Back a few months ago, Club Carlson did a bad thing, a very bad thing (at least in the eyes of us miles and points travel hackers!). They removed the “Bonus Award night” feature of the Club Carlson Visa card, which always gave you the last night free on an award stay.
The Bonus Award night had the effect of doubling your Club Carlson points, if you made your stays in 2-night increments. I had ranked this as one of the best miles and points deals out there, and its removal was very sad indeed. I know that I, like many of you, burned through the majority of my Club Carlson points.
A 30,000 point offer
As part of the removal / devaluation, Club Carlson offered a 1-time, 30,000 point offer to holders of the Club Carlson Visa upon their next paid stay.
(SEE ALSO: How many points can you get from 1 Club Carlson stay?)
Some of the promotions that I wrote about during that post, where each stay was worth 37,201 points, or 461 points / dollar spent, are now expired, but there are actually a few other promotions going on right now, including 2,000 bonus points for booking online (requires registration)
Trying to get the 30,000 points without a stay
I had heard rumors that some people were able to get the 30,000 points on an AWARD stay, simply by charging something to their room during their stay, so on a recent stay to the Country Inn and Suites in Greenfield, Indiana, I gave that a try.
Unfortunately, that hotel is a super basic hotel (it was nice and comfortable but a Category 1), so there was no room service, nor anything else they could charge to the room!!!! Eventually the front desk lady charged a $1 box of laundry soap to my room, but that did not trigger the bonus.
When I emailed Club Carlson to ask about it, they told me when I emailed in was:
You can still earn the 30,000 Points by booking a reservation on an
Eligible Stay (Best Available Rate or Payable Rate) between today and
Aug 31, 2015. Just make sure to Club Carlson number at the time of
reservation or at check-in and pay for your stay with your Club Carlson
Visa.
So bad news for me (won’t work on an award stay), but good news in that the promotion is still around, and still open to all Club Carlson Visa holders.
Have you gotten your 30,000 Club Carlson bonus points yet? Or are you planning a mattress run? Leave a note in the comments
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You might want to inform the BoardingArea administrator that apparently several BoardingArea blogs have a drive-by virus link on them. Your blog is one of them. I am running OS X with a Chrome browser. I received an alert to install a fake Flash player.
I somehow managed to get the 30,000 on an award stay by buying breakfast:
Apr 13 2015 Earn Hotel Stay – Apr 07 2015 To Apr 09 2015 – Park Plaza Westminster Bridge London – 31,634
Room Points 0
Food and Beverage Points 1,210
Promotion Points – Club Carlson Visa Cardholder 30,000 Point Offer 30,000
Food and Beverage Points – Gold 35% Bonus 424
Right! That is what I had heard had been working for people as well, but that didn’t work for me. Either they’ve closed that loophole, or I didn’t do it right (since the hotel really had no good way to charge something to my room)
Pretty sure that they closed the loophole about two weeks after it started, I haven’t read any reports of this since then and none of my 6 stays during June were given the bonus.
I have