How & Why To Transfer Radisson Rewards Points

Radisson rewards revealed some brutal changes to their loyalty program. The program was completely destroyed by moving to dynamic award pricing. We've seen a number of loyalty program devaluations over the years, but I don't recall the last time I saw a complete gutting of award pricing.

You can move your points to RadissonRewards Americas for free. I think other people might be interested in doing this as well.

Why you might want to transfer points to Radisson Rewards Americas

The Radisson rewards concept is not easy to understand.

• In the summer of 2021, we saw Radisson Rewards split into two, with a separate loyalty program for the Americas; this was because the Chinese government essentially owns Radisson, and the United States has restrictions around data the Chinese government can access.
• In the summer of 2022, Choice Hotels acquired Radisson Hotel Group Americas, meaning that Radisson’s properties in the Americas nowadays have nothing to do with Radisson’s non-Americas properties
• The good news is that for the time being, it’s still possible to transfer points between Radisson Rewards and Radisson Rewards Americas at no cost, even though the programs now belong to two unrelated companies

I had a lot of points in the non- Americas program. Over the years, I obtained these mostly with the Radisson rewards credit card, which offered an annual bonus of 40,000 points.

I decided to transfer all of my Radisson rewards points to Radisson rewards Americas even though I don't have any immediate plans for them. What's the reason?

• Radisson Rewards has been gutted, so this is a case where the “evil” you don’t know is probably better than the “evil” you do know
• Radisson Rewards Americas hasn’t devalued its award pricing yet, and continues to have an award chart; that being said, Radisson’s portfolio in the Americas isn’t exactly inspiring, and if your points are in the Americas program, you can’t redeem at non-Americas properties
• I assume transferring points is costing Radisson Rewards something, since the two programs now belong to separate companies, so on principle I’d at least like this terrible devaluation to cost Radisson Rewards something
• I imagine at some point Choice Privileges and Radisson Rewards Americas will be merged (it’s only logical, given the merger of the hotel groups), and there’s some potential upside there for members
• It’s anyone’s guess when the free transfer functionality will be eliminated; I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s soon, given the radical changes Radisson Rewards just made

How to transfer points between Radisson Rewards programs

It's easy to transfer points between RadissonRewards and RadissonRewards Americas.

The process of transferring points between accounts in the same name is simple. Once you have an account with both programs, you can log into your Radisson rewards account.

On the next page, you will be asked how many points you want to transfer, and you will also be asked to enter your account number. The transfer page only allowed me to transfer up to 400,000 points. I transferred for an additional 16,000 points.

I refreshed my account after I submitted the transfer request.

One account has my first name as Ben, while the other has my first name as Benjamin, so I was happy to see that I didn't have an issue with this.

What will I do with my rewards? I don't know. I don't think I can be in a worse position than I was with my Radisson rewards points.

Bottom line

Even without a specific use for points, it could be a good idea to transfer points to RadissonRewards Americas. Radisson rewards points are no longer worth much, while we don't know what the future holds. I'm willing to take my chance.

People are moving their points to Americas.