Choice hotel points are going on sale with Daily Getaways tomorrow. So we decided to rerun this post which was initially published in April 2017. While the comments dated 2017 are no longer relevant, the content of this post has been reviewed and updated for you. Compared to last year, more Choice points packages will be available tomorrow, however prices also go up slightly to 0.48 to 0.57 cents per point, compared to 0.40 to 0.47 cents per point last year. The packages were very popular during the past three years as many people buy them and then transfer to Southwest Airlines for the Companion Pass. Now that the loophole is closed, are the Choice points still worth buying? The short answer is yes. In this post I will show you four best uses of Choice Points.
Use points at low category Choice hotels
There are over 6,300 choice hotels, and reward nights range from 6,000 points to 35,000 points, excluding Australia where points required are up to 75,000 points per night. One of the best uses of Choice points is to stay at low category hotels for as little as 6,000 points. Here are some examples:
- Comfort Hotel Lichtenberg, Berlin – 6,000 points
- Comfort hotels in Tokyo, there are five of them that cost 8000 points, and one cost 12,000 points
- Comfort Hotel Nara – 8,000 points
- Comfort Hotel Osaka Shinsaibashi – 8,000 points
- Quality Inn Porto, Portugal – 8,000 points
- Comfort Suite Cannes Mandelieu, France – 8,000 points
- three hotels in Prague, 10,000 -12,000 points
- Dan and his wife stayed at the Comfort Suites in Rome for only 8000 points / night AND got a 2 floor suite!
There are definitely more. If you know any great Choice hotels at the low end of redemption, please let us know in the comments.
Best use of Choice points at expensive weekend destinations
There are some Choice hotels in popular weekend destinations, such as Napa Valley where hotel rates on the weekend can be expensive. An example would be UpValley Inn Calistoga, which often requires two-night minimum on weekends. A quick search for the first weekend in May showed a cash rate of $322 per night, but the same room can be booked for 30,000 points!
Or book just Saturday night at the Napa Winery Inn for 30,000 points instead of paying $254 plus taxes. I stayed here last summer. While basic, the hotel is perfectly fine! [SEE: Napa Winery Inn – a solid redemption of 30,000 Choice points ]
Another example is Ocean City Maryland, a very popular beach destination on the East Coast. Summer rates are high, especially on weekends. But you can save a ton using points! The Comfort Inn Boardwalk would cost $339 plus taxes on a Saturday in June, or 30,000 points.
Dan and his family had a similar experience at the Rodeway Inn at the northern edge of Yellowstone Park – 16,000 points / night saved a cash price of $290!
Another best use of Choice points – Take the family to Atlantis!
Want to take the family to Atlantis Bahamas but don’t want to pay the outrageous price of Atlantis resorts? You can stay at the Comfort Suites Paradise Island, located at the entrance of Atlantis Resort. Take a look for the Saturday night over Memorial Holiday weekend. The two-double bed suite will cost $339 plus $106.17 in fees and taxes. The room accommodates a family of four people, and includes free access to the water park at Atlantis Resort. 
You can book the same room for 30,000 choice points. There was no taxes due on award stay when I took my girls there in summer of 2015. We stayed four nights using points purchased through Daily Getaway. Yes the room was not fancy, but it was more than adequate as we were out in the morning after the free breakfast, and only returned in early evening to shower and sleep. This was definitely my best use of Choice points in the past three years.
Use Choice points for luxury stays with Preferred Hotels & Resorts
Choice Privileges has a partnership with Preferred Hotels and Resorts, which operates over 500 independent luxury hotels and resorts around the world. You can use your Choice points to enjoy free nights from 25,000 points to 55,000 points, or use 10,000 points plus $112.50 to $337.50 cash. You can find complete details or locate hotel availability here. Reservation is not available online and must be booked by calling 888-770-6800.
Whether you are visiting major metropolitan cities like San Francisco, New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Singapore etc, or relaxing by the beach in the Caribbean, Preferred Hotels & Resorts have you covered.
Conclusion
There is definitely value to be found with Choice points, depending when and where you use them. If you know of any best use of Choice points, please share with us in the comment below.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I was considering buying Choice point, since the sale price of about 0.4 cents/point is well below the “fair value” of about 0.75 cents/point. But then I checked some random dates in New York City and London, and found that no hotels had points availability for many dates. So I now regard Choice Privileges as an “untrustworthy” program that may be playing games with its “no blackout dates” promise.
We have often used these points for a cheap hotel stay when travelling along the interstate when all you need is a clean room and a hot breakfast, then back in the car. I know there is better value in those points, but this works for us.
UAPhil – you may have been searching for dates too far in advance. If I’m planning a big trip, I like to have things locked in well in advance of 30 or 60 days. Choice Hotels can be good for last minute travel.
Here are the Choice Hotel rules for booking rooms with points:
Book up to 30 days in advance for hotels in the U.S. or Canada or 60 days in advance for hotels outside of the U.S. and Canada.
Reward nights can be booked 50 days in advance for Elite Gold members staying in the U.S. and Canada or 60 days in advance for hotels outside of the U.S. and Canada.
Reward nights can be booked 75 days in advance for Elite Platinum members and 100 days for Elite Diamond members.
@UAPhil – Like @Dee mentioned, the website will show no rooms available if you search for dates past your elite level window.
For example, I am Platinum and have a 75 day reward booking window. Yesterday I was searching rooms for July and determined the exact date for my 75 day booking window when rooms went from 10,000 points to no rooms available.
@Dan – One thing for readers to keep in mind are Choice Privileges seasonal rates. Clarion Prague Old Town I was looking to book for 10,000 points in June goes to 14,000 points in July and Clarion Prague City goes from 12,000 points in June to 10,000 points in July. Clarion Congress drops to 8,000 points in July.
I made plans to spend 70,000 points for June and July travel and I would like to have at least another 100,000 points for hotel rooms over next 12 months.
I will be trying to buy as many sets of Choice Privileges points as I can get. They are my major currency for hotel rooms in Sweden, Denmark and Norway when I am making all those low cost SFO/OAK/SJC Stockholm airfare deal connections.
Thanks for all the good info Ric! I know you are an expert on Choice points/ hotels!
Thanks, Ric and Dee!! I had completely forgotten about the small “booking window”. I am now finding availability that corresponds with my Gold status.
Sunny – actually, there are a few quite nice Choice hotels in cities. For example, there are two new Cambria Inn and Suites in Manhattan which are quite nice, and can be booked for 30,000 points/night (a better value than most other points options in Manhattan).
I find when staying in a desirable location I would rather use other points from better hotels, no one want to stay in a Travelodge in San Franscisco for example, so use these points usually for things like a quick stay near an airport for an early morning or late arriving flight. The hotel might only be $80 but my choice pounts were free 🙂
Why were your Choice points free?
From the credit card sign up bonuses.
Were your purchased points already ctedited? When?
It usually takes about a week to show up in the account.
Crazy! The blog is dated April 9, 2018 but the replies above are from April and May 2017. Some wicked time traveling is going on.
I agree. Choice Privileges is considered ghetto by many online but many aren’t bad at all. I participate in Choice Privileges and Hilton Honors. I redeem regularly.
We occasionally rerun posts that are still timely. With the sale on Choice points as part of Daily Getaways tomorrow, it seemed like a timely repost. Look for it again in April 2019 if Daily Getaways sells Choice points again 🙂
@Dan- It would be nice for your readers if PWaC could somehow indicate when posts are rerun. It can be very confusing when the reader comments don’t match up with the current post’s content. Like the 1st comment above for example, it mentions 0.4 cents/point. This year the absolute cheapest package is 0.48 cpp. That’s a 20% price increase and the old comment is no longer valid. Or maybe another option is to have the old comments deleted whenever something is rerun (if that’s even possible). Thanks for considering my feedback!
Thanks. When we rerun the posts we do go through and try to edit them to catch those types of typos but obviously sometimes we miss them :-). Thanks for the feedbakc
Thanks, but I’m more concerned about the comments referring back to last year’s post (which had different content – your 2018 content is accurate from what I can tell). That’s the part that throws me off quite often because I don’t always catch the old date stamp on the comment. Hope that makes sense. Not sure if you could remove the old comments at time of reposting? Thanks.
That makes sense – I’ll keep that in mind for when we rerun posts. It’s a balance because oftentimes old comments are still valuable, even though they’re old, so I’m not sure that just blanket removing all comments is the right idea. But you’re right that we wouldn’t want to keep comments with misleading / old information
Unfortunately there’s been a huge devaluation on the Rome hotels – they’re now 30,000 points a night!
Every time that I call the 888-770-6800 number to booked a Preferred Hotel & Resorts, they tell me that the hotel I am looking for is not included in the Choice Hotels network and cannot be booked.
Anyone know how to work around this?
Jon, their call ctr people are all based in Central America and are not helpful at all….only a small number operators know of this perk, but it’s nearly impossible to find someone to help….oftentimes, they’ll just transfer you to another person who has no idea what’s going on…my 110,000 points are rendered useless, as I would never stay at a Choice Hotel.
The best use I have found for Choice Privileges points is to get a room during special events when prices are jacked up for a few days or for one weekend but the cost for points stays at the seasonal rate.
I have done this for a couple of NASCAR races – I have a room booked at an Econo Lodge in Ormond Beach Fla for the night before the Daytona 500 this coming Feb. This room is normally like $48 a night, or 12000 points or 6000 points plus $45. For race weekend, the same room is $250 a night ($280 with taxes), but you can still get it for 12000 points or 6000 points plus $45. So by doing the latter, I saved $235 for 6000 points – that’s 3.9 cents per point, which is great