Nope. It's been around as long as I've been in the program (a little over a year now). Most hotel programs have a similar conversion capability.

What's nice about the Choice program is:

1. With their promos, you can rack up a lot of points, so you can get a lot of miles if you choose to, and,
2. You can do it on-line. The points are taken out immediately, and they usually show up within a couple of days.