Choice Privileges Loyalty Program Review

Choice Privileges has the worst customer service and I will never and none of my contacts will ever use them again.

It seems to be impossible to update one’s Choice Privileges info on-line after moving to a new residence and getting a new Internet / email provider. My phone number, email, and street address have all changed yet some of this info is required to log into the account I created 3 years ago. There needs to be a way to make these changes on-line. If I use my old email address, I am sure that a confirming email will be sent to my old email address, which I no longer have and cannot use. The funny part of this is that the Choice Privileges web site says “Simply do…” which is impossible in my situation. Nothing simple about it… and there should be.

agree with very poor customer service comment! recently booked and stayed at a cambria hotel thru travelocity. come to find out I can’t get any choice reward points since i did not book hotel direct! In the past felt that this chain was sub par and cheap. thought i would take a chance by staying at their newer and what looked like more upscale label. wrong! i will stick with my other loyalty programs at hilton and marriott.

When I signed up for this program was never told if using calc for a discount I won’t get points if below a certain amount. Well let me tell you, I’m a member of Best Western rewards and Wyndham Rewards and I don’t have that problem with them. I don’t care what kind of discount I get, when I stay I get my points. I will never be staying at a Choice Privileges Motel again. I stay in motels at least three times a week, sometimes 5, but I will not be using Choice Privileges again. I will never stay in them period. This tells me that all they want is the money and they don’t care about the customer.

Loved choice privileges and their seasonal promotion events each time the roled them out. The best bonuses and payouts in the game, or so I thought. After noticing account discrepancies in regards to promotional payouts I did some digging, examined rules and terms of each promo going over the past calendar year and saw multiple nights were on my account that met every stipulation required to receive promo bonus points of 500pts min up to 8000pts max.

There have been 5 occurrences where the seasonal promo bonus points advertised were applied to my rewards account. Not one of these instances mentioned was I rewarded at the time of requirements were met. I inquired about these missing points 2 weeks prior and magically that’s when stays in question dating as far back as Feb 2019 turned into qualifying stays even though I’m told manual adjustments can not be made, yet clearly, my invoices reflect otherwise.

Under guidelines of these promos where bonuses are to be offered, there are over 30,000 points missing and that is the minimum. I am argued with, hung up on, cursed at and never once have I been presented with rules and regulations posted at any time that would make these stay unqualified and I am still not rewarded anything after at least 20 calls in occupancies to multiple departments where not one employee has been able to tell me my arguments are invalid and show me why or where its stated in the rules of each promo that would make my arguments null and void and still no points awarded.

My children and I being stuck in a Lobby for hours while seeking an explanation about a set of points I was assured would be added that morning and still were not upon arriving at our destination a little after 10 pm. The last straw was seeing my 3 kids reduced to sleeping on the lobby floor as I am being told these points now would not be added and was given no explanation as to why, just they will not be added at this time and I will be reaching out to multiple outlets online, commercial, professional, as well as legal and will pursue all avenues of retribution for these bad practices but mainly for the looks in my children’s eyes as they lie on hotel floor while I was being lied to by rep after rep after rep.

This is wrong on all accounts and I know I am not the only person who caught on to this mispractice and I doubt it will be hard to get this ball rolling and I look forward to righting this wrong at every level.

Choice privileges is the WORST! My business was exclusively using Choice Hotels for business travel. We were there weekly for the last 2 years. Consequently, we were active Choice Privileges members. Last week, we could not actually stay for our reservation. We still paid. We even followed up with the hotel manager to make sure he had the correct credit card to charge us for a no-show. But now Choice Privileges refuses to award us points because it was a “no-show”. Time to take our business elsewhere!

I just stayed 7 days in North Dakota and have been staying at a lot of your hotels. I just check on the member site and saw I have a second account with points in it. Can you just give me the points or combine them with my current account number?

I just checked in to a Cambria hotel in Fort Lauderdale and was offered a free breakfast as a Diamond member on top of the usual $10 credit to the bar/restaurant. Wonder if this is unique to this hotel or a new Cambria benefit for Diamonds?

Oh I love the Choice promotions… stay 2 nights get a free one… I have doubled my Choice points every year on mainly this promo…. almost 400k now.. ~85 nights a year in Choice.. 2-4 free nights a year using points.

Terrible customer service. If I call for a reservation, someone answers in one second. If I call for a problem it takes 20 minutes for someone to answer. I have also have had problems making a reservation with points.

I was about to apply for Choice rewards and Credit Card account. After reading the comments. No way in hell I want to have either.

OMG, what is wrong with these people all complaining about Choice? I absolutely LOVE this brand! I have never met a discourteous employee, not at any of the hotels, and never on the phone. NEVER. I’ve changed my name, my address, my e-mail, and had no problems at all. I use their website, I’ve sent them e-mails, I’ve sent letters, and I get prompt and courteous replies. I love their hotels, with the exception of a Rodeway in San Diego. If I have a problem and let them know about it, they fix it with a smile. Don’t believe all the naysayers because they likely complain about everything else, too!

Quick question. I started this a few months ago and will be Platinum this week. So come January 1st am I starting back at zero stays and have to work my way back up, or do I stay platinum until I end of next year? It is about as clear as mud on anything I have read. It just says calendar year but does not clarify how long you hold membership.

Just had my account hacked and 150,000 points stolen. Waiting to see if Choice reimburses me. If you have an account I suggest you check it and change your password.

I’m a member that stays more than 7/8 times a month. Customer care direct with hotels that I deal with are great! Customer care direct with choice privileges not so great! Had reservation set for certain price today night phone call later price kept going up with choice privilege hotel accommodated best they could well I stay on the phone the entire day trying to adjust this. At this point if it weren’t for hotel staff any couple members choice privilege I would definitely not recommend choice privilege! I ended up just paying for a room.

I booked 6 nights at a comfort inn and I am very unhappy.
When checking in the lady working the front desk was extremely rude and prejudice. While trying to check-in she left in the middle of me asking her a question to go talk to the security guard which I overheard her tell him that he needed to keep an eye on me.
The hotel advertised premium free Wifi pretty much everywhere. I use my laptop for work. The internet in my room does not work at all. When I called the front desk about this they were very rude. They told me there was nothing I could do about it except leave. They said all other rooms would not have working internet access either so I couldn’t try moving rooms. When I asked about the advertising for free wifi and told her that I needed the internet for work she responded “oh” then hung up on me.
The room was very small, which I could deal with but it was dirty. The bedsheets looked dirty for sure. The bathroom was disgusting; the toilet had not been cleaned and there was blood splattered on the bathroom door and on the shower walls.
The morning after my first night there I woke up to them vacuuming right in front of my room. They vacuumed the area in front of my room for no joke 1 1/2-2 hours. I called the front desk and asked about this, they said they had carpet cleaners there and that was the carpet cleaners cleaning the carpet. I checked and they lied, no carpet cleaners were there, it was the maid with the vacuum, vacuuming the same spot over and over. Why lie and why did they feel the need to do that, very immature.
Overall very disappointed. I tried calling corporate but was unable to speak to anyone, I will try again tomorrow. Also waiting for a response to the email I sent corporate.

I’ve been staying in Saskatchewan at a Choice Comfort Inn, I don’t want to say which one. Anyways, I have been staying with my wife due to uncertain circumstances for almost 2 months with the first month paying about $120 a day with taxes. Getting a discount on the second month somewhere around $75 with taxes and so it’s around 60 days consecutive with no breaks. Do you have any idea where I stand and how many points I might be getting? Also, what level I’ll be at, and do I get a card or is this on in the cloud or on the computer?

I have membership with most, if not all, of the hotel brand’s rewards programs. In terms of earnings, promotions & extras, I believe the Choice’s rewards program is great! We travel & stay in hotels very frequently & I really believe we’ve benefited the most from Choice.
With that said, I agree 100% with everyone else’s comments about Choice’s customer support department. First off, their automated booking system over the phone is annoying & pointless. People call in for one purpose only: to speak to a live agent, not to book a reservation through an automated system. If they didn’t want to speak to someone, they’d just book online using a computer or smart phone (and yes, I believe every guest has at least one of those devices or they call the hotel directly). If only calling in to book, confirm, or alter your reservation, agents are super nice & accommodating. But if you have questions/concerns regarding anything to do with your memberships or points, please prepare for battle. If the agent doesn’t know what you are inquiring about, they’ll just hang up on you rather than finding the answer. Super frustrating because you’ll have to call back & possibly wait on hold. The endless battle I usually call for (I don’t now) is the ability to purchase points directly with an agent & having them apply them to my account immediately. This is because I’m usually a few points away from a free night. Customer service says they cannot do it because the points purchase goes through points.com so they have to wait for them to confirm my purchase & release notice that the points are ready to be applied to my account. This is where I call “BS” because of two things. First, occasionally I get a competent agent who is able to add my ppints to my account (thats why i continued to fight with them for so long.) Also, almost every hotel company uses points.com for their points purchasing program & for example, Wyndham, will apply points from any purchase over the phone immediately to your account.
Also, other hotel chains will look at your account & simply gift up to 1,500 points to allow you to receive a free night at no charge. With Choice, there’s zero flexibility, no matter how loyal you are. If you have 11,550 points needed for a 12,000 point free night, well, sorry, you are 450 points short & will need to either stay another night to earn points or purchase points. And it may take up to one week before points are applied to your account.
I really believe Choice hotels needs a revamp of their rewards program. First, & number one thing I believe people are lacking today is empathy. These companies need to start training their staff to recognize that customers are people with families & lives, not just account numbers spending money. They also need to grant the ability & train agents to apply purchased points to accounts over the phone. They need to be flexible in gifting points, especially if an account is close to a free night or if you are in a bind. One lady commented here about spending hours in the lobby of a hotel, her kids falling asleep on the lobby couches. That’s absurd for Choice hotels to drag out her account issue for that long. They should have just awarded the points that one time & then followed up with an email regarding the fine print details she missed. I highly doubt she did all the work of the promotion with the intention to screw over the company for free points. Ugh!
As much as I travel & stay in hotels, these companies need to realize that a few points can make or break a family’s vacation & if one reservation isn’t fulfilled, there’s usually not 10 reservations itching to fill the hole. So the room stays empty. There’s lots of options out there when considering hotel stays & each time they remain rigid, they lose loyal customers to companies who show they appreciation better.