Choice Privileges Rewards Program Guide: Earn and Redeem Points to Your Advantage

With over 7,000 properties in 40 countries, you have a lot of choices with Choice Hotels. The chain includes mostly midscale brands with an abundance of properties in the United States. Its Choice Privileges rewards program offers value to guests who frequently stay with the chain, including:

In our opinion, redeeming points for Choice Hotels or vacation rental stays is their best use, although there are also other ways to redeem Choice points.

How much are Choice Privileges points worth?

Rather than organizing properties by tier, Choice Privileges uses a dynamic pricing model where the price of reward nights varies depending on the property and date. In general, you can expect the cost of a reward night to be higher when cash rates are higher. Reward nights start at just 6,000 points, with most properties requiring at least 8,000 points. Prices can get as high as 35,000 points per night, except in the Asia-Pacific region where you'll see all-inclusive hotels with free nights that cost up to 75,000 points.

Which hotels are part of Choice Privileges?

Choice Privileges includes several Choice Hotels brands. Brands range from stylish upscale offerings to budget motels. The vast bulk of the properties in the Choice Hotels portfolio are solidly in the midscale to upper-midscale range.

If your typical travel style is 5-stars-or-bust, Choice isn't your program. Another thing to consider is the limited international footprint compared to other chains, as Choice only has properties in approximately 40 countries worldwide. To compare, Hilton has properties in 122 countries.

Choice Privileges hotels

Pros and cons of Choice Privileges

As with any hotel loyalty program, Choice Privileges is a good fit for some but not for others. There are some clear strengths and weaknesses.

Pros

Cons

How to earn Choice rewards points

Earning Choice Privileges points is remarkably easy given the variety of credit card points that can transfer to Choice rewards. You can also earn points by staying with Choice Hotels or Bluegreen Vacations, their vacation rental partner, or booking a stay through one of their partner casino hotels across the country. There are a variety of even more ways to earn Choice points.

How to use Choice Privileges points

With all the ways to earn Choice points, you'll want to know how to get the best value from them. Redeeming Choice points for free nights is the easiest as you can easily book a free stay through choicehotels.com. There are other ways to redeem Choice points, but you'll find that free hotel and vacation rental stays provide the best value.

Choice hotels free nights

Choice doesn't publish an award chart and instead provides a range of award prices. The number of points required for a free night at a given property can vary throughout the year.

To know how many points are required for a free stay, you'll have to search a particular destination through choicehotels.com or using the Choice mobile app.

The best deals are often hotels in popular destinations during peak times. As an example, MLB Spring training is a favorite time to visit the Phoenix area, and hotel prices are typically elevated. Choice points are an excellent way to cut the cost of a visit. After accounting for taxes, the value here is 1.4 cents per point.

Note, you should check the reward night details to see if the price varies over the length of the stay. In the four-night stay below, the price increases to 25,000 points for the weekend night:

Vacation rentals

You can redeem Choice points for free nights at Bluegreen vacations resorts, starting at 16,000 points per night. In some cases, this can provide excellent value, even better value than at Choice properties. Bluegreen vacations resorts are located in popular destinations like Orlando, Las Vegas, Myrtle Beach, Wisconsin Dells and Williamsburg.

Alternatively, you can take up Bluegreen vacations on an offer where you can redeem 16,000 Choice points for a two-night stay. You do have to listen to a two-hour timeshare presentation during your vacation, however.

Points and cash

Choice provides the option of using a combination of both points and cash for stays. If you have at least 6,000 points but don't have the required number of points, you can use the Points Plus Cash option. This can actually be a good deal, as the taxes and fees are not assessed. (You are essentially spending 6,000 points per night and purchasing the remaining required points from Choice.)

For the Cambria Hotel New York — Chelsea example in the table above, a Points Plus Cash booking would give you a value of 1.4 cents per point. You'll have to compare prices to determine the value of a particular stay, but you definitely can get above-average value from your points using Points Plus Cash.

Transfer partners

In addition to free hotel and vacation rental stays, you have the option of transferring your Choice Privileges points to a handful of airline partners.

While many airline miles are worth more than Choice Privileges points, the transfer ratio makes these redemptions a poor value. For example, we estimate the average value of United miles at 1.4 cents when booking peak economy international travel. If you trade 5,000 Choice points for 1,000 United miles, you're giving up $55 in Choice hotel stays for $14 in United flight value. This effectively makes your Choice points worth just shy of 0.3 cents each. Redeeming for free nights is better.

Transfer of points between Choice Hotels and Amtrak used to be an option. However, this option was abruptly discontinued in summer 2021.

Other ways to redeem Choice Privileges points

If you have Choice points but the travel redemption options don't interest you, the good news is that there are a handful of other ways to use Choice Privileges points. The bad news is that these options offer a value of just 0.3 to 0.5 cents per point. We don't recommend redeeming points in these ways, as the value is better when booking hotel stays.

Choice hotels membership levels

Choice Privileges rewards their members with perks the more often they stay with the chain. Loyal patrons of Choice Hotels who stay a sufficient number of nights each year can find themselves earning Gold, Platinum or even Diamond elite status, with increasing benefits. Choice Privileges Visa cardholders also enjoy complimentary Gold elite status. We'll break down how to qualify for each elite level, what benefits you can enjoy and how valuable Choice elite status is.

Choice hotels status match

Choice Hotels offers an ongoing status match program for those looking to transfer their loyalty from another hotel chain. You must reside in the United States, Canada, or Europe to be eligible. If you match between January and June, your status will be good for the current calendar year. If you match between July and December, your status will be good through the end of the following calendar year. Choice does limit their Elite Status Match Program offer to once per account per lifetime, so make sure you will get real value from it before matching.

To request a status match, you'll need to email [email protected] with the following information:

Proof can consist of a screenshot/copy of your other program's loyalty card with its expiration date or a screenshot/copy of the other program's current statement or account status page. Choice will respond to status match requests within seven to nine days.

Choice Privileges FAQs