I am planning to apply for this Visa card to get 16000 points. Now my question is

1) How long after the first purchase does it take to get points?

2) Can I use 16000 points to get 2 rooms on same date at same hotel ( 8000 points each room )?

I am planning to stay at Quality Inn in South Lake Tahoe on Aug 22 for 6 adults and 1 infant.

Am I pushing it too hard?

The points are posted as soon as your first statement is out. One word of caution here. All hotels do not accept same number of points. You better check with Quality Inn in South Lake Tahoe before making a reservation to make sure if they are not higher level properties.

SL Tahoe has 8000 points / night till aug 31.

I'm not a member of Choice Privilege. Anytime I stay with them, I generally present the frequent flyer membership card at check-in. My miles have always posted in max 2 weeks time.

I just used 6000 points at the "new" Comfort Suites in Andover, Mass, about 20 miles north of Boston. Like the Wyndham Bilerica, it is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, it is a nice hotel, originally a Hawrthorn Suites.

Having stayed in a few Comfort Suites (Tonnelle Ave, N. Bergen NJ, Warwick, RI) I was expecting the usual "one-room-suite" with coffee, micro and fridge. To my suprise, this hotel's standard suite was a full one-bedroom with a full kitchen, and decent bathroom PLUS a couch and second TV.

Breakfast was hot and reasonable (see rating below). This place is not where I need to be for business, but was a nice "free nite" to take the wife away from home for a bit.

Ratings Score: *Poor **Fair ***Good ****Excellent

Check In *** Staff is friendly, but spoke in Spanish to each other during my check-in. Sadly they were not able to give me any advice on a place for dinner or directions to a Staples store, as I needed a mouse. No King beds, all queens.

Room Quality*****++ For a Comfort Suite, this place is great! Full kitchen including full fridge, dishwasher, micro, 2-burner stove, coffee, place settings for 4 (including wine glasses!) and a bar-sized sink. Living area has sleeper-sofa (full), TV, coffee table and a desk. Seperate bedroom with ensuite bath is seperated by french doors. TV in bedroom, and great shower-curtain rod, the curvy kind.

Amenities*** Outdoor pool, jacuzzi, basketball courts, indoor gym (very small) meeting room in basement. The pool and jacuzzi was very nice, but the mosquito population was so high that we vacated in about 30 seconds with a dozen bites.

Chow **1/2 They serve an evening meal, more of a gas-inducing snack during the week 6 PM to 8 PM. I was excited until seeing that the offerings, which were empty at my arrival, were chili, rice, and soda/coffee, plus a devoured salad. They get points in my book for offering anything at all, but do not live up to the Wingate Inn in Garden City, Long Island for evening chow. Breakfast buffet was above average for this chain of hotels. Hot food included scrambled eggs, round bacon (what it lacked in quality was fully made up for in quantity) and potatoes. Cold included bagels, toast, cereal w/milk, and an open soda fountain plus 3 juice choices and coffee. Not bad for free!

Overall rating 3.5 out of 4 stars. Nice joint! ^

Oh, I forgot, they have a few food items for sale at the front. We drove around for 20 minutes looking for ice cream... next morning, I saw Ben n Jerrys upon check out---shhhhh noone tell my wife!

One thing I have noticed it the difference in points required in Canada. The Quality Inn on the US side of Niagra Falls (quite nice from experience) is 16000 points, but a hotel on the Canadian side is 25000 for the same time. This is quite an extreme "exchange rate". I would NEVER use points for the Canadian vs American stay. I have transfered many points to Southwest to get multiple rewards (3 roudtrips so far) and utilized many of the "promotions" to accumulate points faster.

Several of us have tried this recently and it's worked out well.

Just book a room in the ordinary manner. Then, 30 days in advance of the stay, cancel the booking and immediately make an awards booking. This works for the preferred room, as in the case of a king bed, when those are otherwise sold out.

To be really safe, reserve 2 rooms, and then cancel 1, until you have the award booking, and then cancel the 2nd. Typically the chances that somebody else will be trying to book the same room you have just cancelled is probably remote.

BofA is pretty strict about total credit limits for all BofA cards. I was at first denied the Choice card because the credit limit on my US card was to high.
I transferred $5000 of that credit limit to get the Choice card. Of course, then they gave me a credit limit of $13,500.00 on the new card. Go figure.

Choice Hotels botched it - stay clear - don't be duped
I stayed at three Comfort Inns and one Rodeway Inn during 5/29-6/3 and none of them posted to my WN RR account.

Before I made the reservations, I set my preferences at Choicehotels.com to give me RR credits not points.

When I contacted Choice Hotels, I was told that they posted points to my Choice Privileges account, not to RR. I explained that every time I checked in, I used my Southwest Visa and presented my RR card. Every time, without fail, I was told that Choice Hotels doesn't give miles.

Rather than wear myself out trying to explain the RR concept, I figured once the charges went thru, the preferences I set at their website would prevail.

WRONG.

They are still running this promotion. If you are contemplating using it, I would say, forget it... the people at the front desk won't know about it, the website preferences don't seem to mean anything, and their customer service reps and supervisors seem powerless to change it once it has posted.

I have no recent experience (the last couple years I've tended to only use the Choice promos for oodles of points -- they call them "one free night for 2 stays", but they're really many thousands of bonus points every other stay -- like the one coming up this fall, and then transfer to SW, and that has far fewer problems). But a couple years ago, I had one Comfort Suites hotel which had ongoing problems posting miles, and I emailed Choice customer service explaining the whole situation and they were able to convert my stays back from points to triple miles (tho it took a couple months in some case, I think). So I would suggest you not give up, but only do it by email. (When you email, I think you get a higher up person, while if you call, you get whoever answers the phone.)

YES - success. Thank you for your encouragement. Within HOURS of sending the email, I got an email confirming that my points had been converted to WN RR credits.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. ^

Twice this summer we were denied Choice Privilege points by being told the booked rated is ineligble. The first time, I somewhat expected it, despite the fact that it was $189/night. The stay was at a sold out property and we were part of a group. We paid the group, the group paid the hotel. No way around it.

However, when inquiring about our last stay, which was not part of a group, and why points had yet to post, I rec'd an email saying that certain rates do not qualify. Why when I booked and gave our CP # and when I checked in and confirmed it was in our folio and when I checked out I once again confirmed was I not once informed of this policy?

I will definitely consider other options the next time I book a hotel when there isn't a Marriott Property around.

Good Morning all,


I thought would let you know the next promo will start on Sept. 1.... stay 2 nights, get 1 night free again.

As far as some previous post on not getting credit for certain rates.... that is true... For instance.. my hotel... you do not get credit for anything below $64.99.

Jwhuffman

The rate we paid in Alaska was $189/night and the rate on the Cape was $139 or more. Definitely not a bargain $64.99. That is why I am not too pleased with the "doesn't qualify" excuse.