xooz

I have logged in to the EMEA version (radissonhotels.com). My point balance shows. You seem to have to click through the "Redeem" button to get points options to show. I am not sure how far into the future Radisson allowed you to book, but I found availability with points In London through the end of this year. I couldn't see points as an available option past the first couple of days of Jan 2022.

the810

You will still be able to earn and redeem points worldwide, but you will need to register in two programs - the global Radisson Rewards and separate Radisson Rewards Americas. You will be able to transfer the points between the two, so you can pool them to book anywhere.

How is status going to work is not clear yet. Hopefully you will be able to pool elite nights.

miadukes

can anyone even see points bookings?
nm: looks like you have to log in and click redeem instead of being able to see them with the rates

stevek0202

If this is a cyber security issue, I suppose all hotel chains based outside the U.S. would take similar actions? What do we have, Radisson, Accor, Mandarin Oriental, Shangri-La, Peninsula, and Aman?

Fanjet

I'm in the same position as you: U.S. based while all of my stays are in Europe. It is going to be a major inconvenience to have to deal with two separate entities to make one award booking. I really do hope this makes one of these two entities an easier target for an acquisition by another chain. Because once I use up all of my points, I think I'm going to give up on this program.

But I'm wondering, if all of my stays are in Europe, can I just particpate in the "other" program and avoid staying with Radisson within the Americas? Or is this residence based?

escape4

It sounds like they will give status match between the two, but nights will certainly not be pooled. So for people spending half their nights in North America vs Rest of World, reaching top tier elite status will be twice as difficult as for people who have all their stays in the same zone.

I am not a member of Radisson because their loyalty program was already the worst that I knew of, prior to this change. So please do not interpret my message as venting or screaming that the Titanic is sinking because there is zero impact on me. That said, my personal opinion is there is enough info available about this change to criticize. Two loyalty programs, making people transfer points, status match, heck even two different apps and two websites for booking hotels in different parts of the world? "Inconvenience" is a very light way to put it to be honest! Not only is this insane and anti-customer oriented, but the explanation provided in the Q&A makes zero sense:
What prevented them from making offers which were region-based to begin with? Many hotel chains already do that, no need to break up the loyalty program in two to achieve this goal.

So in my humble opinion, Radisson has found a way to make their terrible loyalty program even worse in a way that I would have never imagined before, they are truly ground breakers here.

milesforhire

Agreed. I can't see any way this is good for us. It'll either be NBD, an annoyance, or a major negative change for the customer.

escape4

It's like stepping back in time to 2-3 generations ago where 99% of travel was by land such that your stays would be almost exclusively in one part of the world, and where having a worldwide hotel program with a huge footprint was not useful. Maybe they thought covid travel restrictions were here to stay rather than a temporary situation

I sometimes stay in some hotels specifically to make progress towards renewing elite status, but in this case Radisson is shooting itself in the foot because some people will be in a situation where a stay might not even help renew elite status depending on which part of the world they have an account which is closest to renewal of the tier.

Overall, this is a mind boggling change.

christianj

Last time I checked NONE of these were owned by an entity (Jin Jiang International Holding Co) of the Chinese government other than Radisson. Do people even read things like why this change is required before they comment?

_kurt

Thank you for posting that flowchart. While I still fully expect this to be a mess and a devaluation I'm actually pretty happy with how they handled allocating customers between Radisson US and EMEA. I have a US address but have only ever earned or redeemed in Europe and only plan to redeem in Europe in the future. So for me this works out. I won't need to join a second program and won't need to do any transfers.

Yes you can and no it's not.

36902BRF

I am not sure I buy that flow chat. I am a US resident but all my past bookings have been in Europe and per the email I got yesterday I'll be moved to the US side of things.

_kurt

Interesting. You've never had even a single Radisson / Carlson stay in North or South America? That's my situation and my email said

christianj

I wonder how this will work if you are US based and have a US issued USBank Radisson credit card but have only had stays in "Global" hotels....for me Europe. Based on the flow chart I should fall under Radisson Rewards but I live in the US and have a US credit card.

36902BRF

Not that I recall but I do hold (against my better judgement honestly) their US CC so that is probably it. It hasn't been worth much since the last night free benefit died but the points on paying the annual fee were just just worth it for me. I'll probably burn up my points and abandon this program since I get more out of Hilton, Hyatt and Bonvoy.

Edit: Actually now that I think about it I do have one *future* reservation on an e-cert so that might be the cause too.

escape4

I agree that other chains will not follow suit because they are unrelated to China. However, when you say the change was "required"... perhaps you mean China's access to data was the driver of the change but I think there would have been different solutions to this situation so it was not "required". The solution they chose is terrible from a customer point of view and their willingness to shoot the program in the foot shows how much they care about having customer data if they were willing to do this. So in my opinion, they had options, they chose a very bad one for global customers. For people with USA address but all stays in Europe, I think this change is no big deal, will never had to juggle two websites and two accounts and will not worry about elite qualification. All operations will be from the Rest of World account.