Choice Privileges is making some changes in early 2025.
- Expanded booking window: Book a reward night up to 50 weeks in advance, giving them more time to plan their trip. (Currently this is 100 days)
- Premium room types: Redeem points for the premium features that matter most to them, such as extra space, a better view or an upgraded room, at select hotels.
- Choice RewardSaver: Choice is re-introducing the popular Radisson Hotels Americas redemption tool that allows members to book rewards nights starting at 6000 points–down from the previous minimum of 8,000.
Main improvement is the expanded booking window, almost tripling the time in advance you can book.
In addition to the possible Deval on premium rooms already mentioned below (given that at most properties premium rooms are currently the same number of points as regular rooms), the other question is how many hotels will be available at 6000 points, and will that mean their promotions will downgrade from offering 8000 points (per 2 nights or stays) to only offering 6000 points, or will their promotions stay at 8000 points despite this change?
Where’s the analysis? This is a deval plain and simple. Don’t just parrot their announcement.
For me the expanded booking is huge for planning my trips to Europe.
Wow streaming like you horse shit from Choice. Suites and upgraded rooms were typically available for same points as regular rooms. It looks like going forward that will no longer be the case and Choice will charge you more for upgrades. Seems like Deval to me.
That’s my first thought too. There are never large announcements heralded as ‘improvements’ when it comes to airline or hotel points that aren’t in fact a devaluation.
Any evidence for your speculating and complaining, or just mad for the sake of being mad?
I don’t recall ever seeing a situation where a room was available for cash but not for points, so I never considered the 100-day window to be much of a problem. I agree with Caleb, this just seems like an opportunity to charge more for desirable room types.
Radisson had the benefit of having an open window anywhere from 12-18 months, this was a huge advantage in pre-booking during prescheduled high demand events like graduations, concerts, sports events. I did this for European events many many times.
Huge nerf to the free suites under the flat pricing of the previous program. Also it seems like they raised the award categories for hundreds of US properties.
Thank God for the expanded booking.
Great news, makes the program 10x more useful for those of us trying to book travel during peak periods. Also nice bc you can book way ahead and recheck for price drops later.