OhDoctor

Hello all -

New to Choice, but planning a Copenhagen-Bergen-Oslo-Stockholm-Helsinki trip next year, and Choice seems like it offers excellent redemptions values in Scandanavia, particularly for someone sitting on a large stash of Amex points. However, when attempting to look at the At Six Stocholm for points redempetions, every single day between now and February 2018 says "Sold Out".

So, 2 questions:
1) Does this hotel release award availability? I have a hard time believing all of their award space is sold out in the dead of winter.
2) How many points/night does the hotel charge?

Thanks!

OhDoctor

Actually, my third question would be: is there a more efficient way to search for award availability other than manually looking one day at a time? I feel like I've wasted the last half an hour of my life.

Don.Majik.Juan

What is your Choice membership level?

Gold = 50 days in advance bookings
Platinum = 75
Diamond = 100

When looking that far out in advance I'll just look at a similar day/date for a month that is within my booking window to see rooms/point rates, and then you'd just have to mark on your calendar when your booking window would open up for the actual date you want.

But yeah, awesome looking redemptions there. I'm looking forward to spending my points in Stockholm in the next year or so.

OhDoctor

I'm platinum. I've looked every day out essentially from now to the 75 day window, and there's no award availability. Again, this seems strange to me during the winter months, and so I'm wondering if they have a reputation for not releasing awards, or if anyone has specifically stayed there on points in the past.

sdsearch

What if only a couple of their rooms qualify for awards?

You seem to be making assumptions about "their award space". They only have to make "standard" rooms available for awards, and some hotels have defined "standard" rooms to only include a very few rooms at their hotel, the cheapest ones which sell out quickly.

So not every hotel has the same proportion of rooms in "their award space".

Still another possibility is that they didn't load their award inventory into the system properly (for it to show up on Choice Privileges). Keep in mind that Scandinavian hotels are part of a separate program called Nordic Choice, and so they may have to set up awards in a specific way to make them also available to Choice Privileges. Hotels in Sweden don't typically know whether their award availability is showing correctly on Choice Privileges, because they don't use Choice Privileges in Sweden.

Meanwhile, as i see it, it's not just this hotel. Doing award searches for Stockholm overall out to 75 days, I see 3 out of 5 "Ascend Collection" hotels seemingly never having awards.

OhDoctor

I agree, and noticed the same thing. I hope they clear it up in the next few months. That's partly why I was wondering if anyone has redeemed points at the At Six in the past, or if this has been a perpetual issue.

GUWonder

Within the past 2 years or so, it’s not been uncommon for new Nordic Choice Hotels to not have any award availability using US Choice points for several months and the have the property come up with only very limited number of rooms available using points. That and hotels in the area increasingly have reduced the proportion of rooms available using Choice US points — a very bad trend as far as I am concerned.

I have seen no luck at Six or Hobo, but the other Stockholm city Ascend properties have worked out for me using points.

OhDoctor

Thanks! I did notice some of the Ascend properties had availability.. but the At Six would potentially offer a far greater redemption value if it became available (>3 cents/point for some nights, assuming a 20k redemption rate), which appears to far surpass the 1-1.5 cents/point redemptions that I've been seeing in Scandanavia (and even that beats the pants off the anemic 0.3-0.5 cents/point redemptions domestically).

Plus, the At Six has some fantastic reviews.

sdsearch

How many cents/point would you rate this classic Scandinavian Choice availability:

One room suite: $2900 or 16K points??

My calculator shows about 18 cents/point if you actually get the $2900 suite when you arrive, but I'm not clear whether anyone ever ended up in that particular $2900 suite. (It's complicated, you have to read the whole thread.)

OhDoctor

I saw that thread. I think that falls under the "no one would ever pay the cash rate so the points redemption calculation is irrelevant" category.

Also, that thread is quite old. I wonder if that sort of thing happens anymore? But yes, obviously I'd jump all over it.

GUWonder

Some of the newer/newest Nordic Choice properties may even show up at 35k points/night. For example, a property where I saw this in play a couple of years ago eventually came online at 30k points/night; but it is now at 35k/night and that is at a Nordic Choice property where my most common regular paid stay rates are well under $120/night (all-in). I can't get my finger on how at all the Choice pricing in points for Nordic Choice properties has anything to do with regular paid rates at these properties. It may have something to do with occupancy levels and expectations related to how the property gets filled, but even that isn't all that clear to me.

I will note that for that Nordic Choice property which has recently gone up from 30k points to 35k points per night, the room types available for booking have been increased big time since that change went into place. [But I still can't see myself using it even at 20k points /nights for that property.] This kind of dynamic is not a very good sign.

sdsearch

Well I don't know if the cash rate was the same for locals. I only know the cash rate that was being shown to us in the USA (on the Choice Hotels website, not the Nordic Hotels website).

Meanwhile, I would never pay the rate that At Six charges normally. Does that mean that if I did get a room there on points, that redemption calculation would also be irrelevant?

I pretty much can't calculate any redemptions, per that rule, because I rarely redeem when I would want to pay the cash rate. That's why point in choosing to redeem, because I don't want to pay the cash rate.

Meanwhile, I don't know many people in Scandinavia, so I have no way of evaluating who else pay such rates.

Having said that, I never bothered with redemption calculations at Choice myself. You're the one who brought it up. I use things other than redemption calculation to choose when to redeem Choice points. For example, I almost never do paid stays at Choice where I won't earn big points in some promo. So between promos, I might redeem for a Choice hotel that's both reasonable in price and low in cost because I'd earn so little if I paid cash. During "stay 2 times, earn 8000 points" promos, I don't redeem unless the hotel price is unreasonable.

And then for Nordic properties, well, I can't earn Choice USA points at Nordic Choice properties, so I always redeem there, I never pay cash there. If I were paying cash, since I'm not earning any points, why would I need to stay specifically at a Nordic Choice property, if say a Scandic (at which I also don't earn anything useful) or whatever is about the same price. My whole point of staying at Choice properties is because I'm a Choice Privileges member, so when that has no bearing, there's no need for me to stay at a Choice property vs any other property.

OhDoctor

I agree with you in a sense, in that I pay with points for the vast majority of my hotel stays. I should have clarified that I meant not you personally, but people in general who would realistically pay the cash rate. The higher the rate, the more aspirational the redemption. I would never pay >1k per night for a stay at the Central Park Ritz, but I've stayed there on points, and consider it an indulgence.

GUWonder

I know this market reasonably well and hotel suites for $2500+/night is not a normal and frequent local rate for a person or couple to use for just an overnight star — not even for the richest of the regional families wanting a proper hotel suite for a night in the region. Even when I’m in town for the Nobel dinner nights, that rate would be considered very expensive; and that is probably the highest or one of the highest demand nights for hotel suites in Stockholm that comes up annnually. Airbnb is such a big player at times, that it eats up into the demand for hotel suites from all but those wanting and needing hotel services more than just a luxurious accommodation.

A company may be able to expense the suite for a conference or other work purpose, but for a paid rate for someone to stay in and nothing else? It is very rare for local companies to do that.

Copenhagen is more expensive than Stockholm when it comes to hotels of comparable category.

The top suites are often a form of complimentary upgrade or part of a sales deal to get an event.

While corporate taxes and capital gains/dividend taxes are typically much lower for the richest in Sweden than for those in the US, personal income taxes are such that high hogs rates end up looking even more expensive to locals in Scandinavia than it would be in the US for someone of a comparable socio-economic background. And that kind of thing impacts demand (and comes with some price compression at the high end), even demand from those who are relatively cosmopolitan and may spend more on a place in the sun and sand.

I suspect that I’ve been in the largest or second largest accommodations of about half the Stockholm Nordic Choice properties. I wouldn’t pay $2900/night for any of them. $700 or so? Sometimes, yes; but most times, no.

sdsearch

What hotel(s) are you talking about with $2500+? : The $2900 rate, whether anyone paid it or not, that got famous on this forum was not in Stockholm, not in Copenhagen, but in Bergen, Norway (specifically, Clarion Collection Hotel Havnekontoret). Well, at least the only named hotel in that thread was there. (The hotel that started the thread never got identified by the OP; it may or may not have been the same one.)

I dropped that "$2900" thread link into this thread not because it was about Stockholm, but because the OP was bringing up low redemption values for their Scandinavian stays overall.