Good evening everyone. I received an email from Club Carlson today alerting me that I could redeem my beloved forgotten Club Carlson points for gift cards. I decided to check it out and see how good or bad the deal was. Spoiler alert: it is bad, really bad. You can go directly to the gift card page by clicking here and signing into your Club Carlson account.
Once you get to the gift card page, you are presented with a few retail gift cards in various denominations ($10, $15, $25 and $50). I did the math below and the results are not pretty.
Regardless of the gift card denomination, you get around 0.14 cents per point (CPP) for each redemption (that means it takes about 7 Club Carlson points to equal 1 cent). If you have a US Bank Club Carlson Credit Card, you earn 5x everywhere. In order to generate enough points for a $10 Amazon Gift Card, you need to earn 7,000 Club Carlson points. To get that many points, you would need to spend $1,400 (1,400 x 5 = 7,000). Receiving a $10 gift card for spending $1,400 is a terrible deal and equates to getting around 0.7% cash back. The math for the larger denomination gift cards is pretty much the same. The yellow cells are averages.
Long story short, don’t redeem your Club Carlson points for gift cards. If you have any extra Club Carlson points laying around, I would be happy to have them. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great evening everyone!
I have around half million Club Carlson points … what should I do with them? Any good redemptions to miles?
I think Club Carlson transfers to airlines 10:1, so not a very good option either. I’m sure you will find a use for them with a few hotels.
what would you do with the points and why should I give them to you for free ?
First answer: use them to stay at Radisson Blu properties in Europe. Second answer: because you would make this blogger very happy and the world needs more happy bloggers :)
Have a good night!
Good PSA. Now can you also do a warning about those magazine redemption snail mail letters from United and others that are a “Warning” that our miles will expire so we should use them for magazines. Almost as bad as all the bloggers telling us to redeem Spirit miles for magazines :)
Haha, my grandma has around 14,000 United miles and she had gotten that “warning” letter twice. I told her not to worry, I will find a good use for those miles.
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Your math is way off. You get 20 points per dollar let’s stay as a standard I pay 100 dollars per night so that’s 2000 points per night so 4 nights get you 8,000 points so 400 dollars gets you a 10 dollar gift card. Not sure where you got your numbers but maybe you are trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes so they donate you points. Whatever your motive check your facts before you post this.
Hi Steve, we are talking about 2 different things. If you use your Club Carlson credit card for everyday spend (or MS), you will earn 5 Club Carlson points per dollar (5x). If you use your Club Carlson Premier Rewards or Business Rewards credit card to pay for a Club Carlson stay, you will earn 10 Club Carlson points per dollar (10x). Here are the earning details: http://www.clubcarlsonvisa.com/credit/welcome.do?redirect=directTraffic&lang=en&exp=
These points are just for using the credit card and you will earn additional points based on your Club Carlson status. I am not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes – I’m sorry if that is how it appeared. Thank you for the feedback and thanks for reading.
Lol, you are a funny guy. So what I read in your blog is: don’t spend your points because you’ll get horrible deals. Instead, give your points to me.
Aside from the fact that it’s odd to ask for this (if the deals are really so horrible, why do YOU want the points?), what makes you think you’re entitled to anything extra once you’ve stayed at an hotel? You pay for the services and that’s it. IF you get anything back, like with a FREE service as Club Carlson is, you’re lucky to get what you get. So why not let people spend their points on what they can?
Also, who are you to say what value on points is acceptable? Just because it’s not a lot, it’s better than nothing, which is what you pay for the Club Carlson membership.
You make a good point John. They are your points, so you can do whatever you want with them. Safe travels :)