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Despite devaluations in 2024 (prices now range up to 87,000 Choice points per night), there is still excellent value to be had (details here). So, we figured we’d repost this video showing how to book these hotels online with Choice points. Some of the details in the video about current point prices may be out of date, but the overall technique should still work.
Our original post follows…
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that participating Preferred Hotels & Resorts can now be booked online via Choice Privileges. Perhaps you also thought that viewing the availability calendar for a specific hotel seemed to require having enough points in your account, just as we thought. A reader recently shared with us however that simply clicking on a hotel from the Map View gets around this.
In this video, we demonstrate how to find your way to the availability calendar via the map view on Choice Privilege’s Preferred Hotels landing page:
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I noticed that I am able to view points rate availability (with 0 Choice Points) even from the list view for some properties (e.g. One Farrer Hotel Singapore, ) but it is showing as zero availability for some others e.g. The Fullerton / Fullerton Bay Hotel in Singapore and The Prince Park Tower Tokyo (all dates crossed out). May I confirm if there are indeed no availability on these more popular properties or does the reward points visibility when we have insufficient points vary across properties?
I’ve been trying to book the Sherry-Netherland in NYC. Currently, not enough points to book. Have the problem the “regular” way. Tried the work-around but it kicks me out of the Choice partnership site into the regular Preferred site, wants me to log into Preferred, and only offers cash bookings.
I’ve been reluctant to transfer points to Choice due to this issue. Adding in the devaluation, I’m more so. Any thoughts are appreciated.
I called Choice and the representative said that Preferred bookings must be done online and phone agents can’t even see hotels under the Preferred partnership.
I have the same problem as Lee. I followed the video carefully, and the final calendar only shows cash rates, not points rates.
Replying to myself …. I now see I don’t need map view to see the points calendar for the two Lisbon hotels. I can see the calendars just by clicking on “view rates” Yay!
Loved the step-by-step guide on finding and booking hotels with Choice points. Super helpful for travelers.
Is there a way to be logged into both your preferred login and choice at the same time so you get it recognized in both programs?
I don’t think so. But in my experience if your email address on the reservation matches your iPrefer email, a few days after booking they send an email to link your reservation to your iPrefer account. That way you should get iPrefer benefits during the stay. If that doesn’t happen you can also submit a missing stay to iPrefer to get it linked.
I am excited to book these hotels in Switzerland. I matched Hyatt to iprefer Titanium, but I’m not sure what perks, if any, the hotels will grant.
I get “0 hotel results” every time (in multiple browsers).
I followed the steps and the video exactly to find points and availablity at Preferred Choice Hotels. All worked perfectly until the last step with new URL AND NUMBER. WEBSITE said “you don’t have access to this page”. Tips?
We’ve now updated this post with a much easier solution, simply switching to Map View then selecting the hotel from there.
It seems that YMMV. Or perhaps I missed the point?
In any case, I just booked some rooms at Villa Copenhagen, which was on Greg’s test list. I logged into my account on the choicehotels site. With just 3000 points in my account, I could easily find dates with availability. Once I found the date that I wanted, I transferred points from Citi to Choice and booked the rooms.
Thanks for summary!
Does Greg have a trick to make the Lefay Lago di Garda and Dolomiti properties available for booking by points?
Henderson in Destin is 67522 and it comes up with a, “We’re sorry, you don’t have access to this page.”
We’ve now updated this post with a much easier solution, simply switching to Map View then selecting the hotel from there.
I’ve just found that switching to map view didn’t work for me in Safari — no little brown hotel pins appeared. In Chrome it worked properly.