Tag Archives for choice privileges.
A two-bedroom beach condo in St. Maarten can be had for just 15,000 points a night — or under $100 if you buy the points on sale — which is the kind of value that makes even a pretty uninspiring currency suddenly worth paying attention to.
It appears that the EconoLodge Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina only honors award reservations for active duty military members and only for those active duty military age 80 or above. The hotel cancels points bookings without actually checking if members meet that criteria because, of course, with military retirement rules no one can.
Marriott Bonvoy (inclusive of former Starwood members) is the largest program while Hilton Honors has been growing quickly and catching up. Accor’s loyalty program – which is newer than the others – is small for the chain’s size. And while World of Hyatt is the smallest among these 7 hotel groups, it hits substantially above its weight, something that’s true both for program membership and for its co-brand credit card deal.
A Choice Privileges Diamond member filmed himself being kicked out of a Sleep Inn hotel. The front desk clerk tells the man, “You called me a b—- and you’re an absolute nobody. A piece of.. You’re scum. You’re nothing. You can leave.”
The man says he’s leaving, turns his phone around to point it at himself, and declares “This is how they treat their Diamond members.” Why yes, when you call the front desk clerk vulgarities it very much is. The amazing thing is that the man shared the video to TikTok (though since removed it) as though the exchange made him look good?
Both chains are more booking platforms than hoteliers, since they not only don’t own hotels they generally don’t run them either, preferring to franchise. Choice currently has over 7,000 properties and Wyndham over 9,000.
They’ve created a no annual fee World Elite Mastercard that makes sense for those loyal to the Choice brand to get. Holding the card makes sense. I just wish it were more rewarding for ongoing spend.
With 624 hotels in total, this is just over $1 million per property (abstracting away from real estate). That actually seems low for the business, even though it includes few hard assets.
This seems like a real miss for Hyatt. Though the hotels are more downmarket than Hyatts overall, it would have given them some reach outside of the larger metro areas in the U.S. where they’re strong.
Arguably the most exciting new card of 2021 was the Capital One Venture X card. Along with the bank’s other miles cards, their points now transfer to a variety of frequent flyer programs at 1:1, an improvement that came last spring.
At the time Capital One improved to 1:1 transfers with most partners, they also announced Choice Privileges would become a transfer partner in late 2021. They missed that by a few days, but now this is live.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
