Choice Privileges / deceptive advertising
Choice Priviliges is a hotel rewards program that promised a free night stay if you stayed at one of their member hotels for 2 nights. My wife and I took them up on the offer but we have never been allowed to use the free stay.
After repeated phone calls over a number of months, we have been told the hotels we want to stay at require more points than we earned with our stays. "Points" were never mentioned in the ad that enticed us. Even after staying one more night in one of their very dirty and run-down Comfort Inns in Petaluma, CA, we were told we still do not have enough points for a free stay.
I asked for a list of hotels that we did have enough points for and was told they don't have such a list, that I would have to go through hotel by hotel for my request to figure out which hotels would qualify.
Lesson: Do not trust Choice Priviliges advertisements and don't fall for gimmicks
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Date
I have been trying to redeem my points for something other than a hotel stay. Is that possible, or do you only redem for hotel reservations? I would like some food certificates.
Beverly Hardoby
Please tell me step by step how to get my $50 gas card. I have already stayed 3 nights.
I am the writer of the hotel loyalty program consumer analysis blog, Loyalty Traveler.
Choice Privileges does run periodic advertising stating a free night will be earned with a promotion offer. Typically the fine print shows the offer is actually for 8, 000 bonus Choice Privileges points.
A free night at the two lowest Choice Hotels member properties are the 6, 000 point and 8, 000 point award levels. Choice Hotels is the second largest hotel company in the world with around 6, 000 hotels. There are about 1, 500 hotels or 25% of the hotels in the chain that are available for award nights using points at 8, 000 points or 6, 000 points.
Unfortunately, as this consumer has learned, that leaves 75% of the Choice Hotels out of reach for a free night if you only have 8, 000 points.
I live in the Monterey, California area and in this location the Choice Privileges member hotels are mostly 16, 000 or 20, 000 points for a free night. One free night at the Carmel-by-the-sea Clarion will run 25, 000 points.
I make a business out of analyzing hotel loyalty promotions to help travelers avoid the misleading advertising from hotel chains and evaluate the hotel promotional offers for consumers.
www.boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler
Recently the same experience has happened to my wife and myself. I consider this to be a total scam by Choice Hotels and I personally will avoid using their chain of hotels and their affiliates. They should not try to deceive a customer with FINE PRINT. And this is a deception!
My wife and I were told if we stayed 2 nites we would get one free night. We have stayed 6 nights at high end Comfort Inns and have just been told we don't have enough points to stay at a flea bag Comfort Inn in Ft Smith AK. We would have to stay about 30 times to have enough points to stay at one of the hotals we have been staying at. Class Action Time.
We have had a similar experience with getting a $50 gas card after a stay of two nights this summer. We were told that the hotel we had stayed at was not included in the offer, even though the original ad did not mention exceptions. We will no longer stay at any Choice hotels as long as we live. We feel angry and betrayed.
My wife and I have had the sme experience as the other customers. I could not add to the comments, because you said it so accurately.
Dave and Elaine
That is nothing, if you do not register before you book EACH time they run the same promotion they do not give you your points. You are suppose to guess that you have to re register . They run identical programs but you must figure out they are different ones. Choice privilege is to be taken with carefull consideration There are many hotel chains that have great loyalty programs . I will check them out now.
Why can't we make a law suit for deception. I think but I am not sure that you cannot deceive people even if it is in the fine print.
In my case, I was told by a representative that I only needed to make an account online but later I learned that I need to register for the actual promotion after creating an account. I was going for the gift card.
I ran into the same thing! Called and was told I made the same mistake as others and he would go ahead a provide a courtesy night free. When we showed up, no such luck. I was also told the new promotion for free gas with two stays should be done at the hotel we stayed at. They knew nothing about it and when I called, the lady said some hotels sis not have the information. This is good policy????? Hotels were not all that great anyway. I told them I would find someone to do business with the had a little more pride in their work. Asked to speak to a supervisor and was hung up on once and the second time told supervisors could not do anything either. Would highly recommend working with someone else, unless you just want a place to stay without any promotions. They could be much more honest about it.
I joined Choice Privileges while an extended stay at Comfort Inn for work. First, I was issued a card with someone elses member number. It took several months to clear that up with a complete new membership. They could not transfer all my points. I tried to get my triple points and could not during the promotion, even though they said I qualified. In all I was able to get 81, 000 points and decided to redeem for Best Buy gift cards. I was told I should see the cards in 2 - 4 weeks. The weeks passed and no cards. I called into Choice Privileges and was told they went out on January 16, 2015 and to calll back after six weeks if no cards. I called in and they escalated an investigation and I would get a call in a few days.. No call. I called back and was told it is being investigated and I should receive a call in ten days. When I called back to get status of investigation, I was treated horribly by the support and asked to speak to manager. Manager got on phone and just started dictating they were not responsible, but could as a "one time courtesy" place the points back on my account - as if it was my fault. What good are points if you can't use them? Is this a scam?
This company is full of crap with their "free night" offers. If there is a class action law suit in the makings...please count me in.
I have been a Choice Hotels Member since 2005, I never had any problems redeeming my points for a free nights stay until this year. I have gone on the web site trying to book one free night and when you enter destination, date of arrival, , date checking out then click on redeem free night they all say sold out but if you click on every day rates or AAA rates then they all have lots of rooms. I don't know what has happened but I will not ever book with them again. I hope there is a class action and soon !