Update: Choice has now walked back the maximum amount that you can pay for Preferred Hotels to 87k.
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One of the cool things you can do with Choice Privileges points is to use them at select Preferred Hotels & Resorts. Not long ago, the top point price for these properties was 55,000 points per night. Then, this past June, they bumped the top end up to 87,000 points per night. Now, apparently enough time has lapsed to bump things up again. The new top rate is 118,000 points per night. Yeesh.
At first I thought that maybe the new top price was for new, more luxurious hotels. While that might be the case in some situations, it isn’t true across the board. Take for example the Boston Harbor Hotel. Not long ago, it cost 55,000 points per night. It then jumped to 85,000 points per night in June, and now prices at 115,000 points per night. Eek.
Fortunately, it’s not all bad news. I spot checked a few of the best value properties that I knew of and they haven’t all been hurt by this devaluation. Here are a few good news options:
- The Thief, in Oslo, is still 20K per night.
- The One Palácio da Anunciada, in Lisbon, was 27K and is now 28K per night.
- Hotel Californian, in Santa Barbara, is still 55K per night.
Hat tip to T J for letting us know about the latest devaluation.
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[…] in worth from 55,000 factors to 87,000 factors. Now there was one more devaluation, as flagged by Frequent Miler. The highest properties have now elevated in worth from 87,000 factors to 118,000 factors per […]
This is a trend. The overwhelming amounts of points introduced to each currency by credit cards, is the source of these devaluations. It started with the airlines, then the big hotel chains, to be followed by the moderate price hotel chains.
Just wait for the big one from Hyatt. It is coming and it will be a shocker. All of these Chase INK cards will be the death of the value of Hyatt. Mark my words!
When Choice acquired Radisson, I was concerned and against it because of the high risk that the Radisson devaluation mentality was going to infect Choice and lead to major devaluations of Choice points and be done with no advance notice. Then last year when Choice suddenly and massively hiked up the number of points required for award nights in Scandinavia, I knew the next plays from the Choice program would be massive devaluations of the points because they weren’t even increasing the reimbursement amounts to the nordic Choice hotel properties. Since then we have seen Choice continuing on this road of major and sudden devaluations of an extent never before seen in the program in absolute point price terms.
This is why last year I was already advising people to keep their Choice point balances locked up in the free-to-cancel award reservations because you really can not trust the points to be a good store of value in a Choice program infested by the Radisson loyalty programs’ mentality and a corporate management team needing to justify its acquisitions.
[…] from 55,000 points to 87,000 points. Now there has been yet another devaluation, as flagged by Frequent Miler. The top properties have now increased in price from 87,000 points to 118,000 points per […]
The Thief in Oslo is a beautiful hotel & is a steal at 20k points.
Speaking of devaluations, is a second Hyatt brand going to see dynamic pricing? If this does indeed happen, M/M Smith can’t be viewed as a one-off and one must believe additional brands might well follow.