April 3, 2015

No More Bonus Award Nights: Massive Devaluation for Club Carlson Visa Cardholders

I wish this were an April’s Fools post but I guarantee it is not. One of the best aspects of the Club Carlson reward program was that if you were a Club Carlson Visa cardholder, the last night of ALL awards stays was free. If planned properly and your significant other had the card as well, that meant every 2nd night were free.  However, as of June 1st, Club Carlson is eliminating this Bonus Award Night and instead replacing that benefit with an annual free night at Club Carlson hotels if you spend $10,000 annually on the card. You can still make reservations using the Bonus Award Night until May 28th and it can be for stays after that date.

Per my last statement

Per my last statement

To me, this is a MASSIVE devaluation and basically kills any interest I had in the Club Carlson program. While the new benefit isn’t truly awful and you do get 40,000 points annually for renewing the card, I loved getting double the value of points since almost every other night was free for me. In my scenario, this cuts the value of points in half. Furthermore, the Carlson Rezidor chain, which includes Radisson, Radisson Blu, Park Inn and Country Inn, has a much stronger presence in Europe and aboard then the United States and my future travel plans don’t match the footprint of Club Carlson hotels.

This benefit was fantastic though – in fact, it must have been too good since they obviously felt a need to eliminate it. I’m sad to see it go and even more upset, I’m still sitting on ~200,000 points that would have been worth 8 nights at top end properties (which go for 50,000 points/night) with the Bonus Award night benefit. Now those 200,000 points will get me just 4 nights.  You have until May 28th to book using these Bonus Award nights and they can be used for future stays after that. I will make sure I book by then and I HIGHLY suggest everyone does as well.

(H/T to Frequent Miler)

March 30, 2015

Point & Center: Two Offers for Free Miles, 60k Citibank Hilton Visa Offer, & Discounted United Awards to South America

It’s been a while since I posted one of these roundups so let’s get to it. Here is a very quick rundown of some items from last week.

1) 250 Free Virgin Atlantic Miles – If you agree to install their shopping portal toolbar “Shops Away”, Virgin will award you 250 miles for doing so. To get this offer, click this link for Shops Away and then click shop today. After logging in and hitting shop now, click Mile Finder up top to see this offer. I would install this in a browser I normally don’t use such as Internet Explorer.

VAToolbar

2) 100 Free Aeroplan Miles – Signup to receive emails from Home Hardware and they will give you 100 Aeroplan miles for doing so. This is the frequent flyer program for Air Canada and while 100 miles isn’t a significant amount at all, it is an easy way to reset the expiration date on the miles in your account. Make sure to use a backup email address for this (unless you actually care to receive these newsletters).

3) Citibank 60,000 Hilton HHonors Points Visa – Citibank has temporarily increased the offer on this no annual fee Hilton HHonors credit card from 40,000 to 60,000 for spending $1,000 in 4 months. This card will not be useful for many of you except for those trying to top off their Hilton HHonors balance. I picked up this card last year when it was 60,000 points as I was out of Hilton cards to get.

CitiHilton

4) Discounted United Awards to Brazil & Chile – United has had several discounted award sales this past year and the latest is a 25% discount on award flights to either Brazil or Chile for travel through June 25th. All travel must be booked by April 25th and it must be roundtrip to get the promotion rate. Instead of an award flight costing 60,000 miles, it is now only 45,000 miles roundtrip. Click here for more details from United.

March 28, 2015

New Better Offer on Southwest Personal Premier Credit Card: 50,000 Points + $100 Statement Credit

Yesterday, I received an email from Southwest with the best offer I’ve ever seen on the personal Southwest card – 50,000 points + $100 statement credit. This offer is targeted however and the link I have for the card pre-populates my information in the application. However it might be possible for anyone to get this offer by phone.

SWCC

From my understanding there are several different offers being promoted to Rapid Rewards members including the standard 50,000 point offer on the personal Southwest card as well as a 60,000 point offer on the Southwest Business credit card. In the comments of this post from Doctor of Credit, someone was able to successfully apply for the 60,000 point offer on the business card even though they weren’t targeted as the phone number on the application was a direct line to a department that handed this special offer.

I don’t know if this will work for this offer but the phone number listed on the application is 1-866-836-0917. Interestingly enough another Southwest account that I manage only got an email with a 50,000 point offer on the personal card (no statement credit) and the phone number for that application is different from the above. So applying by phone might work to get the better offer but this is a huge YMMV situation. They might ask for an invitation number in which you try to say you accidentally deleted the email but maybe they can look up the offer for you. Do not apply for the card on the phone unless the rep confirms you are applying for the better offer which includes the statement credit. 

If that doesn’t work, then I would suggest scanning your email folders for an email from Southwest with the subject line “Rapid Rewards Member: 50,000 points + $100 statement credit”.

Did anyone have any luck getting this offer to work?