Originally Posted by
sdsearch
Which would make the no-fee Choice credit card valuable to hold for more people. It makes it easy (for those based in the USA), by using it for a small purchase at least once a year, to keep your points from (presumably) ever expiring, in case you stay only very occasionally at Choice hotels.
My new interpretation of this whole thing is that points that have been earned prior to Feb 1, 2016 will still expire at the end of the respective 2 year + period that we have all been accustomed.
After that, points will accrue without deadline as long as there is current activity in the respective account every 18 months or less. If 18 months + 1 day elapses between activities, goodbye points (the entire stock of accumulated points.)
In my case I have 30,000+ that expire 12/31/16 and 85,000+ that expire 12/31/17. So I will have to use up the points within that timetable or they will disappear in each yearly subset. Those earned Jan 1-31 2016 must be used by 12/31/18. Points accrued from this Feb 1 onward are in a new "basket" of points that don't expire as long as there is some requisite activity within the 18 month window.
(So there is no grandfathering of "old" points into the "new" system. - That's my read on it.)
Confused? Yep.