it takes after the first stay for the points to post? I'm thinking of completing my qualifying stay as soon as possible.

srdshelly

OK, I registered when I woke up this morning and I get the same message that others in the thread are getting who registered right away. There needs to be a way to know if I'm in the first 50,000 or not. If so, I'll go out of my way (no Radisson is close to here) to stay in a Radisson. I won't do it for 15,000 points, or if I don't know how many points.

KathinJax

The T&C say that it will take 6-8 weeks to post the bonus points. Hopefully, they post faster. I accidentally registered my brother-in-law twice let night and it did not give me the "you are already registered" wording, but I did get it this morning. Still would like to get an e-mail confirmation.

marlin

So, am I right in understanding that it is the first 50,000 who register that will get this and NOT the first 50,000 who register and stay?
I want to know if we need to make our stay quickly or can wait until December?

Also does a Park Inn by Radisson count? Think we can combine this with their 15,000 offer?

travelkid

Covered fully upthread. The first 50k to register and not park inn^

msp2msy

Valuation

Though your question wasn't directed at me, I'll throw out that I picked a valuation of .6CPP.

Here are 5 data points I used:

• Category 1 (E.g. Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, Goodlettsville, TN). 9k/night + $2.50 or $107.74AI/night. 1.2CPP for pure points booking.
  
  As KathinJAX pointed out, a cash+points stay should earn at least 20 points / $ on the cash portion. An online booking bonus may even apply. In this booking, C+P was an option at 5k + $65.65/night. Assuming a 1000CC point bonus for online booking (which is not clear to me yet) and no status, this would net out to $42.09 saved through C+P and a net points cost of 2687 which yields 1.56CPP. Very nice if it works out. Even if you didn't get the 1k online booking bonus, it's still 1.14CPP.
  
• Category 3 (E.g. Country Inn & Suites in Green Bay WI on Sat Dec 10 before a Packers home game). 28k points. $191.82AI. .68CPP. My friend is always telling my how expensive a room in Green Bay is the night before a game, especially this year.
• Category 6 - Top Tier (e.g. Radisson Blu Hotel Cape Town, Std, Award, Tue-Wed mid week with < 30 days notice). 3536ZAR=$443.66AI/night or 50k/night. .88CPP.
• Club Carlson points convert to airline points at 2000CC:250Airline. If we value an airline mile at $.015, then it's .19CPP. Pretty terrible.
• Or a more complex example, suppose you participate in the US Air Grand Slam next year where transferring yielded a hit. Suppose that you were in the 20-24 hit range where you received 10,000 extra US Air miles for that bracket. If a single hit got you 2500 US air miles then the ratio (for that one transfer which requires 8k CC) becomes 8000CC1000+2500 bonus). This yields .66CPP.

With the update suggested by KathinJax, the range opens up a bit more to include 1.2, 1.14 (adj for earnings on C+P stay), .68, .88, .19, .66. I originally said .6CPP and I'd stick with it for now but the top side looks better with two awards over 1CPP (though both Category 1 hotels). Suppose you received 56120 CC (see below), then you get a return value of $336.72

A few comments on my approach:
I used this List of Hotels by Category. I didn't specifically deflate the value for the loss of earnings on awards. I didn't compare to surrounding area hotels so if Club Carlson hotels compared to peers are significantly more expensive, then the fair-market CPP will be lower. I only picked one date for each example and varied it (e.g. a weekend in March for the tier 1, a game weekend for tier 3, and a business day for tier 6). Obviously it's not enough data but I felt comfortable that the spread between what I was paying for the points and what I would ultimately receive was very good for us. I'm also not factoring in lost points left over when you can't bring your account to 0.

What's the cost of the points?
Let's say that you can't actually use the room so it has no intrinsic value. In my case, a $106 room should yield:
50k - Bonus.
2k - First stay bonus.
2k - Online booking bonus
2120 - 20 pts / $.
=56120 Club Carlson points.

$106/56120 = .19CPM. The CPM will rise quickly as you add dollars.

Summary
If you can use the room, that's really great. In my case, we're actually sending my sister and sister-in-law out to get a room. My sister, a single-mom, will love a night away at a nice hotel with a pool for my niece to play in. My SIL & partner may really enjoy a night away from their kids. They'll let me use the points they eventually earn.

Even throwing away the intrinsic value of the night itself (something that pains me but I just don't see us using them ourselves since we're pretty booked up), I'm still getting points that are worth ~.6CPP for .19CPP.

I'm excited... After planning two big BA trips without much regard to lodging, I've come to realize that I've not been focusing on earning hotel points sufficiently nor targeting locations where I can use the points I have. And who knows, Carlson hotels may pick up some real mindshare and not just for awards. I like some aspects of what I've learned about their program so far.

marlin

Thank you! Assume that if I do a best rate guarantee at a Radisson that will still count o.k.?

dc2005b

After a quick read of the ClubCarlson T&C it does not seem that these points expire or have any earning to stay active requirements. Is this the experience of others more familiar with this program?

Thanks!

metoo

Tried to sign up my sister's name who lives in Canada and it says profile already joined.

anyone else having problems signing family members?