Originally Posted by
IDM79
It's been a while since I've checked in (excuse the pun) on Choice since I only used them for my Rome visits and the last one was a year or so ago. Just noticed the Choice credit card bonus is up to 40,000 points so I figured I'd hit it again for another 3 or 4 nights in my favorite Rome hotel of Bolivar. But checking now I only see awards starting at 30,000 points there? Am I doing something wrong or has this been a massive devaluation there? Or has it been that way for a while and I'm just now noticing.
So the 40,000 point bonus that got us 5 nights at the Bolivar on our last visit will now get us 1. Wow.
I realize all these programs continually devalue, but this is the most devaluing I've seen in such a relatively short time span.
Arrivederci Choice!
Check again.
A year ago (from yesterday)
would have been April 7, 2016. Look up a rate for this week, and you'll see that
this week on weekdays
the Bolivar is 10,000 points and the Principessa is 12,000 points.
And the chart for the Bolivar (near the bottom of the hotel info page) explains it all: "Early shoulder season" through April 15 is 10,000 points, while "high season" of April 16 through September 15 is 30,000 points:
APR 9, 2017 - APR 15, 2017: SUN - THU 10000/ROOM FRI - SAT 12000/ROOM
APR 16, 2017 - SEP 15, 2017: SUN - THU 30000/ROOM FRI - SAT 30000/ROOM
So when
exactly last year did you go, and what was the chart on the hotel web page last year for spring into summer?
Originally Posted by
IDM79
So it just happened then? Wow. I guess it's amazing the cheap awards for these hotels stayed so low for so long, but come on. Tripling an award cost in one fell swoop
without any notice is pretty shabby work. And if they all the sudden saw the need to immediately triple the award cost, whoever has been in charge of overseeing the award revenue/value hasn't been paying much attention. Not too impressive.
(Although I haven't been paying much attention to Choice so
maybe they did warn of this award increase previously. In that case I retract some of my disdain and disgust.) (But definitely not all of it
)
I don't know how to find them offhand, but I remember plenty of threads from years ago here in the Choice forum announcing in early fall that such and such European hotels had
just dropped to 8k a night. So weren't the great redemption prices in Europe usually during "shoulder seasons", not necessarily summer seasons, since years ago?
And was there really any more notice then that there is now? Did this chart on the Bolivar page not show that it was going to 30000 points/night come April 16 months ago?
These sort of charts have been on Choice individual hotel pages for years and years, and those of us who knew that knew that was planning tool. So
they gave notice months ago for those who knew where to look, and many of us have known where to look
for a decade or more!
Furthermore, for those who know where to look, they're likely to give notice fairly soon of drop in redemption rates again come mid-September. If so, that'll "prove" that the 30000 is
only a "high season" rate.
Ie, while 10k or 12k may not exactly be 8k, it still seems a good value. It's just that you have to know it's not going to be that redemption price during high season. A lot of us, years ago, planned trips to Italy during late September or in October or in early April exactly because that's when Choice redemptions tended to drop.