Updated 10:00am PT on 11/2/2020: I provided more information at the bottom of the post regarding when the rebated Radisson Rewards Points posted to my Radisson Rewards account and when the Visa Gift Cards arrived in the mail.
Good morning everyone, I hope you had an exciting Amazon Prime Day(s). I was reading Doctor of Credit and saw a deal that didn’t get much attention: Radisson Rewards: 25% Back On Awards, 15% Back On Giftcard Purchases. I have a stash of Radisson Rewards Point since I cancelled 5 nights at various Radisson Blu hotels in Ireland, so I was curious what kind of gift card deals were offered. In this post, I will show you what kind of gift card deals are available and explain why I redeemed 268,000 Radisson Rewards Points for $400 in Visa Gift Cards. To get started, sign into your Radisson Rewards account and click this link to enroll in the current promo. For gift card redemptions, you can get a 15% rebate when you redeem points between now and October 25. Redemptions start as low as 7,000 points for a $10 gift card.
Now that you are registered for the promo, click the Redeem for a Gift Card link.
Here are all the redemption offers. You can redeem your points for free award nights, retail gift cards (like Amazon and Walmart), prepaid cards (like Visa gift cards), and several other things.
There are many different gift card options at various price points. Here is the math on the redemptions:
- $10 Amazon Gift Card for 7,000 points (.1429 CPP aka 700 points per dollar)
- $50 Walmart Gift Card for 34,000 points (.1471 CPP aka 680 points per dollar)
- $100 Walmart Gift Card for 67,000 points (0.1493 CPP aka 670 points per dollar)
Basically, you will get between 0.14 – 0.15 cents per point (CPP) before the 15% points rebate.
There are only 3 prepaid gift card options: $25, $50, and $100 Visa Gift Cards. Here is the math on the redemptions:
- $25 Visa Gift Card for 20,000 points (0.1250 CPP aka 800 points per dollar)
- $50 Visa Gift Card for 35,000 points (0.1429 CPP aka 700 points per dollar)
- $100 Visa Gift Card for 67,000 points (0.1493 CPP aka 670 points per dollar)
As you can see, the redemption values for prepaid gift cards and retail gift cards is the same for larger denomination gift cards.
My Radisson Rewards Points balance is mainly due to having several US Bank Radisson Rewards personal and business credit cards that offer 40,000 Radisson Rewards Points every card member anniversary. I am basically paying $60-$75 per card per year for 40,000 points. That comes to a cost of 0.1500 (buying 667 points per dollar) to 0.1875 (buying 533 points per dollar). Since the cost to buy the points and the value at which I can redeem the points is so close, I would rather have Visa Gift Cards than a huge stash of Radisson Rewards Points that I don’t have any immediate plans to use.
After crunching the numbers, I decided to purchase 4 x $100 Visa Gift Cards for a total of 268,000 points. With the 15% rebate, I will get 40,200 points back, which is enough for another $50 Visa Gift Card. After adding the 4 x $100 Visa Gift Cards to my cart, I clicked the Redeem Now button.
I verified that my name and address is correct, checked the box to agree to the terms and then clicked the Redeem Now button.
My account balance now has 13,654 points leftover. My order should be processed in the next few days and I should receive the gift cards in the mail in the next 2-4 weeks. I’m not sure when the rebated points will post to my account, but I will update this post when they do.
Under the My Statements section, it shows the 268,000 point redemption.
I also received a confirmation email with the transaction details.
On October 26, I received the 15% Radisson Rewards Points rebate. 268,000 x 15% = 40,200 points. Unfortunately, the rebated points posted after the promo ended on October 25, so I was not able to redeem for another $50 Visa Gift Card.
A few days later on October 31, I received the 4 $100 Visa Gift Cards in the mail. The Visa Gift Cards came from Gift Card Mall with the following mailing address:
ATTN: SVM Program Management, 10615 Professional Circle, Suite 102, Reno, NV 89521
I have found that international Radisson Rewards properties, especially Radisson Blu hotels, are great and offer great redemption values. Unfortunately, I do not have any plans to travel internationally in the near or distant future and the fact that Radisson Rewards properties in the US are not that great, led me to redeem a huge portion of my Radisson Rewards Points balance. If you are sitting on a big pile of Radisson Rewards Points without any immediate plans to redeem them, you may want to consider redeeming the points for gift cards (either retail or prepaid) before the rebate promo ends on OCtober 25. If you have any questions about the redemption process, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
Hi Grant, I’m curious why you’re not saving the points for next year or beyond. Do you expect a devaluation for using them toward hotel nights?
Hi Rick, I don’t have a great answer for you. I did share my justification and reasoning on Twitter, which might be interesting to read: https://twitter.com/BoardingArea/status/1316727040226193409
Before the Coronavirus Pandemic, I really liked Radisson Rewards and was excited to stay at 5 different Radisson Blu hotels around Ireland. Then the pandemic hit and I cancelled my Ireland trip and the hotel reservations. Since then, I haven’t had great luck contacting Radisson Rewards. For some reason, one of my 3 Radisson Rewards accounts will not receive points from my US Bank credit card and it always requires contacting Radisson Rewards and it has been extremely difficult the last several months to find someone at Radisson Rewards who can help me.
I’m not completely done with Radisson Rewards, I’m just trying to cash in some points for the short term. I do not expect a devaluation to occur in the near future, since that would be really bad PR for Radisson Rewards.
Yeah, but that redemption value is hot garbage. To me, worth sitting on for that reason.
I agree, it’s not the best redemption in the world, but it made sense to me at the time.
As you indicated, this is a very poor value, but this also depends on your preferences.
Under normal circumstances, before COVID, you could book a Business rate room for 2 adults and one child for 66K Radisson points in some notable locations. This could be worth $250/night because this rate includes breakfast, lounge access, and other benefits. I have both cards for a total annual haul of 65K points per year and I accumulate them for a nice stay at a decent Blu property with good benefits.
Currently, and until October 25, 2020, you can buy Radisson points with 100% bonus. Maximum purchase is 160,000 points costing $560 or 0.035 CPP, which is a fair value.
Hi Kalboz, if the Coronavirus Pandemic never existed, I would gladly hold onto my Radisson Rewards Points and book great hotels and get great value out of the points, but as of now, it made more sense to cash in the points.
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Appreciate you sharing this deal, though I don’t think I’ll take part. One note of feedback: the decimal points in your redemption values are in the wrong place. For example, a $100 Visa Gift Card for 67,000 points gives you a redemption value of:
100 dollars x 100 cents per dollar / 67,000 points = 10,000 cents / 67,000 points = 0.149 cents per point.
You forgot to multiply by 100, so all your redemption values are in dollars per point instead of cents per point.
Also, this is just a pet peeve of mine, but expressing a number as “$0.001493 CPP” doesn’t make sense, because the units are “dollars cents per point.” It should just be CPP and you can drop the dollar sign.
Hi LB, you are totally correct, let me fix my decimals to make them true cents per point. Thanks for pointing that out to me :)
I went for it. Cash out 335k points for $500 before the rebate. I’ve had my stash of Radisson rewards for years, and never seem to have the ability for a great redemption. The few properties I have stayed at have been pretty underwhelming, granted I havent spent much time in Europe. On the updside, I have lots of other points. On the downside, I don’t see my family traveling much in the near future specifically in hotel rooms that require us to eat out for every meal. We have a 3 week Hawaii trip coming up, all in vacation condos with a Kitchen.
Hi AlaskanTraveler, I’m glad to hear that I am not the only one who redeemed their Radisson Rewards Points for GCs. RR is a little slow on processing the GCs and the 15% rebate. I will update the post when the GCs arrive and when the rebate posts.
I like your idea of the vacation condo, it definitely makes it easier when you can cook and eat all your meals in the condo.
Don’t feel bad Grant. I went a little crazy in 2020 myself and redeemed 350,000 UR points at 1.5¢ each at Lowe’s for a big remodeling job. I did get an additional 10% off my purchases for military discount, but still, now that the vaccine is in wide use and travel is returning, I wish I hadn’t done it, but like you, I thought it was something I needed to do at the time.
Hi Brant, that sounds like a pretty good redemption for me ($5,250 cash for remodeling). Now you just have another excuse to earn more Ultimate Rewards Points for a future trip. I am sitting on less than 2K UR points, but I have a ton of Citi TYPs and AMEX MRs, so I will prioritize using those points up first.