devaluation?
 

I was going to use my points for my european road trip this winter, knowing that some nice properties in UK and Italy were going for 8000 points\night during that time. However, I was not able to book the rooms yet, since my window is 75 days in advance.

I've just checked and most of the properties in London now are at 20K, and the Italian ones are at 10-12K. Those are the exact properties Choice have been teasing me with their 8K rate, but when the time window approaches, they suddenly just go up in price.

Is it a fair business practice? Does it look like a devaluation?
In addition, there are no longer 20K Manhattan properties, only 25K.

It is not a devaluation. It is the cutting back on what in effect were short-term discounted rates and returning things to rates that were closer to normal a year or so ago.

Choice rate are like stock exchange. Prices change without notice.

If you've been following this forum, you've seen a number of threads regarding the wild swings in redemption levels in Europe. I, and a number of other FT'ers, were able to score some nice properties at the 8000 point rate.

That being said, 8000 points/night for anywhere in Europe has rarely if ever been seen before - it is indeed a rara avis. I had scored a number of nights in Dublin a couple of years ago at 10,000 points/night and I was ecstatic at the time. You can imagine how I felt about 12 nights in Paris for 8K/night. :)

With all the devaluation going on with Hilton and Marriott, I'm looking more and more at Choice as my main property, and hoping for 'miracles' again.

The 8K rates were fall rates. The higher rates for wiinter were known (to those who opened up the hotel's main web page where it lists redemption rates for current as well as one or two upcoming seasons) quite a while ago. You do not need to be in the booking window to know what the winter rates are expected to be. Certainly at the two Itlalian hotels that I got in September for 8000 points/night, when I checked their webistes back then, it already said then that they'd be in higher range you mention for winter. It's not new news.

Choice properties get repriced separately for every season. That has been going on for years and years and years.

And it's not like this was a big secret in this forum. It's been much discussed, in the 8k "Italy on sale" thread as well as many others.

To blend what some have said above, and add a bit: Choice dropped their Europe hotels' redemption rates to 8,000 this last spring, as well as the fall, both unannounced "sales". The scope in terms of time (end point of the miracle) and geography could be found only on the reservation search pages. It was pan-European, with two property exceptions that I saw, and was to last until the end of October. There were many "Hotel not available" dates, to be sure. But one could definitely construct a miracle.

Then many of the normally higher redemption price properties, mainly in Paris and on the French Riviera, evidently rebelled and spontaneously tripled and more than quadrupled (35K) the rates back to their normal levels. This is what the OP saw without a context. The irony, seemed to me, was that it would have been far better to pay for some of them at ~ E80.

The takeaway: If we are so blessed again early in 2012, we'd best jump on it, as did the sages here. And if you might have the means to pay, also be sure to check the revenue rates. I'll likely take the risk that it comes back in the fall, my favorite time to travel, though I have absolutely no basis for confidence, except that it happened once.

(NB: There is one property in Nice that I was watching that was actually scheduled to drop to 8,000 on November 1.)

Not that I doubt you, but where did you hear this? AKAIK, akmost every property ex-US was at the 8000 point level - I find it hard to believe that a)only Paris and Nice complained, and b)their complaints were enough to change the whole structure.
Which one was that?

Looking today, I see the Comfort Hotel Galaxie is listed as 8000 points until the end of November, and goes up to 16,000 after that. Most of the rest are at the 25,000 point level and have been for some time.

The Quality Suites Nice La Malmaison is scheduled to drop to 8000 on Dec 1 - maybe that was the one you meant.

I was going to do a dummy review on the Quality Hotel Carlton Beaulieu because, though we didn't stay there, I was able to walk past it and check it out, and even got a quick peek at the rooms. That place is awesome! Four stars and literally 5 minutes from the beach. At 8000 points/night it would have been the deal of the century - however, rooms are available there from E65/night, so one might be better off paying than dumping 25K points. I'd really like to spend some time there - we spent a week in Beaulieu sur Mer and it's one of the hidden gems on the Riviera.

BTW, the Galaxie got a decent review in the property review thread here.

I don't know why the properties would complain. The amounts they get credited (by the "loyalty" program operator) for a guest's redemption stay are denominated in real money terms and are not denominated in points. An 8k point redemption or a 25k point redemption, a property owner can end up doing just as well financially in real money terms when it comes to a guest's redemption stay -- that's because the payout is based on a previously fixed, mutually-agreed upon formula that doesn't even reference the number of points, rather the formula relies upon denomination done entirely in real money terms.

Actually I stayed myself in Rome for a week at 8K\night, and Paris at 10K. And Japan have been 8K for a couple of years already...

Actually no. 8K rates started on September 16, according to their schedule.

As I've been scolded, not everywhere in the northern hemisphere considers fall to start on or about September 21st; some actually consider it starting before that, enough so that September 16th would be considered fall.