By Lakshmi and Siddhi:

On our recent trip to Edinburgh, our plan involved staying in the city for four days and three nights.  We had heard so much about the Royal Mile being the epicenter of the city, that we wanted to stay right in that area.

Given our recent accumulation of Club Carlson points, we looked up the swanky Radisson properties in the heart of the city.  The recently converted Quorvus property, G&V (formerly the Missoni hotel) was unavailable for a points stay.  But the Radisson Blu located smack in the city center was.

The best available rate for the time period was around $400 per night for the three of us or we could do it for 50,000 points per night

We decided to use our points and ended up with a $1,200 stay in an amazing property in the heart of Edinburgh for ZERO dollars.

You’ve heard this from us before.  Here’s how we did it.  Last year, I had applied for the Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa credit card. The primary reason for applying for this card was to get  85,000 Bonus Gold Points – 50,000 Gold Points after our first purchase plus 35,000 points once we spent $2,500 on our card within the first 90 days (we simply put our routine expenses for 3 months on the card and for every dollar we spent outside of the Carlson branded properties, we gained 5 points).  Spending just a tad bit over the minimum, we now had 100,000 points to spend on our hotel in Edinburgh.

With our accumulated points, we got two nights for free.  An added benefit of the Club Carlson Visa Card is that each time you book a reward stay, your last night is free.  Since we were card holders booking three nights, the third night was free. (This benefit has since been taken away!)

Ok, this is not all we got.  With our card, we were upgraded to a better room, got delayed check out and discounted parking!

The staff at the hotel, like much of the city of Edinburgh came from different parts of the world.  The girl from Spain practiced Spanish with our daughter and the rest of the staff was always there with tips and comments as we moved about.

The best part of this deal was location…location…location. Everything was at our doorstep which made falling in love with Edinburgh so much easier!!!

To learn more about the Radisson Blu Edinburgh, click here:  http://www.radissonblu.co.uk/hotel-edinburgh?csref=em.20140602.radissonblu.trig.bookconfirm.en.r11of1.cta1

To learn about the Quorvus property G&V in the heart of Edinburgh, click here: http://www.quorvuscollection.com/gandv-hotel-edinburgh

And to learn more about the Club Carlson Visa, click here: http://www.clubcarlsonvisa.com/credit/welcome.do?redirect=directTraffic&lang=en