I've been meaning to write about changes to the Radisson Rewards program for a couple weeks now and thanks to even more changes revealed by the program yesterday I am actually getting around to it now! First off, the changes from a couple weeks ago sees the loyalty program and booking websites being split into two and the changes announced yesterday are to the award night chart categories, the amount of points required for award nights and hotels moving about in those categories.
The Radisson Rewards Split
Due to Radisson Hotels being owned by the Chinese Government (well indirectly that is) the chain's reward program, Radisson Rewards was forced to split into two earlier in April. This is due to restrictions put in place by the U.S. in data on U.S. citizens being shared with the Chinese government. Thus Radisson has split their websites and loyalty programs into Radisson Hotels (most of the world) and Radisson Hotels Americas which is Canada, the U.S., Latin American & Caribbean. What this means for us here in Canada is that our current Radisson Rewards membership falls under Radisson Hotels Americas. If you book a stay anywhere in the Americas you credit it to Radisson Rewards Americas program. If you stay anywhere else in the world you'll have to create a separate Radisson Rewards account via the Radisson Rewards program, well the rest of the world version if that makes sense! Ultimately you'll need to work with two separate programs however Radisson does state you will be able to transfer points 1:1 between the two programs. To make it a little easier here are links to each respective program so that you can learn more and join either one or both:
- Radisson Rewards Americas
- radisssonhotelsamericas.com (for booking stays in the Americas)
- Radisson Rewards (Rest of World)
- radissonhotels.com (for booking stays in the rest of the world
Rewards Canada does earn a commission on these so we thank you in advance for your support should you choose to book via our links!
The New Award Chart Categories & Points Requirements
There is going to be a major revamp of the Radisson Rewards program coming this June. Luckily we know all the details. If you read any other frequent traveller blogs who may have covered this already you'll see most are calling it a devaluation and that does hold true but mostly for award night redemptions outside of Canada. Essentially what Radisson Rewards is doing is shrinking their current award night chart from 7 categories to 5 and adjusting the number of points required. In the old 7 category system you could redeem 9,000 to 70,000 points for a free award night and under the new 5 category system that will be 15,000 to 75,000.
For comparison here is the old award night chart:
and the new one:
Right away you can see that really cheap 9,000 point category is gone
so a lot of those hotels will move to 15,000 points. A major jump for hotels in that category. That being said,
there were no 9,000 point hotels in Canada and in fact not very many
worldwide. You'll also see the top level amount of points jumps to 75,000 from 70,000. Radisson states that 30% of their hotels in the will cost less points in the new program but they don't tell you that just over 64% are going up in points while just over 6% will stay the same. This is just for the Americas and not even the rest of the world.
Also launching in June will RewardSaver which will provide a 33% discount on the new rates and according to Radisson these can happen at anytime for any hotel. They are not predetermined like other hotel chain's off peak rates.
So let's look now how the locations in Canada are affected.
New points requirements for award night at Radisson Hotels in Canada
At the moment Radisson has 26 locations in Canada and based on Radisson's Hotel Category Change page and you have to be careful with that list as most hotels move down in categories but when you tie that in to the new award charts above the points requirements are different. So here we list the hotels with their old category and new category along with the amount points that will be required in that new category along with the difference in points from the old chart.
Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Belleville, ON
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Park Inn by Radisson Brampton, ON
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Radisson Hotel & Conference Centre Calgary Airport
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Calgary-Airport, AB
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Park Inn by Radisson, Calgary Airport North, AB
Category 5 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (14,000 less)
Radisson Hotel & Convention Center Edmonton
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Radisson Hotel Edmonton South
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Radisson Hotel & Suites Fort McMurray
Category 5 to 3 now 45,000 points per night (1,000 more)
Radisson Kingswood Hotel & Suites, Fredericton, NB
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Radisson Hotel Kitchener Waterloo
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, London South, ON
Category 3 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (2,000 more)
Park Inn by Radisson Toronto-Markham
Category 2 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (15,000 more)
Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Toronto Mississauga, ON
Category 3 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (2,000 more)
Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Niagara Falls, ON
Category 4 to 4 now 60,000 points per night (22,000 more)
Radisson Hotel & Suites Fallsview, ON
Category 4 to 4 now 60,000 points per night (22,000 more)
Radisson Hotel Red Deer
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Regina, SK
Category 3 to 1 now 15,000 points per night (13,000 less)
Park Inn & Suites by Radisson Vancouver, BC
Category 4 to 4 now 60,000 points per night (22,000 more)
Radisson Hotel Vancouver Airport
Category 5 to 3 now 45,000 points per night (1,000 more)
Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Saskatoon, SK
Category 3 to 1 now 15,000 points per night (13,000 less)
Radisson Hotel Sudbury
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Radisson Suite Hotel Toronto Airport
Category 3 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (2,000 more)
Category 5 to 5 now 75,000 points per night (31,000 more)
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Category 4 to 2 now 30,000 points per night (8,000 less)
Right off the bat we have 16 out of the 26 hotels going down in the number of points required or almost 62% and those are all 8,000 to 13,000 less points so that's a pretty big win here at home. We have 5 hotels that are going up by a small amount of points, either 1,000 or 2,000 points which isn't a huge difference or terrible devaluation. That does leave 5 hotels that suffer a major devaluation and of course most of them are the most popular in Canada. The new Radisson Blu Toronto Downtown sees the most staggering jump by staying as Category 5 hotel but in reality that means 31,000 more points per night! It jumps from 44,000 to 75,000 now. Ouch! Then we have the two Radisson locations in Niagara Falls. Both hotels 'remain' Category 4 hotels but that means an increase of 22,000 points per night bringing those hotels to 60,000 for a free night award. The same goes for the Park Inn & Suites Vancouver and finally the Park Inn Toronto Markham doubles in price from 15,000 points to 30,000 points.
Wrapping it up
Radisson isn't a major player in Canada in terms of hotel coverage nor participation in their reward program by Canadians so I believe we were spared the worst with the changes due to that fact. However we still have five popular hotels seeing through the roof point increases but we do see more than half our hotels now price out for less points - yes they may not be as desirable as some of the others but they are still decent hotels so overall Canada came out of this not too bad.
What are all your thoughts on the changes in the program? Will you consider leaving it if it is your primary hotel reward program or will you leave things as be? Let us know in the comments below.
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