You can book Preferred Hotels with Choice Privileges points, (which has a 1:2 transfer rate from Citi Thank You points), or Preferred Hotel points (which has a 1:4 transfer rate from Citi Thank You points). There are reasons to book with one points over another, but is this worth doing? Greg’s recent experience booking a Preferred Hotel with Choice points can help shed some light on the question.
Greg’s experience booking a Preferred Hotel with Choice points
(00:58) – The Seagate Hotel & Spa Delray Beach Florida
(01:22) – Different booking options…
(04:51) – Booking experience…
(11:51) – Hotel stay experience (the good and bad)
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Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads
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Choice just did a massive (fourth) devaluation in a year. Hasta la vista, baby.
I recently booked and stayed at The One Palácio in Portugal using Choice. It was a wonderful experience through the whole process. Booking was easy, staff was friendly, we received a welcome gift in our room, etc. I will definitely use this program again.
I stayed at the Seagate last year (albeit on Preferred points). Iirc, I got fruit, chocolates, and champagne for my titanium amenity.
Only 1 experience booking choice preferred hotel, 2 years ago. Via calling, took about 5 calls. Was for hotel in Amsterdam. Booked a “room” and had no choices for room type. I had no elite status with choice, whether that would make a difference? We were given the tiniest, darkest, dumpiest room. We had two folding bicycles and couldn’t even open our suitcase, the room was so small. We begged for another room and were given a room about 15% bigger. Our hallway, the lights were always out/off, housekeeping stored their carts along our hallway overnight. Haven’t and won’t do it again unless I can guarantee the room is better.
Reminds me of the months when Hyatt was selling MMS gift cards. It would have been an easy shortcut to Globalist. I called MMS hotels and they never heard of Hyatt. I called MMS central number and they said that is something Hyatt was doing and had nothing to do with them. I called Hyatt and they said they outsourced to MMS gift card purchasing platform to a third party vendor. Then I had issues with the third party gift card purchasing platform (which were eventually fixed). So, I gave up and earned Globalist the standard way. Just wasn’t worth it to me to put money into something half-baked. It worked out fine for some people, but it wasn’t worth it to me to take the risk on something that tried to pull together two programs that just didn’t play well with each other.
Honestly, I am glad that you are sharing this experience because it demonstrates how frustrating/time-consuming the points and miles game has become.
Status has been watered down by hotels and airlines and it is barely being enforced on franchised properties. There is no way a normal person whose job is not to be up-to-date with this stuff is going to spend hours of their day calling back and forth to make sure their booking is actually confirmed.
I just recommend people to stick to a 2% card and cash out their points at 1 CPP and always book direct and call it a day. If you really want to save, just do an occassional Sign Up Bonus and cash it out.
I know people in the community will disagree with me but the game is just worth it anymore.
Not every program is as difficult as this. Some are better than others. Agree with you that Posts like this confirm the same for me as you– this is a program i went invest my time in trying to use. I’ve has far less friction and great results from others…
I get it. Certainly not every program is as difficult as this. But personally, most programs are just going this route via dynamic pricing, reduced award space, and other booking shenanigans. I am just at a point where I am trying to simplify things.
If I need extra space for those long-haul flights, I just use Seats.Aero whenever a program has one of those “special sales” every month and outright buy the points needed.
As for hotels, I usually stick to booking direct independent hotels with cash. In my experience, they all have better pricing than chain hotels.
If I needed some extra cash, an occassional Sign Up Bonus here and there and cash it out.