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Yes. If you have no activity on your account for 18 months, Choice Privileges points expire. Per the Choice Privileges website, qualifying activity resets the expiration clock on your points for a further 18 months. The points are lost on the first day of the month at 00:00 PT 18 months after your points have posted. For example, with no subsequent activity, points posted on January 5, 2017, will expire August 1, 2018.
Be sure to track your Choice Privileges Points with AwardWallet.
Qualifying Activity
- Earn points or another currency (miles, Amtrak points) for a paid stay at a Choice Hotels property
- Redeem your points for stays, experiential awards, gift cards or virtual shopping and more
- Purchasing points
- Transfer from American Express Membership Rewards
- Receive points as a gift
- Earn points through Choice Privileges Mall
- Refer a friend– only qualifies after they join Choice Privileges and complete an eligible stay
- Earn points for everyday spending with the Choice Privileges® Visa Signature® Card
- Plenty of other options to earn points as well!
Non-Qualifying Activity
The following activities do not count towards resetting your points expiration date:
- Gifting points – only the person receiving the points qualifies for a reset of points expiration
- Registering for a promotion
- Non-point eligible stays
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Thanks for the reminder.
i had such trouble getting choice to credit a stay (which they never did) that just seeing the title of this post made me twitch.
I had Choice Points at one time, however I cannot remember the last time I stayed at a Choice Hotel.
Good to know! Thanks.
Thanks for the information. What about buying something through the Choice shopping portal?
Yes! I’ve added it to the list.
Any activity on the account extends validity to another 18 months.
What if you transfer points from your Amex account?
Yes, they do. I’ve added it to the list.
Nice that redeeming points counts, rather than just earning points. Makes things much easier!
don’t have any choice privilege points but this is good info!
Thank you for the very timely reminder!
well good thing I don’t even have a account with them.
Just registering for a promotion counts as activity to avoid point expiration? Really?
Oops. That’s under non-qualifying. Read it in a hurry…my bad.
No. Please re-read the post — it DOES NOT count towards expiration.
Thanks, I need to look into this program a bit more closely, particularly for European redemptions.
hmm.. seems to be I should someone to gift a few points back and forth with.
Unfortunately I lost all the points I had due to expiration. Do they send an email or any other type of warning before the points expire?
Not sure if Choice does this, but AwardWallet does.
Sounds like 18 is the magic number for most loyalty programs
good info to have.
thanks for taking the time to share
Thanks for info!
It’s so hard to find these hotels in major cities.
Can AwardWallet track Choice Privileges? If you can then you should say since it’s a useful feature 🙂
By the way, these points are great to book hotels with in Norway, only 10,000 for great places in an expensive country.
Indeed AwardWallet does. I’ve added a link so you can quickly add your Choice Privileges account.
Do most companies have a 18mon policy then? I am seeing a pattern. I wonder why they have gone with 18mons. At least we have a great place that will monitor this for us for an awesome price :O)
It varies; 18 months is probably the most common I’ve seen.
Interesting that giving points away won’t count.
Choice are also an e-rewards partner.
Nice heads up. I need to be more mindful of such guidelines.
Reminds me of the time when my choice points expired due to no account activity for 2 years…it was a sad day.
I asked the customer service center if there’s anything they could do and they said tough luck.
Award Wallet account would have prevented that forfeiture. 😛
everything seems to expire w/n 18 months these days
Useful guide. I had some points expire recently. 😐
Great useful guide for how to keep Choice Points from expiring.
Yes, thanks to AwardWallet is easier to prevent several accounts from expiring.
As the number of partners for hotel accounts is quite limited, avoiding their expiration is harder than for airline accounts.
Much better policy compared to their old one.
has anyone used the choice shopping portal to get a few points? I have tried it, but it says 60 days for posting. Is it the posting time or activity date that will determine if points expire?
For everyone’s info, I bought GC from giftcertificates.com and it seems they approve purchases in batches every 60 days. All the purchases were approved at same time even though purchases were made a different times up to a month aparrt. Other vendors may approve more quickly.