Choice Privileges points are on sale today at 1pm Eastern time, Friday April 28, 2017. Here are 5 reasons not to buy Choice Privileges points today. Four reasons are rebuttals to arguments I have made in the past for buying Choice Privileges points.
U.S. Travel Association’s Daily Getaways offers today are Choice Privileges points.
Reason 1: Choice Privileges points expire after 18 months of no account activity.
I am still trying to figure out how to get value from my 7-figure Club Carlson points I accumulated from all those big bonus points promotions since 2011. I won’t be able to use Choice Privileges points within 18 months.
Reason 2: Choice Privileges points have great value in Scandinavia.
Trip to Norway? I’ll be on a cruise ship in the fjords. No need for hotel rooms.
And who cares about a 10,000 points reward nights in Stockholm or 20,000 points for a Swedish or Norwegian resort property?
If I stay in Stockholm or Oslo or somewhere else in Scandinavia, I will stay in Club Carlson hotels. Radisson Blu hotels have a respectably high 70,000 points per night reward rate in Scandinavia. I can finally quickly burn some of that 7-figure Club Carlson points balance I have been carrying for years. I might even find 105,000 points reward nights at Radisson Blu.
Reason 3: Some popular places with Choice Hotels are simply too popular with crowds of tourists.
Sure, both Prague, Czechia and Porto, Portugal have several Choice Hotels at 8,000 points to 12,000 points per reward night, but popular cities with tourists are not my daily getaways style of travel.
I want exclusivity. My travel style thinks Maldives and Mauritius. Some place I really can’t afford to live more than five days in that lifestyle, but hey, I want a hotel that makes me feel special.
Reason 4: Some Choice Hotels offer suites for standard reward night rates.
I can’t even burn through Hyatt and SPG Suite upgrades. I don’t need more hotel suites.
Reason 5 is my personal bias against encouraging you to buy Choice Privileges points today.
I don’t want competition for Choice Privileges points purchases today.
My objective is to buy 256,000 Choice Privileges points or as many as I can. A $1,074 investment will save me at least $2,000 on hotel room rates over the next year.
I want hotel rooms in Stockholm, and if I cruise Norway, I will most likely be cruising mountain trails on foot outside a city like Bergen with several Choice Hotels options for reward nights. Prague was crowded when I was there in January. July is going to be mind-blowing. A hotel room near the city center is desirable when I want to be off the streets this July.
Update: 45 minutes after sale launch and basically ended.
Bummed I was only successful in purchasing 36,000 points this year. By far the most difficult time I had buying Choice Privileges points on Daily Getaways since 2011.
I did not even get enough points to cover the 60,000 points for hotel bookings I want in June and July. Which means I revert to my back-up plan when I run low on Choice Privileges points.
Choice Privileges Points & Cash reward stays allow a member to buy up to 240,000 points in a calendar year with Choice Privileges Points & Cash reward nights using 6,000 points per night and paying $7.50 per 1,000 points for the remaining points needed.
As a simple example, a hotel reward night at 16,000 points per night can be purchased for 6,000 points + $75 on a Points & Cash reward night. Redeem 30,000 points for a 5-night reward stay and spend $375 to buy 50,000 points. Cancel the reward stay and get 80,000 points returned to Choice Privileges account.
I purchased 36,000 points for $155, or $4.31 per 1,000 points in today’s sale.
I will likely need at least 100,000 more Choice Privileges points for hotel stays in the next 12 months in places like Norway and Sweden, where Nordic Choice Hotels on points are the best deal around.
At $7.50 per 1,000 points I will pay $750 for 100,000 Choice Privileges points. That is about $325 more than I would have paid in Daily Getaways today if I had landed more purchase opportunities.
Still, I generally get a redemption value of about $15 per 1,000 points when I redeem Choice Privileges points. So, as long as the purchase price remains at $7.50 per 1,000 points with Points & Cash reward nights over the next year, I expect I will redeem about 150,000 points in 2017 for hotel reward nights at Choice Hotels. With around 12 hotel reward nights, I expect I will save $1,200 over the otherwise lowest room rates at comparable hotels.
Looks like I will be conserving my Choice Privileges reward stays and looking to burn more Wyndham Rewards points on GoFast stays over the next 12 months.
29 Comments
Comments are closed.