The news broke this morning that the Radisson Americas hotel program is being purchased by Choice Hotels. You might remember that last year Radisson split their company into two, Radisson Hotels and Radisson Hotels America. This was necessitated because the parent company of Radisson Rewards was purchased by a Chinese company. To comply with US privacy and consumer protection regulations, they were required to split into separate companies.
What is Radisson Americas?
According to their website, “Radisson Hotel Group Americas represents Radisson Hotels operations and brands in the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. The Radisson Hotel Group Americas portfolio of brands includes Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Radisson Individuals, Radisson Inn & Suites, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson and Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, brought together under the overarching Radisson Hotels Americas name.”
So the brands that are being purchased by Choice include hotels with the following brands:
- 10 Radisson Blu hotels
- 130 Radisson hotels
- 9 Radisson Individuals
- 1 Park Plaza hotel
- 4 Radisson RED hotels
- 453 Country Inn & Suites by Radisson
- 17 Park Inn by Radisson hotels
- The Radisson Inn & Suites and Radisson Collection brands
This will include Radissons like the Radisson Covington / Cincinnati and its revolving restaurant, but not the disappointing Radisson Blu Dubai Deira Creek or the (also disappointing) Radisson Blu Rome hotel.
Details of the purchase by Choice Hotels
As is the case with most mergers and purchase agreements, there is a lot that we don’t know yet. According to the press release, Choice Hotels is purchasing the “the franchise business, operations and intellectual property of Radisson Hotel Group Americas”, and paying 675 million USD. This includes 624 hotels with over 68,000 rooms in the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. It has already been approved by the Choice Hotels Board of Directors and is expected to close in the second half of 2022, pending regulatory approvals and customary closing requirements.
What does it mean for miles and points people?
Of course, this is the question that most people reading this site actually care about. Will Radisson Rewards points be convertible to Choice Privileges points, and if so, at what rate? 2:1, 3:1, or something else? It doesn’t seem to make sense to me that they would keep two separate loyalty programs, but it will certainly take time to integrate the two companies, especially the loyalty and reservations sides. I also wonder if they won’t rename some of the Radisson hotels in the Americas. It seems confusing to me that you might be able to redeem Choice Privileges points for a Radisson in the US, but not in Europe.
Time will tell how the integration of these two hotel chains will turn up.
What do you make of Choice Hotels buying Radisson? Leave your thoughts in the comments
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At the end of the day how much of a difference will this make in the hotel landscape both brands being lower ended market properties many fairly rundown.The Country Inns part is an upgrade over many if not most of the Choice branded properties so that’s a plus.
It does make sense.
Yeah – with both of these brands (Choice especially) you really have to read the reviews. They have some nice lower-end properties but they also have a bunch of dumps
The key question, especially for those who have significant Radisson points, is whether to transfer the points to the Radisson international program or allow them to be converted to Choice points. Waiting for the conversion rate may work for some, but for those who don’t use Choice hotels often enough or Radisson American hotels, the answer may be to move them over quickly, when you can.
That’s a good point. I would imagine that there would be a time after the conversion rate is known, but before the sale closes where you could transfer them to Radisson International. But if you’re worried about that, you might want to move them over sooner rather than later. Personally, I plan to wait and see
Both suck in the US. In Europe where I often need points hotels, Radisson is much more top shelf and more plentiful. Point value varies widely within each brand but generally both are closer to 1 cent than a half cent. The 5* Mayfair London is 75K (for a $600+ room). But the extremely nice Prague City & Prague Old Town Clarions by Choice are 10K (for a $100 room).
I don’t want any surprises where my points get trapped in Choice so I moved mine to Radisson world. Hopefully they’ll stay transferable but if they don’t I want the big choice in Europe world has, not the very limited Choice group.
The easy link to transfer America to World is : https://www.radissonhotelsamericas.com/en-us/rewards/redeem/global-points-transfer
Hopefully someone can find the easy link the other way.
bingo: https://www.radissonhotels.com/en-us/rewards/redeem/globalpointstransfer
One of the difficulties here might be to keep the points active. I used to have Radisson visa – made it easy to keep account active. If the points transfer to Choice program, still easy to keep it active since there is a Choice Visa. But transferring to Radisson international may make it harder to keep points active since sitting in USA, there may not be way to generate activity besides using the points or staying at Radisson.