What Choice elite level are you?
Per this page:
http://www.choicehotels.com/en/choic.../partnerhotels
* Reward nights can be booked 50 days in advance for Elite Gold members staying in the U.S. or Canada or 60 days in advance outside of the U.S. or Canada
* Reward nights can be booked 75 days in advance for Elite Platinum members and 100 days for Elite Diamond members staying in the U.S. or Canada or 60 days in advance outside of the U.S. or Canada
The way it's worded, it could be interpreted as meaning that anyone who's not Elite (Gold, Platinum, or Diamond) can't book these
at any time! (However, I see no
explicit mention that you have to be at least Elite Gold to book them either.)
I mention this in case you do need to be Elite to book it, but the agents don't know that explicitly, just know that they must plug in your account number to search for reward hotels for you, and by doing that, their system is automatically filtering out Preferred hotels.