I'm seeing Choice award nights showing up with an option for a reduced number of points plus a cash supplement. This seems to be very new to me.

Amounts to $15 for every 2,000 points.

Examples:

A 16k award night hotel or 8000+$60
An 10k award night or 8000 +$15

Haven't run into any 6000+$15 or 4000+$15 award nights yet -- they seem excluded in my limited experience so far.

 

Yes they announced it http://www.choicehotels.com/en/choic...ints-plus-cash.

You need a minimum of 8,000 points. They can be purchased
in increments of 1,000 for $7.50...

 

Thanks for the good news, GUWonder. VERY new, as I've been all over the site the last several days and today, and haven't encountered it. I hope there's some consistency to it, as there isn't for several of the C+P programs. But since Choice already varies its points requirements, this is too much to hope for. Good news in any event.

 

I only see the C+P awards when I am logged in as an elite customer. When not logged in, the C+P option doesn't appear. It works for Gold and higher status accounts. And it seems there is great consistency in it.

 

This is good news! A good way to stretch out the usefulness of points when I don't have too many. And this is about the value I put on Choice points (though sometimes I do better). It will be great if they continue to sell Choice points for about half that amount during the Daily Getaways promo.

 

GUWonder, Gold here, and have been on as that throughout. Haven't gone back in yet. But it's all good. Didn't mean any big "Yes, but..." ^

Going to be interesting to see how low they can go with the ~ $30 properties in Kissimmee and Monterey, and with the 6,000 point ones.

 

Enjoy them while they last.........

 

Bingo ... There it is, along with a new tile rendering of available properties.

Looks as though there's a floor: The 10,000 point level (points-only rate) can have a Cash + Points offer. No C+P for 6,000 or 8,000 points-only levels.

Still, it's all ^.

 

Does anyone know if C+P stays are eligible for their various promos?

 

Still, if you're short on points (not too hard to get into that situation with their hard expirations date), There are often a lot of 10K properties (I'm thinking Rome, especially) where one could stretch out a stay at a relatively small outlay of cash.

BTW, did they announce this anywhere, or did our friend GUWonder just stumble acrss this?

 

Didn't get an announcement about this; rather I just encountered it when booking award stays.

Not eligible for promos but still eligible for elite status acquisition/retention. Next thing I have to figure out is whether or not this works out like IHG's cash+points reservation cancellations.

Anyone seeing this option while logged in with a non-elite account?

 

Press Release on Points Plus Cash came out Jan 21.

 

Seems like it is available for all who are logged in and have 8k points or more available while looking to book a hotel where award nights using points only start at 10k. Effectively they are selling points for 3/4 of a penny for the portion of the award that exceeds 8k points for the night.

This is a door to huge savings for some of us.

 

It does. I made a C+P reservation last night (thanks to this thread!). The cash portion is immediately charged to your credit card and the cancellation policy states that all points, including those purchased for the reservation, will be returned to your account if you cancel in time. The confirmation email shows the total number of points charged, with no mention of any cash component.

 

For those of us (like me) who didn't go and study the press release, here's how it (apparently) works:

1. So far, I've found just about every choice hotel I've looked at has a C+P rate.

2. No matter what the normal points rate is, the C+P rate is 8000 points, with the difference being priced out at 0.75 cents/point. So, a 10,000 point hotel has a C+P rate of 8000 points + ($0.0075 x 2000) = 8000 points + $15.00. A 25000 point hotel would be 8000 points + ($0.0075 x 17000) = 8000 points + $127.50.

3. 10000 points is the floor - no hotel at 8000 points/night or less has a C+P rate.

My takeaway - this can be a great deal, but I'm suspicious that the hotels with higher C+P add-ons might well be bookable at the same or even lower cash rate with no points on various 3rd party sites. This may be even more likely in Europe with the current downward trend of the euro.