DallasEsq

My guess is that they will be looking to sell off the Americas part of Radisson since they never got the same traction here as they did in Europe. Merely speculating though.

nwflyboy

Same here. Calibrate your expectations.

milesforhire

That's my hunch as well. No evidence to support it though LOL

I wonder if your account placement has already been determined or if they'll do the "check" when the system begins to take shape?

MSPeconomist

I interpret the flowchart as suggesting that if you stay all over, which program you (initially?) belong to will be based on where you live.

Could this be a points devaluation if the majority of existing points are placed in a less generous version of the program. Is there a commitment that points transfer back and forth costlessly and at a 1:1 ratio?

_kurt

You should have received an email already telling you either that your account will be converted to Radisson Americas or that your account will remain unchanged and no action is needed unless you want to redeem in the Americas.

jn in ca

No.

Yes, unless you don't believe the company.

DallasEsq

It seems to be implied that the transfer of points between programs can happen multiple times, but it's also possible they'll either allow the transfer once or, more likely, stop allowing transfers at some point in the future. I can't imagine they'd want transfers to continue indefinitely if they're going through all this trouble to split the program in the first place.

christianj

Again.....where are you getting this logic? What good would it do them to limit the transfers? Just because it’s fun and they want to piss people off? Sorry but there is absolutely no indication that anything like this is on the horizon. I’m sure we can all come up with a ton of horrible scenarios but what good is that at this point?

the810

They are going through the trouble because of regulatory requirements, not because they wish to have two separate programs.

writerguyfl

Note: This is personal commentary about the history of Radisson. If you're only interested in what's happening today and how it affects your travel, feel free to skip over this post.

I spent nearly a decade working at that "flagship" property in Downtown Minneapolis. Everyone from the General Manager down to the hourly workers took pride in the fact that we were the first Radisson and (arguably) one of the best in the chain.

Although the original hotel was razed and a new mixed-use tower was built in it's place, the history of the hotel was always a part of new employee orientation. The following information (compiled by Carlson Companies' Public Relations Department) was a part of the training. While I was there the Executive Housekeeper had parts of that history translated into the Hmong language because a large portion of the Housekeeping staff were Hmong.

https://www.hotel-online.com/News/Sp...l_Jan1998.html

While I didn't have more than short superficial interactions with Curt Carlson, I had several friends at the hotel who worked directly with "the Family." It wasn't unusual for a chef, our catering manager, and a group of hotel employees to be requested to run an event at the Corporate Office or the family home. Everyone who ever did those events always said positive things about Mr. and Mrs. Carlson. (Like many businesses, that hotel was full of gossip mongers. If the Carlsons weren't nice, we would have heard about it.)

Based on my experience, I concur with your statement about Curt Carlson's opinion on this move. Pardon my dark humor, but I'm guessing he turned over in his grave. The good news, however, is that he's probably resting more comfortably today (assuming turns aren't 360 degrees) because he undoubtedly turned over the first time when his granddaughter sold the hotels to the Chinese conglomerate in the first place.

christianj

If we are dreaming up horrible end of the world scenarios that might result from this change, maybe we should also dream what positive things could come out of this change.

There have been rumors for a while now that Jin Jiangs other hotels would be rolled into the program and that they would then be opened up for redemptions. Radisson even publicly announce this a couple of years ago. Now I’m not screaming that I want to stay at one of their properties in China BUT if I am not mistaken, Jin Jiang also owns Louvre Hotel Group and that might be something really interesting! For those that don’t know, Louvre owns and manages around 1200 properties under various brands including Golden Tulip, Kyriad and a high end group called Hotels & Preference which has around 150 luxury hotels. Details of the Louvre brands and the Preference properties can be found here:

https://www.louvrehotels.com/en/our-brands

https://www.hotelspreference.com/en/...anguage#search

There’s even a reference to all these chains and Jin Jiang on the following page:

https://www.louvrehotels.com/en/jin-jiang

Could we see all these rolled into the new program? It would be a dream come true and I would gladly go through the extra effort of transferring points between two programs to be able to use my Radisson points at some of those Preference Hotels.

sdsearch

https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/r...l-markets.html

At least you'll be able to transfer points between the two programs, but it's unclear at this point if you'll be able to combine elite nights between the two programs or not. If not, that could hurt people who split their stays between North America and the rest of the world.

While Radisson won't be the only program split up (Choice is split up even more), it's the first one I can think of where status has some meaning.

christianj

There’s already a thread on this.

_kurt

I alerted the mods to combine this thread with https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/radi...icas-only.html since neither this post nor the Joe Cortez post featured on the front page contain any new information beyond that which has already been discussed in this forum more than two weeks ago.

Fanjet

I was actually hoping that Radisson was going to incorporate Golden Tulip and Campanile into the portfolio. But now, even if that were to happen, they would not be in the "Americas" program. And judging by the email I received from them, I will be placed into the Americas program. And I think this has to do with the fact that several years ago I did stay a few times at two of their properties in the States: the Radisson at LAX and the one at DCA. Ironically, both of those hotels are no longer part of the chain. What is also confusing is that I cannot willingly choose to be in the "Other" program, but I will have to set up an account with them nonetheless if I want to redeem an award at one of those properties, as well as stay at one while paying a cash rate.

I look forward to the more information they will be telling us later this month. But at this point, I'm going to eventually exit this program once all my points have been used up. And what's funny is that had Radisson done a halving of their elite threshold requirements this year (like Hilton and Hyatt did), I would seriously have tried to reach Platinum status. I used to have it in the past (but wasn't it called Concierge, or somethng?), and the breakfast benefit would be something I could make use of, since there are no Hampton or Holiday Inn Express type of brands within the Radisson portfolio in Europe.