Choice Privileges points expire after 18 months of no qualifying activity. I recently needed to reset the clock on my account, and Wells Fargo made it surprisingly easy.
Last year, I wrote about an easy way to keep Choice Privileges points from expiring. At the time, my go-to option was transferring Citi ThankYou points to Choice Privileges.
That still works, but there’s one downside: Citi requires transfers in 1,000-point increments.
That’s not a huge amount, especially if you actually plan to use Choice points. But if all you’re trying to do is generate account activity, moving 1,000 points can feel like overkill.
Wells Fargo Has A Better Option For Tiny Transfers
Since Wells Fargo added Choice Privileges as a transfer partner, there’s another way to keep a Choice account active. Wells Fargo Rewards points transfer to Choice Privileges at a 1:2 ratio, meaning 1 Wells Fargo point becomes 2 Choice Privileges points.
More importantly, Wells Fargo lets you transfer as little as 1 point.
That makes this a very low-effort way to reset the expiration clock on a Choice Privileges account.
In my case, I have the Wells Fargo Autograph Card, which I kept after Bilt moved away from Wells Fargo. I had a small number of Wells Fargo Rewards points available, so I linked my Choice Privileges account and transferred exactly 1 point.
The Transfer Was Instant
After linking the accounts, I transferred 1 Wells Fargo Rewards point to Choice Privileges. The transfer screen indicated that this would convert to 2 Choice Privileges points.
Wells Fargo says transfers are typically available immediately but may take up to 72 hours. In my case, the 2 Choice points posted instantly.
More importantly, the activity reset the expiration date on my Choice Privileges account for another 18 months.
Why This Matters
Choice Privileges points can be useful, but they’re also easy to forget about if you don’t stay with Choice Hotels regularly. That’s especially true if you earned points from a promotion, credit card transfer, or one-off stay and then let the account sit idle.
There are several ways to keep a Choice account active, including hotel stays, earning through partners, or transferring points from another program. But for anyone with Wells Fargo Rewards points, this may be the easiest option I’ve found.
Instead of transferring 1,000 Citi points, I moved 1 Wells Fargo point.
That’s about as painless as it gets.
Final Thought
If you have Choice Privileges points approaching expiration and also have access to Wells Fargo Rewards transfers, this is worth remembering.
A 1-point Wells Fargo transfer isn’t going to get you closer to a free night in any meaningful way. But it can keep your Choice Privileges account active for another 18 months, and that’s exactly what I needed it to do.
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