One of the points hacks I feel almost guilty taking advantage of is using Choice Privileges points to book hotels. This works particularly well in the Nordic countries, where it often gets you perfectly good quality hotels, with a fulsome breakfast included, for well under £100/night.

Oslo was particularly well off for hotels in the scheme, including several at 15,000 points per night. But I decided to splash out 20,000 points per night to stay in the Hotel Christiana Teater, which looked rather lovely in photos and was top-ranked on Trip Advisor. I bought the required 80,000 points during one of Choice Privileges’ regular points sale (in this case offering a 45% discount on purchased points), for a total cost of US$453.20 (~£345). Good value at roughly £86 per night.

We were mildly upgraded from a standard room to a standard room in the hotel’s Behind the Curtain annex, where rooms are themed according to theatrical roles. Ours was The Makeup Artist. The room was, shall we say, not extremely spacious, but was thoughtfully decorated.



The dressing room-style mirror was really very flattering.



The hotel location was excellent - around the corner from the City Hall and a short walk from the Nationaltheatret station, where the airport train stops - and it offered a good quality buffet breakfast, only losing a fraction of a point on my highly personalised scoring scale for not having porridge. Would return.