Choice rep said my account is "active" but "not in good standing." The latter means since I haven't earned points in some number of years, I'm not allowed to transfer from Radisson. I have to earn Choice points again to be in good standing and enable transfers. (Not clear if a Citi transfer will do it.)

Maybe I can bypass this with a new Choice account but was told it won't work.

This seems like a crazy policy if they want to bring over their Radisson Americas customers. Transfers should work and they should even automatically match RA status, even though status doesn't mean much.