Day: January 21, 2024

This time last year, Choice Hotels wasn’t even a contender in NerdWallet’s annual analysis of hotel brands and their loyalty programs.

In past years, we didn’t collect data on Choice because its award search didn’t show enough availability. (As part of our analysis, we collect data on bookings eight months from the time of search.)

But technology updates addressed booking issues, and Choice’s recent acquisition of Radisson brought new interest to the program. In 2022, the $675 million deal brought nine Radisson brands into the Choice portfolio, adding some higher-end brands to a company that was more known for budget brands like Quality Inn and Sleep Inn.

The merger went into full effect when the Choice Privileges rewards program absorbed the Radisson Rewards Americas program in July 2023. According to the press release after the merger, the Choice Privileges program had grown to 60 million members. That’s about half of the members enrolled in the Marriott Bonvoy or the Hilton Honors programs, and about double the number in World of Hyatt.

So for our most recent analysis on best hotel brands and rewards programs, Choice was too big to ignore. How does it stack up against competitors? And should you consider switching loyalty?

In NerdWallet’s 2024 analysis of best hotel brands, we collected data on hundreds of hotel bookings across seven hotel brands. Each one had to have properties in the majority of states in the U.S. and offer a loyalty program with a publicly available rewards search calendar with rewards booking availability from 15 days to eight months from the time of the search.

We rated each company on a five-point scale (with five being the highest) on four factors:

1. Fees: the cost of resort fees and parking fees compared with the room rate