I want that Choice black card and I don't think I have ever stayed at a Choice hotel. LoL.
@fury1995 wrote:
@Andypanda wrote:What stands out to me is the 30K point Anniversary bonus vs the $95 annual fee
That does basically escalate it to 'break even +' against the AF if choosing their property at least once a year.
The estimate on award nights is a bit more realistic where the annv pts are mentioned.. up to 11 nights with 90k SUB might be a stretch.
I stayed at their property in Miami recently as I entered/exited the keys. Pleasant experience and slept better at choice than the beach resort down in the keys -- choice bed was more comfy for me.
@DONZI wrote:
@fury1995 wrote:
@Andypanda wrote:What stands out to me is the 30K point Anniversary bonus vs the $95 annual fee
That does basically escalate it to 'break even +' against the AF if choosing their property at least once a year.
The estimate on award nights is a bit more realistic where the annv pts are mentioned.. up to 11 nights with 90k SUB might be a stretch.
I stayed at their property in Miami recently as I entered/exited the keys. Pleasant experience and slept better at choice than the beach resort down in the keys -- choice bed was more comfy for me.
You don't even need to stay at least once per year - since the anniversary bonus comes in points, you could always just bank the points until you have a use for them. Not that sitting on points is a great thing, but if you're using the points once every few years, that flexibility is nice.
I think the easiest/simplest way of looking at the $95 AF is that you're effectively buying 30k points once per year for a bit under .32 cents per point. Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott certificates are use 'em or lose 'em, but Choice Privileges points don't expire as long as you have activity every 18 months.
Agree that 11 nights is a stretch - I've seen some for 8k/night which would certainly make that possible, but 16k/night seems to be more common, at least for the areas/dates I have searched. According to a few blogs, the lowest is 6k/night and the highest is 35k/night. Our targeted use will be in Maui, where the current least expensive booking for our winter 2024 trip being ~$395/night. There is a Choice hotel that goes for 30k/night, and while Choice doesn't offer room upgrades with status, you can book any room several rooms at that property for 30k, so you "upgrade yourself" during booking.
My main complaint with Choice is needing to be 100 days or less out from the first night in order to book with points. I do see good availability for the place we're looking at and have already figured out what the 100 day out point will be, so fingers crossed we'll be fine, but we're big fans of booking early.
P2 
P2 Future 
Chopping Block 
Very true, I'm not sure why I was thinking the pts needed to be used each year.
I also noticed that pay with points does not (always?) offer the same qty of hotels to choose from for whatever reason.
@Traveler101 wrote:I was looking at their site and saw that this morning. I don't think I stand a chance with wells though being close to 3x my income in cl. Someone else has to jump on that, lol.
Here's my approval post. Not 3x, but I had $205k in total personal credit limit going into the app, a bit over 2.5x my $80k income, decently high velocity too. I was ready to eat a decline but got a $14k starting limit.