Originally Posted by
Ispolkom
I haven't paid attention to Choice Privileges in a couple of years, as my travel rarely allowed using Choice properties.
I have kept the Choice Visa card for several years because it gave Gold status, which allowed me to reserve rooms on points further out. I don't find it a worthwhile card to put any spend on, except perhaps at Choice Hotels themselves.
I see that as of last year every level of Choice Privileges now can book award rooms 100 days out.
With this change, I now cannot see much extra utility from having either Gold status or the Choice Visa card. (Well, other than that one time in a Sleep Inn in Davenport, Iowa, where I was thanked for my status and given a bottle of water and a tiny bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.)
Am I missing something?
Keep in mind that some us have always had the card
simply for the extra points on Choice stays. I can't remember a year in the past 10 when I've not had either Platinum or Diamond status with Choice (through stays), simply because I need a lot of hotel stays a year (most related to the fact that I live too far from work to commute from home every day) and I love Choice's stay-2-time-earn-8000-points promos. So the card giving me Gold was a benefit that was
always useless to me (even if for a different reason that for you). And yet I kept the card
just for the extra points (at no annual fee cost) that it was giving me.
So forget about the Gold status, and just decide whether it's worth it for you to keep a no-AF card for extra Choice points or not. And if you won't have a stay at Choice in any 18 month period, being able to put one purchase a year on the card would keep your points from ever expiring, which wouldn't be an option if you didn't have the card.