When staying at Nordic Choice hotels in Sweden on Choice program points, if the hotel asks me to insert a bank card for the stay at check-in, that’s most commonly taken by me as a sign that the front desk agent doesn’t know what they are doing with regard to this kind of booking.
On my insanely huge number of Choice award nights in Sweden, I’ve had to present a bank card at check-in less than 2% of the time during the course of the last ten years. And the only times where I’ve been wrongly billed for the room rate on award stay by the Nordic Choice Hotel properties, each of those errors has been on those award stays where I was asked for and presented a bank card at check-in.
My typical practice of checking in on Choice program award stays in Sweden involves stating the name and perhaps showing a Nordic Choice Club card. No bank card asked for or presented. And none of the ID nonsense to check-in either.