Major devaluation is coming
 

https://www.radissonhotels.com/en-us...program-update

It seems the gutting commences in June. And with the pandemic, it's too late to burn those points. Damn.

Do you see something to indicate a devaluation or just the assumption that program "enhancements" are always a devaluation? I'm sure you are correct but wondering if there is something specific I missed.

Quite the opposite. Radisson needs to become more generous or else they might as well give up and close down.

This is related to the Radisson IT / data split debated in another thread. It will make things ultra-complicated but it should not mean devaluation (that doesn't mean it's not coming - but it's not related to this announcement).

"Will my earning and redemption options change?"

"You will continue to have a large selection of earning and redemption options including Award Nights, car rentals, airline miles, and more!"

I don't like the sound of that.

How are you reading anything negative from this comment? You currently also have the redemption options including Award Nights, car rentals, airline miles, and more! What wording should they have used to were you would have liked the sound of it? I have been known to be a pessimist about program changes but so far I'm not seeing any of the red flags you guys are about this other than some IT mess that is required on their part due to Chinese ownership.

This post has no basis for even existing so far. There are NO rumors of impending devaluations or indications of any devaluations being part of this change. If we do find out that they use this IT issue as an opportunity to devalue the program there is nothing we can do to change it but I see no indication of that right now and screaming the world of Radisson is ending is a bit early for me.

For me, it's a bad sign that they came up with this FAQ question, then proceeded to evade answering their own question. It was a yes or no question that they declined to answer one way or the other.

+1! I have used up all my points and lost interest in earning more because $89 CI&S have no business costing 28--38K points! And 70K for that Radisson next to the Mall of America in Minneapolis?!
Normally I avoid jumping to conclusions, but the evasion of their own question as reported by DallasEsq does sound ominous to me!

P+C is usually my preferred redemption option. Unless the cash rate is particularly depressed, you are getting solid value, most of the time in excess of the 1/3 cent you pay when buying Radisson points.

Keep in mind P+C gives you 40% off the BAR every time for a fixed number of points. So the higher the cash rate, the more lucrative it is to use P+C.

Obv, straight-up redemptions can sometimes constitute good value, too. But P+C has the broadest usability if you ask me.

Keep in mind that when asking Radisson customer support a question, you are dealing with overseas support staff that are not very knowledgeable in the program. I have already received several completely different answers from them on the same subject.

Oh-so-thank-U, Aapee! As B1BomberVB has posted over there, at least many CI&S's are decreasing to 15K.

No more 9K redemptions as of June according to the email I just got which spun it as more hotels added to 15K redemption level. Unfortunately, I was saving my points for an India trip but that is obviously not going to happen. So ------

Interestingly enough, this doesn't devalue the Radissons I would typically stay at. It actually makes a hotel marginally better (takes it from 38k a night to 30k). That being said, this isn't a particularly sexy program given that most of it in the US is very tired Radissons and "meh, it's fine" Country Inn and Suites...

ETA: and actually some nice FTer, CaptainMiles crunched numbers and figured out it's an acorn, not the sky falling: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/33192210-post79.html

This is bad.

To get back to my favorite topic of P+C. As you may be aware of, currently the points portion of a P+C rate is the same 5k points for cat. 1, 2, and 3 properties. And it's 10k points for both cat. 4 and 5 properties. This makes P+C a sweet spot particularly at cat. 3 and cat. 5 properties.

This sweet spot is eliminated fully. The points portion of the P+C rate under the new system will ALWAYS equal one third of the number of points required for an award night.

I mean, the fact that one-third the number of points of an award night give you not a 33% reduction in the room rate but a 40% reduction means it might remain every so slightly favorable. (Unless they change that as well.)

The fact that 60% of hotels cost more on pure award nights is also a straight-up devaluation.

EDIT: Not sure if it was posted above, but the EMEA part of Radisson will see completely analoguous changes to Radisson North America.

They also published the new non-US categories here: hotelrecategorizationlist2021_tcm7-390592.pdf (radissonhotels.com)

Nowadays I only stay at Radissons in Finland/Estonia/Latvia. In Finland all hotels are now at 45.000 points, before most of them were 44.000, one 38.000 and one 50.000 so there was a slight devaluation. In Estonia all hotels except Sky moved to a lower category so this was actually an improvement. Same in Latvia, the Old Town hotel went up, all others down, so an improvement there as well.

I didn't find one hotel on the new list: Palace Hotel Tallinn, a member of Radisson Individuals. It still shows 38K for bookings in July.

It is a bit absurd to devaluate points at the time when cash rates are down. I've already stopped using points because while points rates remained the same, cash rates are significantly cheaper, making the value I get for points very low. Rather than incentivising me to spend points during the pandemic, they are pushing me to hoard even more points until cash rates increase enough for redemptions to be worth even considering. Very weird decision.

As an example, I have been looking into redeeming at Radisson Collection Strand in Stockholm. If we assume value of 0,003€ per point, 70k points (old price) is worth 210€, 75k points (new price) is worth 225€. Cash rates are around 140€. No way I'm gonna spend that much points to save 140€, when I can normally get over 300€ value for the same amount of points (e.g. at 1919 Reykjavík during normal times).

I found the same thing over the past year. I was grabbing rates between $52 and $65 a night in NYC at their Midtown/Fifth Avenue property, Meanwhile, they still wanted 70K points a night. I had quite a few more stays booked over the next six or so months for around $100 a night at the same hotel, but just cancelled all of them.

I'm not sure what my future will hold with Radisson. At this point, I'm thinking that I will keep their credit card, charge $30K a year to receive three free domestic nights, and stop any revenue stays. Of course, I could change my mind tomorrow.

Radisson actually addressed this with a promo last year when they offered rebate for redemptions but it was done in a rather stupid way (you had to pay full price and then you got a refund 🤦‍♂️) and it wasn't prolonged.

I totally forgot about that promo.

As part of my NY stays, and rock bottom rates, I also picked up 20K points per night, which was a great windfall. That promotion ended in March.

Well generally that is how rebates work, you pay first then get a rebate on a portion :D

Too bad they don't do good promos anymore...

I am aiming to spend as much of my Radisson points as possible but they rarely are a good spend option valuewise...

Well yes, but it would be much better if they simply lowered the price rather than creating that rebate mess :)

The double points promo ends today, I'm curious what will they come up with next.

I Am rather suprised there is no status promo with radisson for this year...

Especially with the mess coming up with the split

Or maybe it's because of the split? A promo has to be done by a particular program. So it may be impossible for them to do a promo than crosses the time of the split. Before the split, there's one program which has promos. After the split, there'll be too different programs that'll have promos.