Did Choice devalue its loyalty program?
 

I'm seeing award prices for hotels I've booked and were looking at jump about 25% in recent weeks. Feels like a general -- and significant -- devaluation to me. Wyndham now seems like a much better program, especially with the Wyndham Earner credit cards.

Wyndham points have always been more valuable. I personally value choice at .005 vs Wyndham which I put about .01.

Its very easy to get more than 1 cent per point on Wyndham by transferring to Caesars and them waiving taxes.

What value are you seeing for the points at Choice? Did cash prices also go up?

I looked at a Quality Inn I stayed at a few months ago in King City, CA, and it's the same 20k per night that it was a few months ago for both tonight and a week from tonight.

So I see no general devaluation. It could be summertime demand causing points and perhaps cash rates to go up at certain properties.

Curious. I've checked 4 Choice reservations I'm holding for the next 60 days and 3 of them have had a substantial increase in the points price, with no increase in the cash rates. One Cambria went from 20k to 35k, and the 2 others increased by 10k.

It seems like award rates may have slightly increased in some places. However, for example, I booked the Radisson PHX Airport last night for only 15k. So I think it really just depends on where you are.

I had also been considering Wyndhams for this trip since I have 75k orphan points from timeshare pitches. It took 45 minutes just to get ahold of the front desk at the Baymont ABQ, and that was the best of their properties in the area. Although Choice has some lower-end Quality Inns and Sleep Inns, I think the program as a whole is a big step above Wyndham's portfolio. A higher point value only goes so far when you're stuck at a Days Inn.

-J.

Wyndham's reach overseas is about 5x that of Choice. Like if you need a 4-star hotel in Singapore for 13,500 points (for Wyndham credit card holders, 15,000 otherwise), Wyndham has you covered. In resort destinations (Hawaii, Cancun, etc) the gap in options is even wider. Overall, I would say Wyndham has 3x as many decent hotels. The only reason I have and use Choice points is when, in a specific location, the Choice hotel is the only option, or the Wyndham hotels are poorly rated and the Choice property is materially better.

That's very true. I don't typically consider overseas (ex-US) breadth so much since the vast majority of my travel is domestic. Earlier this year I ended up at a Best Western property :confused: in France since there were no Marriott or Choice options (my two main programs) that had reasonable parking. I don't remember if I even looked at Wyndham.

-J.

France is one of the few European countries with hardly any Wyndhams. They did just open a new hotel in Paris (Playel) last year that was attractively priced at 15,000 points, but it has recently gone to 30,000 and isn't really attractive at that price point (meh location, hotel has problems).

Were they US based hotels or overseas?

My overseas hotel seems to have been the same price last time I looked 2 weeks ago but it is now under sellout so can't compare.

The award price increases I've seen are on domestic hotels.

No changes that I can see in Japan. In fact, there appears to be more availability than before, at least for some properties.

In Tokyo all the Comfort Hotel locations have increased by 2000 points a night since my last visit in April. Availability is good.

I haven't had a need to look for any Choice international hotels in the last 2 months. I did book some in France in May and they seemed inexpensive on points, but that may be because USA hotels are now among the most expensive in the world.

I stay in hotels domestically about 300 nights a year. Choice is one of my big players, and the new point system has its plusses and minuses. The max point redemption for any hotel used to be 30K. This was awesome when I could snag hotels in tourist and/or high-demand times when I could get a 300 or 400 per night hotel for 30K points. Now I am seeing hotels at 40K+.

I am still seeing some good point redemptions at the 8, 10, 12, and 15 K redemption levels at well-maintained budget hotels. I can sometimes get a $0.01 per point value, but it is not quite as common as it was before the change.

With the new limits on promotional points, I don't stay at Choice quite as much as I used to. I still stay with them quite a bit and find some value in the points. I have found myself to be more of a free agent and exploring highly rated non-chain budget motels as the bonus point promotions have become less lucrative across the board across all chains.

Three hundred nights is a lot! I can understand why you've been staying in the "highly rated non-chain budget motels." Without an attractive points redemption, US chain hotels generally offer poor value for money compared to non-chain motels. Google and such makes it pretty easy to figure out which ones you'd want to stay at. I think this strategy would work better in smaller towns than big cities.

I typically do 40-80 nights a year in hotels and my main programs are Marriott, then Choice. I have Platinum through the Choice Hotels CC but I just requalified Platinum with Marriott by stays last week. It would be another 24 (25 - 1 night I already did) nights to hit Titanium with Bonvoy, but at this point I'm only 15 nights away from Diamond with Choice. I would like to use up my orphaned 75k from Wyndham this year but it might make more sense to try and make Diamond happen. I'm not sure if I have another 15 nights to go for the year, but I am sure I have at least 8 or 9.

Sometimes Choice has really great award rates. It may be that the cash prices for hotels in a city are just stupidly high (looking at Scottsbluff, NE for example), so the points value is artifically inflated. But when it works, like my stay in Phoenix last week, it really works.

-J.

The Nordic properties have gone up.

Oslo The Thief: 20,000 → 30,000
Oslo Amerikalinjen: 20,000 → 30,000
Stockholm At Six: 20,000 → 25,000
Stockholm Clarion Hotel Sign: 16,000 → 20,000

I don't remember the old prices, but Helsinki prices are also up I think.