Update: Earn Up To 16 Rapid Reward Miles Per $1 Spent @ Marriott

I wrote here about how to earn 16 Rapid Reward Miles Per $1 spent at Marriott. I wanted to follow-up with my experience. Even though I did the United promotion (expired), it is very similar to the Southwest promotion.

As a reminder, you can earn Rapid Reward miles for buying Marriott gift cards.

•       $100 = 1,200 Rapid Rewards Miles
•       $250 = 3,000 Rapid Rewards Miles
•       $500 = 6,000 Rapid Rewards Miles

I ordered my gift card on August 8th and the points still have not posted.

My next recommendation was to purchase the gift cards with the Chase Sapphire card to earn 2x per $1. As expected, I earned the 2x Ultimate Rewards points per $1 on my next statement.

When its time to book your Marriott hotel stays, go through the Ultimate Reward shopping portal to earn 2 additional points per $1.

I am happy to say I earned my points this way as well. I book the stay on July 30th, stayed on August 24th and the points were credit to my Ultimate Reward account on September 8th.

My final suggestion was to switch your Marriott accounts to earn MileagePlus/Rapid Reward miles; instead, of Marriott points. I never did this, because I learned that by doing so I might not be eligible for the Unexpected Bonus's free night. Therefore, I left those points on the table. However, I did earn a free night.

If you haven't participated, this is a great way to quadruple dip: earn points for buying the gift card, using your Chase Sapphire, booking the stay, and staying with Marriott. These type of promotions are rare.

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Saving 50,000 Club Carlson Points and Getting A Free Night!

Kelsey and I are still "massaging" our Australia itinerary that includes stop overs in Singapore and Bangkok for 23 hours each and now that we have our flights mostly routed the way we want them we have moved onto our hotels.

Right now we have:

Two nights at the Park Hyatt Sydney using our two Hyatt nights from the Hyatt visa
Two nights at the Hilton Cairns using one free weekend night from the Hilton Reserve card and 35,000 points (Great Barrier Reef Trip)
One night at the Hilton Sydney using our second free weekend night from the Hilton Reserve Card
One night at the Radisson Blu Sydney using 15,000 Club Carlson points and $115
One night at the Conrad in Singapore for 40,000 Hilton points
One night at the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit, Bangkok for 10,000 SPG points

As I was looking at our itinerary and not really feeling good about paying for the cash and points option at the Radisson Blu Sydney I went to read Angelina's post at Just Another Points Traveler about her trip with her father to Australia. They were also staying at the Radisson Blu in Sydney but they had used the power of the Club Carlson Visa card to the fullest. If you are redeeming Club Carlson points for a reward night and need at least two (2) nights the last night on your reservation is free. So you can redeem just one night of Club Carlson points and get a second night for free! Why mess around using more points than needed and I could pull back a Hilton free weekend night certificate for another time!

So I quickly went to the Club Carlson site and put in a search for two nights and found pleanty of availability at the Radisson Blu in Sydney for 50,000 points per night. I went to book and saw a note that as long as the Club Carlson visa cardholder was on the reservation the last night would be automatically free. After booking it was confirmed that for two nights I was only deducted 50,000 points and after canceling my old reservation I even got 15,000 points back into my account for another booking later!

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