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Choice Privileges Rewards has launched a new sale in which it’s offering members a 30% bonus when they purchase a minimum of 15,000 points and an increased purchase limit of 250,000 points (excluding bonus). If you’re a fan of Choice properties and you’re low on points, this may be an opportunity to top up your account if the math makes sense for you.
The sale
- Buy 1,000 – 3,000 points – get no bonus
- Buy 4,000 – 7,000 points – get a 20% bonus
- Buy 8,000 – 15,000 points – get a 25% bonus
- Buy 16,000 – 250,000 points – get a 30% bonus
Note: This is the offer that I’m seeing in my account. Choice sometimes alters the offers between accounts so you may see a slightly different offer when you access the sale page.
Headline terms & conditions
- Transactions must be completed between 9:00 a.m. EST September 9, 2021 and 11:59 p.m. EST September 27, 2021 to be eligible for this bonus offer.
- Members may normally buy or receive up to a total of 180,000 points in a calendar year; during the term of this promotion, that limit is raised to 250,000 points.
- Must be a Choice Privileges Rewards Program member
- Points will be posted to your Choice Privileges account within 24 hours after your transaction is complete.
- Purchased points do not count toward Elite Status or Lifetime Elite Gold Status.
- Transactions are final and non-refundable.
- Offer may not be valid for all members.
- A GST/HST charge applies to purchases by Canadian residents. An additional QST charge applies to purchases by Quebec residents.
- Purchased points are applicable towards all Choice Privileges rewards.
Full terms and conditions available on the offer page
The numbers
This promotion could be targeted (the terms and conditions suggest that it may be) so not everyone may be offered a 30% bonus. But as that’s the offer I’m seeing in my account, that’s the offer on which I’ll do the math.
Buying 250,000 points (the full annual allowance) costs $2,475 and will net the buyer 325,000 points in total (after the 30% bonus has been factored in):
325,000 points at a cost of $2,475 = ~0.76 cents per point.
Buying the minimum number of points that would trigger the 30% bonus (16,000 points) would also see a Choice Privileges member buying points at ~0.76 cents each so there’s no need for anyone to buy a lot more points than they really need to lock in the lowest cost/point that this sale is offering.
Is this a good deal?
I have to confess that I don’t keep a close eye on Choice Privileges, but I do know that while this looks like a reasonable deal, it’s not as good as some of the other deals that we’ve seen Choice offer (e.g. a 40% bonus promotion in which points are sold at 0.71 cents each).
We also, occasionally, see Choice offering a 30% discount on the cost of its currency, which sees its points costing just ~0.690 cents each but the last time I recall seeing that sale was back in 2019 so there’s no knowing when or if that deal will return.
Still, a 30% bonus isn’t bad (especially if you’re just topping up an account and not looking to buy tens of thousands of points), but before you dive in and buy the points you need, there are a few things you need to know about Choice Privileges.
If you don’t hold status with Choice hotels (and I suspect most people reading this don’t) there’s one critical restriction placed upon you when you come to redeem your points – you can only use points to make a reservation up to a maximum of 100 days ahead of check-in. That’s a lot better than the old restrictions used to be (30 days for North America and 60 days for the rest of the world) and, considering the volatile travel world we’re currently living in right now, a lot of people probably aren’t planning very far ahead anyway.
There’s definitely value to be had here if you pick your destination(s) carefully (most of the better Choice properties are in Europe). A lot of good properties cost between 12,000 and 20,000 points per night and include breakfast so with points purchased in this sale that would equate to between $91 and $152 per night…which is pretty good going.
Don’t forget
Choice sells its miles through Points.com so there’s no scope to earn a travel/hotel bonus by using a credit card that offers bonus points for shopping in one of those categories. What this means is that this is a good opportunity to use a credit card on which you’re working towards a welcome bonus (like this one), or to use card_name which will earn you 2 points/dollar (on up to $50,000 in spending per year and 1 point/dollar thereafter – terms apply).
Bottom line
If you’re in need of Choice points and have been targeted for a 30% discount this looks like a promotion that may be worth considering if you need to top up an account. Anyone needing tens of thousands of points and who isn’t in a hurry should probably wait to see if Choice brings back an even better deal around Black Friday.
