Originally Posted by
sdsearch
At any rate, it can't have always been month and day. Think about it, if John Q Public got an account and his identical twin James Q Public also got an account, they can't both have JQP followed by their identical birthdates, as then they'd both have the same account number!
True...but it does appear to be their initial default. My father, mother, and I each have account numbers in the DOB format. The accounts were created between 1998-2001, but not all at once.
Originally Posted by
sdsearch
I have a card from that era, and I can figure out where they got the numbers, but it's definitely not related to my birthdate.
Where did they take the numbers from? Your address?
Originally Posted by
sdsearch
I wouldn't be surprised if it was a manual process back then,
I think it was.
The application page from 1998 says that they will e-mail you your member number within one business day.
http://web.archive.org/web/200005101...v_app.html+CHI
What I miss are the uniform redemption rates...6,000 points for all US properties, except for Clarions (which were 7,000)--that went away with the rebranding.
By 2001 (with the rebranding to Choice Privileges), member number assignment was available instantly online.
http://web.archive.org/web/200109240...rivileges.com/