While many hotel loyalty programs extended the expiration policies for reward points several times during the pandemic, those times are over. Most hotel programs have reinstated their requirements of having activity in the program to keep points active. For example, the Choice Privileges policy is that you need to have some account activity within 18 months to keep your account active. Otherwise, you’ll lose the points in your account.
The last time my points were going to expire, I received an email from Choice informing me that I would lose my points if I didn’t have any account activity before 9/1/23
We originally earned Choice points from a stay at Comfort Inn in Sonora, TX. While I usually wouldn’t worry about losing points in a program I’m not interested in, I wanted to see if I could keep my points active. According to the Choice website, here are the ways to keep your account active.
How do I keep my membership active?
- Complete a qualifying, points-eligible stay.
- Redeem your points.
- Buy points.
- Refer a friend to the Choice Privileges program.
- Earn or redeem points through partners
- Redeem points with hotel stays or with our partners
- Transfer points
Transferring points is now shown as a qualifying activity. I knew Choice Privileges is a transfer partner of AMEX, Citi and Capital One.
Of the three partners, Citi is the most valuable because one ThankYou point gets you two Choice points. I logged into my ThankYou account and transferred 1,000 points to my Choice Privileges account. Transfers are in 1,000-point increments.
After hitting the transfer button, I received several emails from Citi confirming my transfer. I refreshed my Choice account and had 2,000 more points in my account. In addition to that, my account expiration date was extended by 18 months.
Let’s be honest. It’s not usually worth it to transfer 1,000 points to a loyalty account you’re not sure you’ll ever use. Since Choice Privileges is a transfer partner of AMEX, Citi and Capital One, there’s no reason to let your points expire if you have enough of them to worry about.
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