Preferred Hotels in Europe
 

Have you tried to redeem CP points for the Preferred or Summit Hotels in Europe? If so, were they available on the dates that you wanted. I've tried a couple times using fake dates to check availability 60 days out, but wanted to see if it works for real.

In 2006, I redeemed for two nights in London. No problem.

Earlier this year, I reserved 6 nights in Ireland. Again, no problem.

I think you might run into a sold out property every now and then, but I haven't run into it yet.

BTW, there's a list (compiled by me) of all the Preferred hotels in Europe. I have updated it to include all Preferred and Summit hotels world-wide (might not be posted yet)

Ooops, forgot the link. :)

Spreadsheets here.

I converted "extra" OnePass miles (through Amtrak) to Choice is expectation that they'd do the "winter sale" on Preferred Hotels again. They didn't! Oh well -- it would have been great. Right now, I'm planning on burning the points at some of the regular Choice hotels in Europe. It ain't the same, but it's still a good deal (like $250 hotel rooms for the equivalent of 5000 OnePass miles). I guess the regular "Preferred" conversion rate isn't horrible, either, but you need a lot of points!

I was surprised when, in compiling the list of the world wide Preferred Hotels, I found lots of properties at the 30,000 point level. This compares with the regular Choice prop, which can get up to 20 or 25,000 points/night.

It seems that everything is more expensive in Europe (duh!)

I've booked these before, but once kept getting transferred from Choice Privileges to Reservations and back again. The awards have to be booked, I believe, by the Choice Privileges department, whereas normal Choice hotel awards can be booked online or through reservations.

Anyone stay at the Choice Bolivar in Rome? I'm travelling with my family on that $200+ AF "mileage run" fare, and the Bolivar will allow 4 people in a room. The "Preferred" hotels in Rome are all 40,000 or 50,000 points, and I don't think they allow more than 3. I was hoping to use the "winter promo" to book 2 rooms for a COMBINED 40,000 per night. Oh well. Looks like we'll be "slumming" it.

I haven't been there, but it gets decent reviews:
http://rome-hotels.tripadvisor.com/H...ome_Lazio.html

Thanks BigLar. YOur spreadsheet is great. You sent it to me before it was posted. Makes it real convenient to connect to TripAdvisor.

Yeah, I read them. It seems like a plausible choice -- especially for Americans shocked at the current Euro exchange rate (a really good time to use points and not dollars!).

But the Bolivar is obviously not in the same league as those fancy Roman "Preferred" properties. :) Hence my disappointment that Choice seems to be skipping their customary winter Preferred promo.

we stayed at two Europe preferred hotels.
 

will post details later when I have time, but I want to bump this thread so that I could find it, when I have more time.