Choice Hotels Choice Privileges Nordic Choice Club

Choice Privileges points value in Venice and Norway

My purchases of 172,000 Choice Privileges points from this year’s Daily Getaways posted this week. I have been checking out hotels to see what kind of value I can find for points. I had planned to burn Choice Privilege points for our summer vacation in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Those plans might change in consideration of Club Carlson Visa card one free night on award stays benefit ending June 1, 2015, but available for July stays if booked before June 1.

Spent some time today checking out Nordic Choice Hotels and saw plenty of great value with Choice Privileges points in Norway. Last September I stayed in several hotels in Norway with published room rates of $500 per night. The value of the Norwegian krone dropped 25% against the dollar since September and those $500 per night hotels are now posting rates around $350 to $375. Norway is still expensive. Most Nordic Choice Hotels are 16,000 points per night and that is about $64 in points purchased from Daily Getaways.

One of the other great values for Choice Privileges points is Venice, Italy with two Choice Hotels, both at 10,000 points per night.

Comfort Hotel Diana is 10,000 points per night with a prime location beside Piazza San Marco, St. Mark’s Square.

Comfort Hotel Venice June1-8

80,000 Choice Privileges points buys an 8-night stay at Comfort Hotel Diana in Venice, Italy. Daily Getaways sold 80,000 points for $320.

 

Comfort Hotel Diana $2400

Choice Privileges points have an incredible return on investment at some hotels like Nordic Choice Hotels in Norway or Comfort Hotel Diana where 80,000 points buys nearly $2,500 in rooms.

The primary purpose for this post is to share one of the changes I noticed on the US version of Choice Hotels website. There is a new website design, however, not all the functionality is there yet on the new design, like the ability to book Choice Privileges Points + Cash reward stays as seen in the first image of this post.

Choice Privileges points plus Cash

The piece missing from the old style Choice Hotels website is the notation on hotel pages stating the Choice Privileges seasonal reward rates. This information is handy when posted on the hotel’s webpage, since reward rates change every three months for many hotels. A couple of weeks ago when checking rates for a hotel in downtown Victoria, British Columbia at 8,000 points per night, my excitement receded when I realized the hotel reward rate changed to 20,000 points per night as of today, the start of the high season and my trip is this weekend. 

Choice Privileges is unique from other hotel loyalty programs in having posted seasons with seasonal reward rates. I recently learned Best Western also has seasonal rates, but Best Western, like Hilton HHonors, requires searching by month to determine when reward rates change.

Comfort Inn Diana Venice shows no reward rate information on the hotel page when checking the standard US website ComfortInn.com.

Since I have been studying Vancouver Canada hotel rates, I noticed seasonal reward rates are still posted on the Choice Hotels Canada site.

Comfort Hotel Diana, Venice, Italy

Points required for Choice Privileges reward night redemption:

  • Thursday April 16 2015 – Tuesday June 30 2015: 10000
  • Wednesday July 01 2015 – Tuesday September 15 2015: 10000

Choice Privileges reward rates

Seasonal Reward rates are still posted on the ChoiceHotels Canada website.

Hopefully these rates will return to the U.S. site, but if not, then look to Canada for information on seasonal rates.

8 Comments

  • bluecat April 16, 2015

    Rick, If you are headed to Vancouver this weekend, you could look at booking some Club Carlson rooms. They come in at about $100 US and they would fulfill the requirement for the 30K bonus in time for use by end of next month.

    I’m doing this with the Bothell CI &S hotel

  • bluecat April 16, 2015

    How are you able to see the July 1 date for Venice? I was under the impression that you can only “see” and book 60 days out for European hotels? (Is it a trick, or do you have status, or ???)

  • andreas April 16, 2015

    Rick, Thanks for posting about these options. I bought a bunch of choice points after reading your posts. I will go to Italy and switzerland next year. Choice points are good for italy but there aren’t that many worthwhile redemptions in switzerland. Is there another trick you know for switzerland?

  • mark April 17, 2015

    At 10,000 points, you could simply buy the points from choice (at $11 per thousand) and essentially pay $110 per night. That’s obviously nowhere near as good a deal as the daily getaways prices, but still a significant savings over posted rates ($194/nt this august).

    Have you stayed here before? Reviews seem to be a mix of amazing location, but the hotel is nothing special…

  • Ric Garrido April 17, 2015

    @bluecat – The date is June 1 on the image with Comfort Hotel Diana rates. I have Choice Gold elite status earned entirely on award stays last year.

    Radisson YVR is set and I expect to earn around 55,000 Club Carlson points for a $132 USD room night.

    @Mark – I have not been to the Venice hotel. The location is the key point that guests favor in hotel reviews.

    There are plenty of great hotels in Venice at $500 to $1,000 per night. I’d go to some fine hotels for lunch or drinks with money saved on Choice Hotel stay.

    @Andreas – I have never checked out Switzerland for deals. There are several Best Western Hotels
    http://www.bestwestern.com/reservations/hotels/hotels.asp?iata=00170260&sob=PBMS2&city=&stateCode=&country=Switzerland&cm_mmc=PS-_-PBMS2-_-Switzerland-_-Best%20Western%20Switzerland

    Best Western points can still be purchased at Daily Getaways. I actually bought 10,000 points this week for a potetial hotel stay in Canada next week. I don’t think they are going to post in time.

    https://dailygetaways.ustravel.org/OfferDetails.aspx?pid=2b861E82-b567-4811-9f65-fd591cb6c07a

  • Charles Clarke April 18, 2015

    @bluecat – You can see the rate farther out, even without being logged in. You have to be logged in with enough status to book it.

  • bluecat April 18, 2015

    @Charles, thanks. I’ve got a calendar reminder set for 60 days out and keeping my fingers crossed!

  • Ric Garrido April 18, 2015

    @bluecat – the other aspect of being logged in with sufficient points during the booking window is Nordic Choice Hotels allow you to see what kind of rooms are available.

    As I pointed out last September when staying in Norway, several of the rooms I booked were suites available with the same number of points as a standard room. I picked some hotels specifically due to the option to book a higher category room.

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