Keep in mind that Choice hotels vary their points redemption values roughly every quarter and that in many locations, it is likely that hotels bump their rates upwards during the summer. In my experience with Choice, there are generally times/places to burn, and then other times/places to earn--especially since some variation of the 8K for two stays is regularly occurring and Choice cash rates along the kind of route you have described are usually reasonable.

I've found decent 8K properties in and around Orlando and lucked into a 10K redemption in midtown Manhattan over Memorial Day weekend. There is still an 8K value in Sligo, Ireland, and some of the Rome properties seem to come in at around 10K. On the other hand, a Dublin hotel that I enjoyed at 8K on a couple of trips is no longer in the program, and its replacement is at 25K, and I haven't seen an 8K redemption in London or Paris for quite a while. Nevertheless, I haven't seen any evidence of an organized devaluation on redemptions.

Choice Privileges is not an easy loyalty program, but for those of us who are regulars, that's probably one of its advantages--its mid-range profile combined with the odd redemption values keeps it off the radar of the bloggers who have mostly touted this program for conversions to Southwest points with a couple finally noticing there were great values to be had occasionally at some European properties. As a result, the rate I took advantage of during Memorial Day weekend--whether a mistake or an introductory rate--would have been big news if a similar rate had popped up at SPG or Hyatt but never got any play outside of this forum despite the fact that I got at least $600 in hotel value ($200 per night is as cheap as I've seen this hotel, even on weekends) for $140 in purchased points through the Daily Getaways promotion.