The glasses are cleaned just as poorly at the Atlanta Ritz as at the Atlanta Holiday Inn (see this thread in Newsstand forum). Not likely restricted to that city. So what so great about luxury standards? The mere appearance of being cleaner makes you happy enough???

Anyway, no, if you want to earn at luxury, then Choice is probably not the brand for you, unless you travel a lot in Ireland (several Clarions there are very nice, including one I stayed at in Limerick, Ireland). The reason: There are nice hotels (especially Clarions) elsewhere in Europe, but for now you can't earn there, only redeem.

Similarly, you can redeem at the luxury Preferred and Summit hotels, but you can only earn at Choice Priveleges hotels in US, and just a few other countries.

Or you can transfer Choice points from Amtrak (in turn from a couple airline programs such as Chase or Midwest) or Diners Club (via Midwest and Amtrak for a better exchange or directly for simplicity) and thus redeem without having paid stays, if staying at Choice properties domestically turns you off too much. (See this thread about it starting with miles and this thread about it starting with Diners Club points. FWIW: Most of these threads are phrased in terms of how to transfer to Southwest RR, but they all do it through Choice, and the value of keeping it with Choice can actually be much higher than transferring to Southwest if your goal is luxury properties.)

Choice works best for those of us who want ok (but nothing to write home about) cheap properties when we have to do lots of stays related to work domestically, especially if we have to stay over and over again in the same locations (so once we find a property that's ok for us, we keep returning to it). It can also work as a "backup" program for people whose travels often take them to small towns where there's no Hilton Honors or Starwood or Mariott or Priority Club property. Such towns often only have Choice Priveleges and TripRewards and Best Western to choose from, and at least at Choice you get the best promos of the three.

Finally, EconoLodge and Rodeway Inn are part of Choice corporate and show up on the Choice Hotels website, but do not participate in the Choice Priveleges rewards program! So put those two brands out of your mind both because they're generally the very worst and because you won't earn anything useful there anyway. (Given how cheap some of them can be, if they ever did come into the Choice Priveleges program down the road, their main use might become for never-actually-stay MRs rather than real stays! )