delpiero223

Thanks for the reply It's definitely one of the hotels with only a few international visitors. In Stockholm (had a nice experience at Clarion Hotel Sign), everything worked flawlessly. But even after explaining the concept of a redemption night yesterday, they insisted on the charge.

That's exactly what I've done two times now. At the second attempt, someone from Choice US hotline finally reached the hotel and explained the issue to them. According to the phone agent, all should be settled now. SEK 605 (= € 60) is really the amount that Choice US will pay to the hotel for my stay, I won't have to pay anything else than my 10.000 points.

So it appears that hotels really get paid 0,6 euro-cent for any points redeemed at the property (which is the same price that we can regularly buy points for). This might explain why many of those "cheap" hotels have now banned all redemption nights. But maybe it's just a coincidence and there are other factors influencing the paid price according to their agreement.

Edit: Just checked out of the property without any issues. Thanks to the great choice US phone agents for solving the issue, even if I had to wait in line for about 30mi twice.

GUWonder

For those looking for hotel stays in Stockholm using points, Hyatt’s program may be worth checking out.

Sounds like you got inexperienced hotel staff checking you in and/or being around for the duration of your stay. They were literally trying to bill you the reimbursement amount that Choice provides them for the stay when it’s booked using choice program points. This kind of mistake I’ve repeatedly seen from Nordic Choice properties over the years, including going back at least 7 years if not even earlier. It had been a less common mistake in 2020 and 2019 than it used to be several years earlier. But now with hotel staff recalled after long (pandemic-related) absence and new recruits also more in the picture than in 2019, it’s time to watch out for more of these mistakes.

About the room type allocation, unfortunately it’s not a rare mistake and is a long-standing issue. The best way to try to reduce the chances of that mistake currently is to book a room type after doing the initial award night search for 2 adults + 1 child.

Nordic Choice is also sort of on a Hilton-like kick with regard to trying to encourage direct bookings for its hotels; and in this regard Choicehotels.com bookings don’t come across as being such direct bookings.

GUWonder

When staying at Nordic Choice hotels in Sweden on Choice program points, if the hotel asks me to insert a bank card for the stay at check-in, that’s most commonly taken by me as a sign that the front desk agent doesn’t know what they are doing with regard to this kind of booking.

On my insanely huge number of Choice award nights in Sweden, I’ve had to present a bank card at check-in less than 2% of the time during the course of the last ten years. And the only times where I’ve been wrongly billed for the room rate on award stay by the Nordic Choice Hotel properties, each of those errors has been on those award stays where I was asked for and presented a bank card at check-in.

My typical practice of checking in on Choice program award stays in Sweden involves stating the name and perhaps showing a Nordic Choice Club card. No bank card asked for or presented. And none of the ID nonsense to check-in either.

dlouise37

Every Hotel, every day in Norway has no "reward" availability. I'd like some help in bringing this corporate behavior to public attention.

NextWhiteDeath

I don't know where you are looking, but I see a lot of availability in many of the hotels. It is also summer so availability will be more sparse than usual. So specific hotels might also just be booked up more then usual as people stay close to home with Covid still being around.

Peter1012

From week 37 and ahead (September 12th), I cannot find availability at any Choice property in Scandinavia. We’ve already been through this in the past. However, keeping in mind Stordalen’s financial hit during the pandemic, let’s hope this is another IT glitch and not a permanent change.

GUWonder

While way too many Norwegian Nordic Choice hotels have not been loaded as available for quite some time when it comes to wanting them as Choice Privileges’ award nights, there are still some Norwegian hotels that are available for redemption. Even after you posted, I booked a few Norwegian Nordic Choice Hotels using US Choice points for stays this month. That said, I’m all in for anything that gets us back those blocked properties.

GUWonder

I found a few nights available in Norway using Choice US points for September 14-15. But after that, it’s zippo availability even at the last of those Nordic Choice properties using US Choice points.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up seeing a whole new repricing of award nights using US Choice points for these properties, with the new baseline being more often 16k-30k points than the 8k-20k that has been my bread and butter in the US Choice program.

Peter1012

Unfortunately, I believe you could be right. They are definitely changing things. For some hotels (e.g. Amerikalinjen in Oslo), the points redemption cost tab per night looks like this:



Whereas for other hotels, it still looks as it’s always done (e.g. AtSix in Stockholm):



A good indicator that re-pricing may be around the corner. We will probably know in the next days

dlouise37

It's not an IT problem. It's a "Choice" by corporate or an agreement among the hotel owners.

delpiero223

It's been a pretty nice sweet spot for many years. But it would be understandable to raise the cost for some properties, if they receive like $ 70 for award nights instead of regular rates starting at $ 200.

However, just removing them altogether, is unacceptable in my opinion.

At choice hotels, who is in charge of setting award night prices? Can it be done by the property itself or is it set by Choice US corporate?

dlouise37

Got some feedback that perhaps it is an "IT" issue. Seems that there is some(not much but > 0 ) availability closer in. Namely <= 60 days out may be the key.

GUWonder

Summer is definitely not the reason for this (lack of) award night availability issue when trying to use US Choice points for Nordic Choice properties.

vanillabean

I can’t say I have ever considered staying at a Choice Hotel outside of the US, certainly not in Scandinavia, given what’s offered locally. What’s the attraction?

delpiero223

For me, some pro's for their Scandinavian hotels are:
- great rates for points redemptions (paid nights are often USD 150 or above in Stockholm, Oslo, ...
- many international brands like IHG don't have a large foodprint in Scandinavia, while there are quite a lot Choice hotels
- brakfast is (almost?) always included in Scandinavian choice properties, unlike other hotels
- their Choice Collection hotels are usually quite nice and even include a small dinner buffet

With that being said, I am not a frequent user of Choice's US properties and prefer Wyndham, IHG, ... when travelling to North America. But that might just be my European view