Originally Posted by
iahphx
Continuing the old thread, thanks GUWonder, for that tip about Choice and Scandinavia. I haven't redeemed in Scandinavia in a few years, but I have a trip planned for 2017. I guess I'll need to review the "carnage" -- which isn't necessarily so easy to do given that Choice (unlike all the other programs) doesn't let you book a stay more than a couple months in advance. Obviously, another reason to be "conservative" with Choice points buying. Of course, we don't even know yet what price they'll be selling those points for.
Frankly, in general, I doubt that Daily Getaways will have blockbuster deals this year. I might just wind up with a few Alamo certificates.
Choice hotels that used to more or less have last room availability using Choice points in Scandinavia now limit availability using points to a minority or slight majority of rooms when before it was basically 90-100% of regular paid rate rooms were available if wanting to use Choice points.
The cash+points-and-then-cancel to buy Choice points on the cheap has become my strategy to balance the reduction in available Nordic Choice hotel deals using the US Choice points. So even if I were to want to buy the USTA Daily Getaway packages for Choice hotels, it would be for the minimum to intelligently play the points+cash-and-refund-for-points method to avoid stocking up a huge stash of points subject to devaluation and unlikely to be as valuable going forward as they used to be.
I still have some Universal and Seaworld tickets left from the last USTA-DG deal. Have to use those soon too. I still have leftover Choice points from prior USTA-DG deals, and that is despite being around Nordic Choice hotels a bunch each month for years now.
My suggestion for Choice points is to buy no more than one package from the USTA-DG deal and then buy the points via the cash+points method within (or near) the 30/60/75/100 day window within which award redemptions are allowed. Given Choice points can mostly not be used to book stays more than 60 days in advance, it's not a great idea to have too huge a collection of points that could be subject to yet another devaluation on rather short notice at that.
My suggestion for things like the Universal, Busch Gardens and Seaworld tickets is that they can be a great deal, if you are going to use them for sure.