BigLar

There was some discussion in this thread about choosing the Bolivar or Nova Domus hotels for Rome. Everyone agreed that they were a tremendous bargain at 8000 points/night.

As of today (at least), they are now 30,000 points/night.

This is one of the things that drive me up the wall about the Choice program.

sdsearch

IIRC someone stated in that thread that all hotels in Italy were 8000 points at that time. Well, the other day I was going through a list of hotels at the Choice webisite sorted by country, and in Italy I couldn't find a single hotel that was 8000 points (but I didn't check aboslutely all of them). Best I saw was a Rome hotel that is neither of the two being discussed here before that was 16000 points I think.

Of course, this being "mainline" Europe, remember you can earn points, not just burn, in places like Italy. And some places the rates in money for some of these hotels may be a lot better (at least sometimes) than using up points.

Save the points for trips to Scandinavia, where you can only burn (not earn). And I just checked, and Norway and Sweden are still mostly 16k a night.

BigLar

That's all true, Stef, but that wasn't the point.

The places (I think I was the one who stated that all the Rome hotels were 8000 points or less) had been at those nice rates for some time. Another poster reported he stayed there and it was well worth it. According to their website, the 8000 point rate was good until at least Sept. 15. If they had gone on according to their somewhat opaque procedure, it would have been at that rate (or even lower) until sometime next spring.

I can imagine some folks (myself included!) planning or re-jiggering their upcoming trip to take advantage of the deal. Some folks may have even gotten their airline tickets in order.

Because of the booking window, many of us would have had to wait a little bit until we could book. Then, apparently without warning, they are suddenly about 300% more expensive. Not cool.

I wonder whether the folks who had actually booked these places at the old rates will have their rates honored? I also wonder what drove the radical change? Afer all, the hotels used to be in the 25-30,000 points/night range. Who decides what the rate will be? Did all the hotels in Rome suddenly decide they needed more business and demand that the rates be dropped? Was it imposed on them by corporate and they rebelled?

It's bad enough that you can't book very far in advance - now you can never be sure the advertised rate will even be in effect when you can book.

I'm suddenly not very hot on the Choice Privileges program.

Ispolkom

I'm planning a trip to Italy in late October and am planning at using Choice Hotels, so I'm directly affected by this change. I too have airline tickets already booked, plans already made. I too am still waiting for the open window to book my room. Nevertheless, I'm not terribly sympathetic to your complaint.

1) Did you really think that the price could drop by 2/3 suddenly and then not go up by the same amount just as suddenly? If you're going to take one half of the wildly fluctuating price situation, you have to take the other half, it seems to me.

2) Why did you imagine that you understood Choices "somewhat opaque procedure"? That seems to be not a very wise option. Better to assume that things will change, and hedge against that change. Surely one of the reasons you can't book far in advance with points is that Choice wants to be able to adjust redemption amounts as they see fit.

3) Last month there was a golden opportunity to buy Choice points. I bought a bundle to ensure that even when the price went up I'd still be able to book a hotel at a discount using points (not as big as one, now, I'll admit) even if the points per night went up.

Come on, if you want consistent policies, standards, and properties, Choice really isn't the program for you. If you're willing to gamble, though, the dice occasionally roll in your favor. I might, like you, wish that things were different. They aren't, though, and complaining won't change things.

And, hey, who knows? Maybe redemption amounts will change again later this year!

bigbuy

I did check all Choice Hotels in Italy (Everyone of them was 8,000 points for my dates) and may have been the poster you are referring to. I already had other hotels booked, but instead bought a bunch of points on Discover America. I canceled my other reservations and booked 3 nights in Venice and 2 nights in Rome, all for 8,000 points per night. I'm sorry the deal disappeared.

BigLar

Fair enough, but I really wasn't aware that the prices had dropped suddenly. In fact, I hadn't checked the Rome hotels in months, and I was quite surprised they were as low as they were.

For whatever reasons, Choice elected to lower the redemption cost for these properties, and had advertised these rates would be in effect until at least Sept. 15. I have no problem with my other programs (Marriott. Hilton, SPG) changing categories and thus redempttion rates. That's a fact of life. But at least they do it in a professional manner - the changes are usually announced in advance, and once the changes are made and the rates are set, you can count on them for at least a year.

Imagine your local car dealer announcing, say, a 20% off deal on his inventory, good for the next month. You go down to make the deal and he tells you, "Oh, never mind. We cancelled that deal. Too bad if you believed what we stated in print. We don't feel like following through."

Yeah, I know Choice can be capricious. I would have felt a lot different, though, if we found out that they had gone up after September.If that's actually a conscious decision on their part, I'd feel hesitant about doing business with a chain that purposely messes with the value of your account just beause they feel like it.Agreed. But I must admit, they have seemed (to me, anyhow) to be more consistent than this little deal shows.

BigLar

Have you called to make sure they will honor the rate?I an too, Of course, I wasn't aware that there was a "deal". I saw no announcement of any specials, just the statement that from now until Sept. 15 the rooms would be 8000 points/night, just like any other Choice property. No mention that this was any sort of special deal. And certainly no mention that the rate might be abruptly cancelled without notice. After all, why bother to state in writing that the rate is good until mid-September if you feel no obligation to honor that committment?No offense, but if a nearly quadrupling in price is just 'not quite as big a discount', more power to you.

bigbuy

No I have not called, but I just checked my account online and the reservations are still there as ordered. I will be in Italy in late June and will post a follow up. I will probably call a few days before departure.

Ispolkom

I interpret the Web site differently. I think that it says that if I book now I can get that particular rate for those dates. I see nowhere any guarantee that the rate for any particular date won't change, and I've always thought that the limited window for redemptions was to limit the number of bookings at a particular rate. In my limited experience with Choice, I have found that they change redemption rates arbitrarily and without notice, and in the T & C you find this beauty:

I don't particularly like this provision, but it is there.

No offense taken.

I was looking at the Hotel Atlantic in Milan in January, when it was 25k points. Then it dropped to 8k points. Now it's up to 30k points. I'd call that a 20% increase, which is well within my experience with sudden, arbitrary devaluations at other hotel chains like Hilton.

Even at the 30k point redemption rate, my cost in Choice points purchased from the Discover America promotion last month is about half the room rate, so I still think I'm getting an appreciable discount.

I'm as sorry as you that the 8k redemption rate is gone. It was an amazing rate, and I'd much rather pay that amount. I live in hope that it might return before my Italian trip.

It's unrealistic, though, to expect to pay as few points for a $250-$300 room in Rome in high season as you would for a Rodeway Inn out by the Interstate. I'm surprised the rate lasted as long as it did, and I congratulate those, like Bigbuy, who were able to take advantage of it.

BigLar

I don't like it either - in fact, I wasn't particularly aware it was there, but there is similar wording in the T&C's of all programs, so I'm not surprised.

I would generally interpret it a bit differently, based on my experience with other programs. Yes, they can change the redemption rates as they see fit. However, once they determine a rate for a particular time period, and publish that fact, I would think they would feel obligated to honor it for the length of the committment. Plenty of businesses run special deals, but there's usually some sort of limit, either things like, "while supplies last", or, "You have until Sunday at midnight to take advantage of this great offer!", or things like that.

Bottom line for me is that I'm dealing with a company that feels they can arbitrarily devalue my account greatly with no notice, and have shown that they will do exactly that. Everywhere there's a Comfort Inn or Quality Inn or Sleep Inn, there's almost always also a Fairfield Inn or Hampton Inn or Holiday Inn. I will make my accomodation decisions accordingly.

sdsearch

There are two types of hotel points programs in the world:

Those that give oodles of points out left and right (for relatively little spend needed) through super-rich bonuses on few cheap stays (Choice and Priority Club), and the others.

And it so happens that ones that gives oodles of points out left and right are the same ones who do big moves in rewards costs at individual properties with no notice. (If you look at the Priority Club forum, you'll notice they did something similar within the last few month, various properties moving up or down with no announcement before or even after.)

The ones where you have to work hard to get points tend to be the ones where you get more notice.

There's your tradeoff...

BigLar

GUWonder

Increased company presence on a board certainly doesn't help keep good values alive longer.

If booked under the previous rate at the proper time and in the proper way, they should be good to go. However, that is no guarantee that a ball won't get dropped somewhere by Choice or one of its properties that doesn't require a clean-up effort. [One hotel in recent days wanted to stick me with a $500+/night cost for a 16k point per night reservation, and I'm still not sure why -- fortunately this got resolved at check-out.]

The Choice hotel program is indeed a huge gamble when there is no advance notice being given about price changes and the booking window using points is so extremely limited.

This situation makes it even more clear that the Choice hotel program is not one in which most customers should have much confidence about the value of the points being anything but a gamble.

lwildernorva

I don't do this, but this whole thread reinforces the good advice to send an email that confirms all of the details of your stay, including the points required to pay for your stay.

iahphx

I've had no problem when Choice raised the price of an award stay after I booked. That said, things can get "lost in translation," so getting it reconfirmed is probably not a bad idea. I'd hate to have an argument in Rome that I owed 30,000 points/night and not 8000!

Obviously, I'm only guessing, but I think that 8000 point level was a mistake. It can live on for awhile because there are probably few people booking these rooms (I'll bet that flyertalkers might be the majority of them!). If you do the math, you'll know that 8000 points was nuts for Rome. I considered it a mistake rate, just like a $200 airfare to Europe. You book it while you can. Given the relatively short advance booking window for Choice, you couldn't plan too far ahead.