Here's what the Choice Privileges award booking changes look like in practice

10.01.2025 - 19:17 / thepointsguy.com

Back in October 2024, Choice Privileges announced three award-booking changes it planned to implement in early 2025:

Over the last few weeks, travelers may have noticed some changes when searching for Choice Privileges award stays. This wasn't a surprise, though, as Choice Privileges said it would roll out some of the changes to a small set of properties before the end of 2024.

However, on Thursday evening, Choice officially emailed its members a message titled "Discover the New Benefits of Your Reward Nights" to announce its Choice Privileges program updates. Now that all the updates are live, here's my take on what the Choice Privileges changes are like in practice.

One of the Choice Privileges program's biggest limitations has historically been its 100-day award booking window. But now, you can book award stays at Choice Privileges properties up to 50 weeks before your stay.

Best of all, most Choice Privileges award night bookings are still freely cancellable until shortly before your stay.

Related: The ultimate guide to redeeming Choice points

Until recently, Choice Privileges published redemption rates on the homepage for each property. These redemption rates often differed on Friday and Saturday nights and would usually shift every few months.

However, you'll no longer see published award rates on each property's page. Instead, now you can see the points cost for every night by going to an individual property's page, selecting "Reward Points" as the rate and clicking on the check-in date box.

As you can see in the above screenshot, weeknights and some weekend nights at this property cost 35,000 points, while some weekend nights cost 45,000 points.

The email Choice sent its members on Thursday noted, "Choice may change reward levels at any time without notice; redemption levels typically vary per location and time of year." So, while the rates in the calendar could change at any time, it's unlikely Choice will change to fully dynamic award pricing. Instead, I expect Choice will stick to its current practice of using specific redemption levels across set date ranges based on the day of the week.

Related: Unique ways to redeem Choice Privileges points

Interestingly, every Choice Privileges property in Tokyo is currently bookable for 8,000 points per night.

Japan is one of my favorite places to redeem Choice points — I'm writing this article from one of the Comfort Hotel properties in Tokyo — so I know that several properties in the city previously cost 16,000 and 20,000 points per night instead of 8,000 points per night.

It's usually pointless to compare current award rates to previous rates since Choice Privileges award rates have historically shifted every few months. However, the Tokyo