Club Carlson is removing the overly generous free night per award booking. Because of this, there’s a mode of panic… for everyone but me. Despite the chaos, I still recommend people get the card right now and burn the points! But this is what I’d recommend anyways…
I’m seeing tons of threads and posts that imply Club Carlson is dead. But there are actually two different questions at play.
Should you get the Club Carlson card right now? AKA is Club Carlson dead yet?
And there’s a very different question; Are these “updates” to Club Carlson card Benefits a good thing?
These changes are really bad because we are losing what is probably the best hotel credit card perk ever. It gives a free night per two night award bookings and I only book with Club Carlson points in two night stays. It literally doubles the value of Club Carlson points for me.
The best hotel credit card benefit is going away. Bad news.
On a side note, I can’t say I’m surprised at all.
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But is Club Carlson dead yet?
People need to calm down for a minute. We have until June to make all our bookings with the benefit, even for stays later in the future. That is enough time to plan and book a ton of vacations.
Personally, I’m not slowing down with my Club Carlson earnings at all, because I know I can use the points (given that we live out of hotels). By the end of May I’ll probably book more trips than normal as I normally wouldn’t plan so far in advance.
BUT, I love this benefit that much. It honestly is the best hotel benefit around. It makes nearly all Club Carlson promotions better than other hotel promotions. I could go on and on.
If the best benefit ever is going away, make the most while it’s here!
Should you get the Club Carlson card?
Let me put it this way…
Imagine that the card doesn’t have the free night per award booking. It just gives 85,000 points and 5 points per dollar. After meeting the spend requirement that’s nearly 100,000 points. Nearly enough points for 11 nights at category 1 and enough for two nights at a category 6.
In many ways this is more competitive than every other hotel card on the market. And considering the 5 points per dollar everywhere and the competitive redemptions… it’s still a good card. It still gives more free nights than the IHG card would give with it’s bonus on top or bottom. Fact. And people are still getting that.
This will still be a good card, but right now it’s twice as good.
For the next two months this is by far the best hotel rewards cards that has ever existed.
What if I applied for the card right now?
If you applied for the card right now, and say you got approved within the week. You’d probably have until the second week of May to get your $2,500 spend done (which is easy). The points would post probably in that week.
You would have two to three weeks at that rate to use your Club Carlson points to book with the free award night. If you had only the 100,000 points that would be 20+ nights at category 1 hotels, and 4 nights at category 6 hotels.
It can not get better than that. But I guess there are two risks. One, not getting approved in time for whatever reason. Or the main one people are worried about, which is booking ahead. But that’s not much of a risk because you can always cancel the reservations for free.
The big risk is that you may end up canceling your reservations and have to use the points normally instead of with the amazing perks of free nights. The possible up side is that you get in on the Club Carlson credit card bonus while it’s still alive.
This is not the time to avoid Club Carlson, this is my time to go all-in while I can.
The New Annual Benefit
“You’ll receive the new Free Night award upon renewal of your card after an annual spend of $10,000.”
They are trying switch out the free night benefit with a single free night in US hotels. This is nice and all… by why the US? Realistically I’d probably use it at the Radisson in NYC (bleh), although I like the one in Philly and hear good things about Chicago. But I’d rather use it in Europe or Sydney or something.
The good news is that it sounds like you’d get two things on your annual fee date:
- 40,000 bonus points (depending on your card type)
- and a Free Night award after spending $10,000.
I have to say, it’s not a bad card to put $10k on. That’s 50,000 points and a free night. Potentially 100k of value.
Going Forward
I’m not thinking too much about June and after. I imagine it will be totally opportunistic. If they bring back the promo for 50,000 points after 1 stay, for sure I’m doing it. Otherwise earning will be for specific hotel redemptions.
But what I really recommend is taking advantage of this while it exists. Planning a trip to Europe this summer. Burn all your Club Carlson points! You won’t regret it at all!
What you don’t want to do is wait until you get half as much value. Cancel your IHG, Hyatt, SPG, etc reservations and use your Club Carlson points instead.
Planning a trip to Europe for the summer but don’t have any left? Look up when your statement closes and hit your card hard before that date. Seriously this is an MS worthy card with the benefit we’re about to lose.
Planning a trip to Europe but don’t have the card – apply now and book before June. Seriously no hotel card will ever bring in as much value. High end or low end.
I know people are upset about it going away. But too bad. It doesn’t change the fact that you can still use it. Quit whining start booking.
Drew, you may be right for full time travelers like you or those who have plans to Europe but not for family travelers like me who cannot plan a vacation that early or have no plans to go to Europe. The way Club Carlson has handled this whole episode is nothing short of arrogance or stupidity or a combination of both. In what way is this different from say Delta which we all agree is a nasty loyalty program? By the time people apply for this card freshly and by the time US bank takes a decision and send a card and statement closes and points deposited in the account, all the top destinations would be full during peak times. One example – today I tried to book at Radisson Chicago during July 3-5 and the system returns a message that I need to book for 3 nights to book using points. Strange. This is worse than Delta in my opinion. If not for Frequent Miler blog discovery even this news would have been out who knows when? I don’t value this card anymore as it was before and I am moving to cash back cards. Good luck to others.
As a card holder I received an email today informing of the changes. I would imagine that many people figured these deal was too good to last and expected such a change. I think a notification of nearly 2 months is fair.
I guess two months is fair for existing card holders, but it really does hurt new card holders like myself… I only applied for the card two weeks ago (was instantly approved, but haven’t even received the physical card yet), so I haven’t had any opportunity to earn points, let alone burn them. Now, if I do want to try to get any value from this benefit, I’m going to have to compete with all of the existing card holders with big balances who are all trying to redeem their points before the benefit goes away. I’m sure availability at the best properties is going to be very limited.
I guess Carlson and US Bank are free to change the program whenever they want, but they really should have done more to let new customers know that this benefit was going away. I mean, heck, their application page and internet ads are still trumpeting this benefit without any indication that it is going away in less than 2 months.
I’m in the same boat as you. I just received my card in the mail less than a week ago. I’m not really a big MSer – only when I absolutely need to in order to meet minimum spend – but I feel like I have to on this in order to get the full bonus to post in time.
Now that I’ve stockpiled enough IHG points to last awhile, I was looking for another chain to focus on. Was going to be Carlson Rezidor, but with this literally cutting my valuation of the points in half, it simply doesn’t make them a competitive choice anymore.
I 100% wouldn’t have applied for the credit card less than two weeks ago if I had known about this.
The Chicago 3-night minimum over Independence Day is for cash -or- points. Its just a minimum stay due to the holiday weekend in a property that will have a good access to / view of the fireworks, just like NYE in Sydney. Nothing sketchy here.
Just want to state that these changes are bad for everyone. These changes are not positive for any card holders.
To say that I have the opportunity to use them more, is not a pro, as I live out of hotels. I’m at 43 nights in 2015 alone with Club Carlson. My costs will be double to do the same next year.
That being said, it’s still alive for another couple months and despite me not knowing my plans ahead of time, I will be trying to book ahead while the benefit lasts.
Drew, you are totally on point with this post. I’ll be keeping the card because the 40k points on renewal will save money on European redemptions. I won’t aim to do the $10k spend deliberately as I do very little travel domestically, however like u we may do opportunistic spending if we are trying to build points for an Icelandic adventure. My aim is to book as many 2-4-1 before end of May. I have 2 European vacations late this year and where I might have considered paying for rooms in other chains now they will be CC redemptions. Radisson Vienna here I come.
A trip to Europe is well timed if the goal is to burn Club Carlson points!
The email I got did have a 30K point bonus for a paid stay before August, not as good as 50K, but…
My email had the 30k bonus as well… did everyone’s?
I did not get that email, but I saw on twitter that Club Carlson confirmed that everyone will get the same bonus of 30k on next stay using the Visa.
Just booked 4 nights in Paris for Sept 2016. Just wish the closer/better hotels had award openings.
plus 4 nights in Capetown
Paris is tough. Even searching for dates for a post earlier I had trouble.
Totally jealous about Cape Town! Such a good use of Club Carlson points too.
I think you make a fair point, but for a good many of us this change pretty much sucks and hard. Being a slave to the man, my work schedule does not afford me the position to know the exact dates of travel that far down the line. The points I’ve been accumulating for a 2016 European trip (that I can’t pin down date-wise until later in the year) will be worth half value by the time I can actually book. Total bummer.
I completely understand. The dates I booked were only a best guess as to when I can go on vacation. Worst case scenario you can cancel and get all the points back.
You can always try and book tentative dates before May 28th and hope that you can change them if need be without losing the last night free.
As I said, these changes don’t just suck for people with 9-5s, they suck for everyone. There’s nothing good about it, that’s not the point of the article. The point is that while the best benefit ever is going away… we can at least still book some dates.
Personally, it will suck for me too. I live out of hotels. 43 nights in 2015 already with CC. These nights will cost double soon.
They lure you into getting their card and then change the rules. Not only are they basically cutting the value of each point in half but they are also raising the number of points you need for each stay. Club Carlson Sucks
I was disappointed to see the change, but you’re right of course. This benefit is simply too good to sustain, and the card still has value.
I do think they overdo the emphasis in their advertising on the maximum number of nights you can get, for example, from the signup bonus. Theoretically, you could stay at only 9,000 points places, but those are really not very many, and most are not in high priority tourist destinations.
Still, it’s a good program, even though after June 1 not the terrific program it has been. I’m wondering if they’ll be coming out with any new large promotions.
I see, and that’s true with every program. I actually find 15k a lot more reasonable and try to do my math with that. Like hotels in Budapest, Krakow, Berlin and others for 15k.
They had the “big reveal” or something like that for the same ole triple points promo. Kinda laughable the way the hyped it.
Drew,
I think you make some fair points. However … I think U.S. Bank is being grossly unfair by promoting a benefit for an annual fee and then rescinding the benefit before the cardholder year is up.
Bait and switch!
If I had this card, I’d complain too. If not a refund on my annual fee, I’d want points compensation worth at least as much as the annual fee I’ve already paid.
As a solo traveler whose stays are generally longer than 2 nights and who doesn’t like the inconvenience of packing up and moving to another property in the same chain, I’ve not gotten this card. Now, I’m even less tempted to get it. I prefer accumulating airline miles and flexible points (ie. UR, MR).
That is hugely deceiving, and if they thought about it for very long they would not be doing that. They could likely get in huge legal trouble if someone applied for it and by the time they got the card the benefit didn’t exist. So they better not leave it up too long.
We don’t pack up and move every two nights, btw. We’ve been at the same hotel for a long time doing the bogo.
Ron, I don’t think that the free night was related to the annual fee (although the new free annual night is). Previously, the annual fee has been linked to the 40,000 points, so if they took that away, I would agree that there should be compensation for that. For new card holders, I viewed the fee as being linked to the 85,000 points, not the free nights, which seems to be correct, as you could use the free nights long before you paid the initial fee.
@farnorthtrader, you are right according to my conversation with a US Bank supervisor. The fee paid to the bank is related to the 85,000 points or 40,000 points for new and renewing customers. The free night is (was) a Club Carlson promotion that’s ending. However, that was still an important factor for many in deciding to get or keep the card, so that elimination of the membership during the card membership year raises issues of the bank not performing on written promises they advertised.
Quick question Drew… If i burn all of my points and make bonus award night reservations through this year and into 2016, do I need to keep my Club Carlson Card open until I physically make the stays or can I cancel it after I make the bookings? I’ve had terrible customer service with US Bank and I would prefer to burn and cancel, but I want to make sure I get my bonus award nights I was promised.
No, you don’t need to keep the card. Like all hotel (and airline cards), the points go to that specific program and aren’t controlled by the bank who issues your card. Once you get your points in your account, US Bank (or any other card issuer) has nothing further to do with them.
Yes, but he is not asking about he points. The bonus night is specifically linked to holding the card. It is a good question and I certainly would be wary of losing out on hundreds of $ of savings by cancelling the card prematurely. Another question is if you have the bonus night booked and have to change dates after June 1, do you keep the bonus night?
The terms and conditions for the bonus award night state, “Your Account must be open at the time of redemption to qualify for Bonus Award Nights.” Redemption to me means when you redeem your points for a reservation. So if I make the reservation today, I am redeeming points today while my account is open. When my annual fee comes up later this year I will cancel my card, and will no longer be a card member when I make the stay. Also, on the bottom of my bonus award night reservation it says “Guest will be redeeming Gold Points at the time of booking.”
Furthermore, even if I am still a cardmember when I make the stay, the terms on my card will not include a bonus award night benefit since that benefit will be disappearing on June 1st. That is what makes me believe any bonus award night booked before June 1st will be honored as long as changes are not made to the reservation even if the member is no longer a cardholder.
Once you make a reservation you can cancel. You need the card to make the benefit, but you don’t have to have the card while checking out.
I haven’t done this myself, but it’s the way most all rewards programs work in relation to the cards. I wouldn’t worry about it, but good question.
The card is still a keeper. I can get 20+ nights per year under the new terms and still have spend for other cards through our present MS strategy. When the Redbird dies, that change would be far worse than the Club Carlson devaluation. I’ve booked 10 nights in Grenada, 2 nights in Delaware and 4 nights in Florida yesterday. When points post in May, I’ll need to book another 12 or so before the deadline. In the last 4 months I burned 18 nights in Aruba. Just add up all the nights above and cut in half for what I expect over a year going forward. Add another 4 nights w/ the new bonuses. Still very lucrative in my opinion.
Awesome. Sounds like we’re on similar club carlson plans. 😀
Now, still it will be a good program. But the reality is that it will be exactly half the value for me. Still good… which shows how great it is now.
If I book the hotels for summer 2016 and cancel my card afterwards, can I still get the one night free? I am not sure if I need to have the credit card only when I book, or when I am checking in at the hotel.