pavemental

Since I pay for my hotel business travel myself, I typically do single night stays in Wyndham and Choice properties. It sounds like Choice has great point redemption options for Europe, better than Wyndham?

I'm also trying to figure out how worthwhile the current stay 2/8,000 promo is for me, as I'll need to pay an extra $30/night to do Comfort Inn instead of Rodeway Inn. As a gold I won't rack up enough points for a week in Europe this summer, but it might be worth doing to get a head start on next summer?

GUWonder

Choice tends to provide me better value than Wyndham, when it comes to my Europe stays. This is largely because I end up using my Choice points at properties that cost 8,000-10,000 points per night.

sdsearch

Yes. But OTOH Wyndham can have a presence in certian countries where Choice has little or none (for an obvious example, Choice no longer has any hotels anywhere in Spain*). So (within the caveat that Wyndham points "hard" expire after 4 years from when each point is earned with no indication of that coming up on their website, while Choice points expre a bit sooner but indicated on the website) I would save the Wyndham points for when you're going somewhere where Choice won't work (and the hotels aren't super-cheap on cash either).

* Here's the list of European countries with Choice hotels. Note that even if they have a presence in a country, it may not always be in the exact place you want to go.

http://www.choicehotels.com/en/trave...rope-vacations

BigLar

Looks like the joyride is coming to an end.

A quick check shows that Choice has posted their redemption rates from July 1 through Sept 15, and they're pretty much all going back up to their pre-"sale" rates. But there are some oddities:

1. In Rome the Bolivar,Nova Domus and Principessa Isabella are only going up to 10K a night, which still makes them an excellent bagain.

2. Every hotel in central London will go back to 25K a night, but it seems there are only 8 or 10 hotels total in central London! What happened to the rest of them, or have I been missing something all along?

3, Paris, alas, is among the 25K-ers, but for some reason the website thinks I have no points when I check out Paris. However, it did know me when I was checking out the Nice area, and my favorite hotel in that area, the Carlton Beaulieu, lets me book up to my point limit well beyond my official window date. Get your IT team on the stick, Choice!

Or maybe not ....

BigLar

I checked my "catalog" we picked up in Paris last year, and maybe there weren't all that many hotels in London after all. At any rate, the property at Paddington seems to be gone, and I know for sure that when I started out in the Choice program there were more than that in and around London. Notting Hill immediately comes to mind, now long gone.

Well, there are lots of options in London (nothing really cheap, unfortunately), and they seem to be adding properties in Paris and other places, so it would appear it's still a game worth playing.

Yul_voyager

For my stay in Paris in May I will finally choose the Quality Axel Paris Opera at 16k / nights. Choices are now very limited...
For London I'll stay with the Comfort Inn Hyde Park at 8k. Should be a quite good value for a Queen side bed and a breakfast included.

Yul_voyager

It seems that the 8k "promo" in Europe is linked to the 2 stays one night free promo... http://www.choicehotelsuk.co.uk/en/free-night/

BigLar

Interesting observation.

It would sure be nice if this were true, 'cuz then we would have a better feeling as to how long these low point rates might hang around.

Yul_voyager

more hotels are at 8k now !!
I've just rebook my 2 nights stays at Quality Hotel Axel Opera for 8k/night... and I've also booked a executive queen room at Clarion Collection Hotel Etoile Saint Honore at 8k : a 260 euro / night room !
thanks Choice

BigLar

Teriffic!!

Trip reports!! Trip reports!!

BigLar

Looks like everything is still ending on June 30 (but a couple of interesting exceptions (like the Clarion Axel Opera) are carrying on at the cheap rates until September).

I don't know what to make of all this.

In another thread, someone opined that the bulk of Choice customers never leave the US and many don't even have internet access - they're basically 'upscale' Motel 6 stayers. Maybe there's some truth in that, I dunno. But for whatever reason, I'm fairly sure that there are not a lot of international travellers among the Choice clientele.

Which leaves a lot of plums for picking by the savvy-but-not-on-a-fat-expense-account traveller, like (I'd like to believe) a great many FlyerTalkers.

Like us, actually.

Unless you're really uncomfortable with less than the best, the savvy denizens of this board (it seems to me) have come to the collective conclusion that "earn here, burn there" can yield a huge bang for the buck with Choice.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this chain as time passes (and my stash grows apace).

And please don't comment on my penchant for parenthetical clauses - it's a character fault; let's leave it at that.

AC_Good_Will

sweet deal...

lwildernorva

I'm not sure why (in this case, "why" being rhetorical), you (and I mean you in a personal sense and not a generic sense) seem so concerned about your use of parenthetical (you know, those statements put between parentheses) statements!

BigLar

Well played, sir!

BigE

I noticed that many of the European Choice hotels that were 8k in June (like the one in Zurich) are now much higher for stays in June. Like, 25k. Is that because this promo ended? I had booked one night at 8k and didn't immediately book the second night...now I can't.