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What are Radisson Rewards hotel points worth?

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This article is our attempt to decide what Radisson Rewards points are worth. How should you value them?

Valuing miles and points is a thankless job. We have always published articles on what Avios points are worth, but that Avios article is so complex that it simply proves my point.

In the face of constant reader requests, however, I wrote this series of articles on how we value each of the major hotel points currencies.

What are Radisson Rewards hotel points worth?

The reason I changed my mind after all these years was that I found a methodology that worked for me. It takes a subjective valuation and then explains the boundaries around it. Or, in plain English:

  • I will tell you (without justifying it) what I think a Radisson Rewards point is worth
  • I will tell you, on the upside, how far wrong I can be (which is good news)
  • I will tell you, on the downside, how far wrong I can be (which is bad news)
  • I will tell you what Radisson Rewards points are worth if you turn them into something else – usually airline miles – which effectively locks in a floor value

Why I think ‘range’ is important when valuing hotel points

When we look at using Avios for business or First Class flights, the ‘cash alternative’ is often a poor comparison. Most HfP readers don’t want to, or simply can’t afford to, pay cash for business or First Class flights. Their choice is Avios or nothing.

Even if you can afford to pay, what are you comparing with? A cheap non-refundable sale flight? A pricier flexible ticket? The cost of an indirect flight, not on BA?

Hotels redemptions are different:

  • you stay in far more hotels each year compared to the number of premium cabin flights you take, so you can be selective about when you use points
  • you can usually afford to pay for a hotel if you choose not to use points
  • there are far more options in the hotel market than in the flight market – most people only have a lot of miles in one airline programme, whereas you are likely to hold hotel points in multiple schemes
What are Radisson Rewards hotel points worth?

It is easy to sit on hotel points until you get a good deal

The net result of the three facts above is that it is easy to turn down a hotel redemption when it doesn’t seem like good value. You can pay cash or redeem via another hotel scheme instead.

Here is the crux of what I am trying to say. If you compare two hotel schemes:

  • scheme A usually gets you 0.3p per point but if you are lucky you can get 1p
  • scheme B usually gets you 0.4p per point but if you are lucky you can get 0.6p

…. scheme A may actually be the best.

Most people who try to ‘value’ hotel points don’t take this into account.

If you redeemed points for every stay you did, regardless of the cash price, scheme B would be the best. No-one does this though. In reality you can pay cash for your stays in scheme A until the day when a bumper redemption arrives and you can get 1p.

Here’s a real example. I value Marriott Bonvoy points at 0.5p as this article shows. If you do 20 Marriott hotel stays and use Bonvoy points for all of them, I think you will average 0.5p, give or take.

However, in Summer 2023 I spent five nights at the JW Marriott Resort & Spa in Venice, reviewed here. We booked two Junior Suites for 594,000 points in total. I got 1.0p per point, and this was a ‘real’ saving – I have stayed in these rooms before at this hotel and would have paid cash if needed.

Three years ago, I booked three nights at the Al Maha desert resort in Dubai. This got me 1.5p per Bonvoy point vs my 0.5p valuation.

In Summer 2024 I booked The Bodrum EDITION in Turkey where I got 1.5p per Bonvoy point. Admittedly this is not a ‘real’ saving as I wouldn’t have paid the stupendous four figures per night cash price ….

These redemptions justified all of the Marriott stays where I paid cash rather than redeem for 0.5p per point.

What are Radisson Rewards hotel points worth?

What are Radisson Rewards points worth?

With our methodology out of the way, let’s take a look at what Radisson Rewards points are worth.

To keep things simple, we do not adjust for the fact that you would earn points back if you paid cash instead. This can have a noticeable impact when generous bonuses are running.

Remember that Radisson hotels in the Americas are no longer part of Radisson Rewards. The hotels were sold to Choice Hotels and merged into the Choice Privileges programme, although they remain Radisson-branded.

Radisson Rewards is different to other hotel programmes

Radisson Rewards is different to other hotel schemes and this article is structured differently to most of the rest of the series.

For most of the other programmes we cover, our valuation is an educated estimate based on years of redeeming points. For Radisson Rewards it is NOT a guess. Your points have a (fairly) fixed cash value.

This is both good and bad. The real problem it causes is psychological. It is difficult to get excited about Radisson Rewards because you can never ‘beat the system’.

Last year we said that Radisson Rewards points are worth 0.15p per point. Since then we have matured our approach as you can read here.

It turns out that the ‘pence per point’ depends on what percentage of the room rate you pay with points. Pay only a few percent of the rate and you will get 0.15p per point. Pay 100% of your room rate with points and you get 0.22p.

There is no logical reason to save your points for a high value redemption. The sensible thing to do is to hold on to them until you have enough to pay all (or almost all) of a room you are booking.

‘Earn and burn’ is the logical option now with Radisson, as long as you are paying a fairly high percentage of the room rate.

There is NO incentive to save your points for years for an ‘aspirational’ hotel, because those are likely to be expensive and you are likely to only be paying part of the bill with points – which gets you a lower pence per point value.

What are Radisson Rewards hotel points worth?

The best value you get is by NOT earning points ….

A weird statement, I know. Let me explain.

If you have Premium or VIP status in Radisson Rewards, you can turn on a feature called ‘Discount Booster’ in your account settings. ‘Discount Booster’ gives you a substantial and genuine extra discount on your rate but you earn a far lower number of points back.

If you are spending your own money on a room, and not booking for business, I would recommend anyone with Radisson Rewards status turns on ‘Discount Booster’. The cash saving is worth FAR more than the value of the points you are giving up.

I have just come back from a stay at the Radisson in Bergen, Norway and did just this, so I take my own advice.

So, in summary:

The HfP average valuation of a Radisson Rewards point:

0.15p

This is not an estimate. It is what you currently get when you redeem Radisson Rewards points for making a modest part-payment (25% or so) towards a hotel room.

Remember that Radisson Rewards no longer has ‘reward nights’. You simply search for a hotel for cash via the normal booking process. At the payment stage you will be given the chance to reduce the cost, in part or in full, by using your points.

How high can value go on the upside?

0.22p

Based on our analysis of Radisson Rewards points values, if you pay for a room in full – or almost in full – you will receive 0.22p per point.

How low can value go on the downside?

0.15p

This appears as low as you can get. If you immediately ‘earn and burn’ your points – ie you use the points you earn on one stay for a discount on the next one, and never build up a balance – you will get around 0.15p.

Some people may appreciate this level of certainty. If you are reading this website, however, I imagine that you are the sort of person who wants to maximise returns by waiting for a day when you need a room and can get a high ‘pence per point’ redemption. Radisson Rewards is not the programme for you.

If Radisson Rewards devalues tomorrow, what is your escape route?

This is our floor price. What can you do with your points if Radisson Rewards devalues massively overnight? It could, with very little IT trouble, change the rate from 0.15p to 0.1p or worse.

Use Radisson Rewards points for frequent flyer miles

The only airline transfer partners open to you are British Airways, Flying Blue (Air France KLM) and SAS.

The transfer rate is 10:1. If you assume an airline mile is worth 1p, as we do, then you are getting just 0.1p per Radisson point by transferring them to Avios.

(The rate to SAS is an improved 7:1 but this is unlikely to interest HfP readers.)

This used to be terrible but, given how low the value of Radisson Rewards points dropped after its devaluation in 2022, it now looks acceptable.

The list of Radisson Rewards airline partners is here.

There are no other realistic options

Radisson used to offer redemptions for gift cards, albeit at a poor rate. This was discontinued when Radisson Rewards and its Americas arm separated in 2021.

Radisson also used to offer ‘Express Rewards’, giving you cash off food, drink and spa treatments. This has now disappeared from the website.

What are Radisson Rewards hotel points worth?

In summary …. what do we think Radisson Rewards points are worth?

  • on average: 0.15p per point – this isn’t an estimate, it is a fact when redeeming for a room discount of up to, say, 25% of the room rate
  • on a very good day: 0.22p per point – you can’t get higher as far as we can tell
  • on a bad day: 0.15p per point
  • if you transfer out in a worse case scenario: 0.1p per point if you transfer to one of the three frequent flyer partners

The bottom line with Radisson Rewards is that there is no logic in saving up for a bumper redemption at a luxury resort. Your points are best used at a cheap hotel where your existing balance will cover a higher percentage of the room rate, and so get you the higher ‘pence per point’ rate.

Alternatively, converting to Avios or other airline miles is no longer as bad an option as it was before 2022.

Comments (8)

  • Inman says:

    I’m one of the million Radisson VIPs. The real value in Radisson Rewards points is in the discount booster, as you correctly pointed out. It’s genuinely good.
    I’ve got two stays coming up in Europe. Radisson Blu Boulougne with the discount booster turned out to be the cheapest acceptable hotel in the area and the best one – Artotel Amsterdam was just around 15% more than the Ibis for the dates of my stay. And I get almost a guaranteed upgrade.

    • Lumma says:

      Yeah, had some absolute bargains with genuinely great upgrades and actually made to feel special with my free VIP. I’ve got three months to stay 7 more nights and ill retain the status too.

      Compare that to the scripted “thanks for being an IHG platinum member” and paper voucher for one free drink with the cocktail unavailable because I’m not special enough.

      While there are bargains, there are some cities where their hotels are very expensive compared to the competitors too however.

  • Lumma says:

    One thing I have just noticed this morning when looking to book. Some rates you can’t redeem points at all. Seems to be prepaid rates at Park Plaza hotels. Other brands seem fine.

  • Flying banker says:

    Well I’m giving up on them again. I’m a VIP through stays rather than a promotion. Aside from recognition at the hotel I usually stay at (Hoxton Artotel) being non existent, I regularly don’t get points I’m promised eg 1000 bonus for ‘going green’ despite sending in screen shots etc. The latest farce is that the points for my most recent stay show as a credit on the statement but have actually debited my points balance. No response to my the emails and online queries. I suppose they are just making it easier for me to break ties with them if I have less points 🙂

    • smitrax says:

      Arthotel Hoxton had some good deals on suites for a while after it first opened so I stayed there a few times. The first stay was great, staff were very enthusiastic and couldn’t do enough (no recognition for status though but put it down to them being new). Each subsequent stay has been a little worse and most of the time the front desk staff behave like they’ve received their training at a local fast food restaurant. I’ll go back to check out the new restaurant on the 25th floor but room prices seem to have shot up so really hoping for an upgrade when I do.

      • Flying banker says:

        The service is consistently bad. But I haven’t found the rates too bad, especially July/August/September. I don’t know how their systems work but my booking always gets upgraded to a suite online about a week or so before my stay. Then the day before I get downgraded back to a room. Even though suites are available…

      • ColinThames says:

        The free brekkie and discount off food is worthwhile for VIPs. Have never got a suite but got better rooms than the basic room booked. When I first stayed there in July 2024 the breakfast was waiter served and made to order. A pleasant experience. But by May 25 it was self service, standard fare, and incredibly busy, much like Park Plaza. I’d be cross if I was paying for that.
        I haven’t seen the restaurant on the top floor. Has this changed things?

        The contrast with the Park Inn Manchester is remarkable. For less than a quarter of the price you’ll get a good size room, a quiet restaurant, friendly staff. Incredible value.

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