Tough choices from free travel

I’m facing one of those nice to have, but difficult to decide choices right now, it is what program to use for a night in a hotel in Lurcerne, Switzerland.  The thing with small towns like Lucerne is that there aren’t a lot of options for hotels from the big, co-branded hotel chain/credit card loyalty programs.

The best programs for travelers like myself, who aren’t into paying for travel but enjoy staying in nice hotels have two traits in common: a Co-Branded Credit Card AND a transfer partner for top ups.  A classic example of this ideal combination is the Hyatt Gold Passport program, there is a Chase Hyatt Card, and you can also transfer in to top up from Ultimate rewards.

Hilton has an even more attractive point accumulation strategy in that there are ways to stack certain foibles of other rewards program in order to earn even more points.  You can see this if you transfer American Express Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic and then onto Hilton Honors.  Because Virgin transfers to Hilton at a 1:2 ratio you can earn through partners at an accelerated rate.  Unfortunately, they have ramped up the cost of a redemption so high that it destroys all value.

European Hotel Chains

Back to the matter at hand, the European Hotel chains.  In a town like Lurcerne there are few options from the chains, thankfully there is a Marriot and a Radisson Blu so despite me not ever spending a single dollar in one of these properties it is possible for me to get our night for free due to being a ‘loyal’ guest…  I don’t have the Marriot Credit Card from Chase, but I could if I really wanted to transfer in from United at 1:1 –  horrible ratio.

Luckily Club Carlson is the chain behind the Radisson Blu brand, and their excellent Club Carlson Rewards visa comes with 85,000 points signup bonus, 5x on everything and, best of all you get your last night free with any booking.

This create tremendous value, and we are using this for our stay in Switzerland for the town of Basel, where the Radisson Blu Basel is 50,000 points per night (or $220 per night) so my two night stay would normally cost 100,000 points or $440 because I hold the Club Carlson credit card I only have to pay for the first night, for 50,000 points.  Amazing value!

My other major chains of choice, Hilton and Hyatt are quite sparse in many parts of Europe, and nothing to find in Lurcene,  so it comes down to a very tricky decision.

The BarclayCard Arrival

I got this card for exactly this situation.  The Arrival Card from Barclays comes with a 40,000 point signup bonus and earns 2x everywhere.  Furthermore, when you use it for travel you get a rebate of 10% of the points you spend.

EG If I did not have the Club Carlson card and I opted to buy the room in Basel for $440 I would charge it to the Barclaycard Arrival and then when it appeared on my statement I would wipe out the charge by applying my points balance to it.  The cost would be 44000 Arrival Points, for which I get the room for free, and then Barclays would redeposit 10% of the redeemed points as a rebate, so my account would be credited with 4400 towards my next trip.

The Dilemma

I only have one night in Lucerne before I fly home, so if I book the Radisson Blu for 50,000 points, I couldn’t take advantage of the free last night, I would be effectively throwing it away.  If on the other hand I hold onto my 50,000 points and pay with the Arrival card I would be spending good money on a room that I could use points for.  The Radisson in Lucerne is $211 per night, but if I used the Arrival card I of course could book somewhere else also.

The type of room I would likely pay for (weirdly) would be more expensive, as I would rather fork out another $50 or so and stay somewhere epic, there are a number of beautiful hotels lining the waterfront that look great, as do properties in the old town.  I would certainly stay in the Radisson as it isn’t horribly located, but it isn’t perfect – and perfect is what cash buys you.

The Final Decision

After a lot of thought regarding value I decided to book the Club Carlson room and lose the last night.  The value equation was a complex one for me, because I had decided to lose the opportunity to use the Club Carlson for two nights somewhere else in the future in exchange for saving the $211 or so of free BarclayCard Arrival money.

The reason I decided to save the money for future use rather than the points was the devaluation risk.  The points I have with the BarclayCard Arrival are, in my opinion,  a lot more stable than the Club Carlson points.  Furthermore when I look at balances right now I still have:

• 50K Hilton points in 2 accounts
• 50K Club Carlson in another account
• 2x Hyatt Nights (from the Hyatt Credit Card)
• 2x Hilton Nights (from the Citi Reserve Card)

And whilst I plan to spend the Hyatt nights some time in March/April I still have to use up the Citi nights – that means the travel until spring 2014 for two night trips is covered.

With that in mind, my goal is to start burning up hotel points now and keeping the cash til later… never an easy choice to spend your point points, your money from points or your free nights from points!  It’s all ‘free’ but its all about the opportunity costs and big picture. It seemed hard to throw away that last night, but I would rather have the BarclayCard Arrival money available for other things as they come up.