Club Carlson Daily Getaways
Last week I wrote about how much Club Carlson points are really worth. In the fine print of their Twitter contest, the company listed the value of their points at $.002 or 1/5 of one cent. Pretty low compared to the .007 they normally sell the points for.
By now you have probably heard that Club Carlson points are going on sale today at 1PM ET at Daily Getaways. During the sale you can get the following packages:
- 100,000 points for $450 (50 packages)
- 50,000 points for $225 (100 packages).
Both of the packages are pricing the points at $.0045, so this is definitely better than the normal price Club Carlson sells them at, however there are much cheaper ways to acquire these points.
Club Carlson Credit Card
I am a big fan of the Club Carlson credit card (my review) and both my wife and I have one. One of the ways I acquire Club Carlson points every year is by paying the annual fee. Each year in exchange for a $75 annual fee, they give me 40,000 points.
This means I purchase those points at a cost of $.0018. Not only is that an amazing price, but the card also gives me Gold status and that very valuable “Extra Bonus Night” amenity.
But what if those 40,000 points aren’t enough? Then why not manufacture points at a much lower cost than Daily Getaways?
Manufacture the Points
For example, many malls sell $500 Visa gift cards for $3.95. To generate roughly 50,000 points, I would need to spend $10,000 since the Club Carlson credit cards earns 5 points per dollar on everyday purchases.
So if I buy 20 $500 gift cards at $3.95 each, I will spend a total of $79 on fees and generate 50,395 points. That makes my cost per point $.0016 which is about 1/3 of the cost of the points through Daily Getaways.
Even if you purchase $500 gift cards for $5.95 at grocery stores, you will spend $119 to generate 50,595 points. In that case, the cost per point is $.0024 or a little more than half of the Daily Getaways price.
See: How to Liquidate Prepaid Visa & Mastercard Gift Cards
Why Buy Daily Getaways
Of course the Daily Getaways prices may still be good if you are need of points relatively quickly or don’t want to do the work to manufacture the points. If you hold the credit card, those 50,000 or 100,000 points should get you a value far in excess of what you pay for them.
Conclusion
Between my annual points from the credit card and the ability to manufacture points for an amazingly low $.0016, I will pass on today’s Daily Getaways offer. Since there are only 150 packages available anyway, I doubt I would be able to get anything anyway.
If you need more Club Carlson points or miss out on today’s deal, remember there are still plenty of ways to get them at a very inexpensive price. Finally, if you don’t have the credit card, I highly suggest taking a look at it as a part of your overall hotel strategy.
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[…] Why I won’t be purchasing Club Carlson points today during Daily Getaways & How to get them at… […]
Does the Club Carlson CC still give people trouble when loading to RedBIRD? I just liquidated all of my Carlson points in Iceland and want to build them back up. I haven’t tried to load the Club Carlson card at Target yet. I am just wondering if this is why you outlined buying $500 VGC at Simon/grocery stores?
Like any decent Daily Getaways deals. They suck. If you are not there at exactly the right time you have no chance of getting a good deal. And even if you are there, it is a lottery. You might be able to buy, but more likely you will not be able to buy them.
Your calculations neglect time-cost. If I wanted 50,000 Club Carlson points, which I don’t, I could spend $225 and 10 minutes. Since I can’t buy 20 gift cards at once, I would need multiple store trips, plus dealing with cashiers, plus more time to liquidate cards, plus cycling $10,000 in debit card money. Is it worth $146 to not go through that hassle? For me and many other people it is.
Yes I agree time is a personal calculation. With that said, I can purchase $10,000 at once and liquidate it within about an hour to an hour and a half.
One of my other reasons for writing this is because I knew with only 150 packages available most people wouldn’t be able to buy them.
As expected, they sold out immediately. This gives people another perspective on how to acquire these points at a very inexpensive cost.
Thanks.
Thanks for that perspective! MS is not that much work, and going that route is definitely better for me than the frenzy of trying to win a chance to pay double…
How many Visa GC, at $ 3.95, can you purchase at one time without raising a red flag
The mall I visit sells $10,000 per person at a time.
Oh, how I wish someone could point me to a grocery store, or Staples, or Walgreens, or any merchant for that matter, anywhere in Southern California that will actually allow me purchase a Visa Gift Card with my credit card, because I’ve NEVER found one that will.
It’s really frustrating reading all these posts about mfg spend and not being able to actually do it for real.
There are a lot of MSers who live in Southern California. I would recommend networking a little bit for some help. The Travel Codex forums are a good place to start.
One of the members of flyertalk forum was mentioning that he does $100K a month of MS — using money order and gift cards. I agree, I need to find two stores in SoCal — one where I can buy $500 GCs for $3.95 fee and a grocery store where I can get money order using gift cards.
How do you cash out those gift cards? That’s the $10,000 question here? Money Orders?
There is a link in the post to an article I wrote about many ways to liquidate these cards. The easiest way is to load them to Bluebird/Serve/REDbird.
https://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/visa-gift-card-prepaid-mastercard/
I like the calculations but dont know how long MS method will stay around. However the honesty of the post is most important, unlike other big name blogs just push whatever that come along.
Thanks Choi!! I can’t speak to how long any of this will be around, but at least it is available today. I appreciate your kind words.
How do you liquidate $10k in gift cards?
I linked in the article to my resource for liquidating these cards, but here is the link. Thanks Brian.
https://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/visa-gift-card-prepaid-mastercard/