TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission that helps contribute to the running of the site. Traveling For Miles has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Traveling For Miles and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Terms apply to all credit card welcome offers, earning rates and benefits and some credit card benefits will require enrollment. For more details please see the disclosures found at the bottom of every page.
Choice Privileges Rewards is back with a new promotion in which it is offering members a 25% discount when buying points by 6 November 2020. The wording in the terms and conditions suggests that this promotion may be targeted so other Choice Privileges members may see slightly different offers.
Key terms
- Transactions must be completed between 9 AM EST Oct 7, 2020 and 11:59 PM EST Nov 6, 2020 to be eligible for a 25% discount on points.
- 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.
- There is a 3,000 point purchase minimum that applies.
- 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.
The deal & the numbers
As I wrote in the opening paragraph, this promotion appears to be targeted so not everyone may see the 425% discount and, even if you do see the discount, the terms of the offer may differ slightly from person to person.
The offer I’m seeing in my account is incredibly simple: Buy 3,000 points or more and get a 25% discount (click here to see what offer you have been targeted for).
The good news here is that you only need to buy as many points as you need to get a good deal as the cost per point doesn’t vary once you’re buying at least 3,000 points – there’s no extra bonus or discount on offer for buying 250,000 points.
Buying 250,000 points (the full annual allowance) costs $1,856.25 and that will see a buyer paying ~0.74 cents per point.
That’s not as cheap as the deal we saw this time last year but it’s still one of the lower rates we see offered.
Is this a good deal?
As usual, I have to confess that I don’t keep a close eye on Choice Privileges, but this looks like a reasonable deal even if it’s not as good as last October’s sale which saw Choice points costing just ~0.690 cents each. Crucially, however, that sale only permitted a member to buy up to 120,000 points while in this sale the number of points that can be purchased is significantly higher.
There are still a few important things to keep in mind before you decide to buy some points:
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 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 work out to between $89 and $148 per night…which is pretty good going.
Use the right credit card
Choice Privileges Points sales are processed by Points.com so that eliminates the scope to earn a travel/flight/airline bonus by using a credit card that offers bonus points for shopping in one of those categories (e.g. the card_name).
This makes a points sale like this one a good opportunity to use a credit card on which you’re working towards a nice welcome bonus (like this one).
If you’re someone who prefers to earn cash back over miles and points, the card_name would be a solid option to use.
Bottom line
If you’re in need of Choice points and have been targeted for a 25% discount (or better) this looks like a promotion you should be taking a look at to see if you can make it work. If you’re not already a big fan of Choice Privileges there isn’t anything amazing to see here and you’re probably better of keeping your credit card in your wallet and moving on.