Should you buy Choice points with a 50% bonus?

Choice Hotels is out with an extended offer to buy Choice Hotel points with a 50% bonus. Lt’s examine it to see if / when it might make sense. The 50% bonus offer expires April 29th (Monday)

Normally, Choice points cost $11.00 to purchase 1,000 points (tax included), for a purchase price of 1.10 cent per point. That might seem cheap, but remember, Choice points are only worth about 0.6 cents each, so at the normal rate, you’re paying a premium on the value. At the normal rate, it doesn’t make sense to buy Choice points.

What about with the 50% bonus offer? This time the bonus is tiered –

• Buy fewer than 5,000 points – no bonus
• Buy 5,000 – 9,000 points – 20% bonus
• Buy 10,000 – 19,000 points – 30% bonus
• Buy 20,000 – 29,000 points – 40% bonus
• Buy 30,000 – 50,000 points – 50% bonus

If you buy the full 50,000 points, it will cost you $550 but with the 50% bonus offer you will get 75,000 points, which brings the purchase price to 0.7333 cents per point, which is closer to the normal redemption value, but still slightly higher.

While I’m generally against buying points speculatively, if you need some points for your next redemption, it could be worth topping up your account.

(SEE ALSO: When is buying miles worth it?  Only in these 3 instances)

If you do that, I recommend buying at least 30,000 points so you earn some bonus points (15,000 in that case). You can find the link to this promotion here. I actually bought Choice points for the first time before my trip to Sweden a year or so ago. We were looking at staying at the Clarion Hotel Sign in Stockholm. Choice was running a 10% off promotion then, so I paid $99 for the 10,000 points.That let me book the hotel for 10,000 points / night instead of paying USD$249 / night! It’s only for situations like these when I recommend buying points.

Will you buy Choice points with a 50% bonus offer? Or will you wait for a better offer to come back?

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