Wells Fargo has launched the new Choice Privileges cards, there are two cards available: Choice Privileges Select Mastercard & Choice Privileges Mastercard. Let’s have a look at the cards in more detail:
Choice Privileges Select Mastercard
- Sign up bonus of 90,000 Choice Privileges points after spending $3,000 in qualifying purchases during the first three months
- $95 annual fee waived first year
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 10X points on stays at participating Choice® hotels
- 5X points on qualifying purchases at gas stations, grocery stores, home improvement stores, and phone plans
- 1x points on all other purchases
- Automatic Platinum Elite Status: 20 Elite night credits
- Earn 30,000 bonus points every account anniversary, enough for at least one night at any eligible Choice Hotels property
Choice Privileges Mastercard
- Sign up bonus of 60,000 Choice Privileges Points after spending $1,000 in qualifying purchases during the first three months
- You can also do a dummy booking and get 40,000 points + a $150 statement credit
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 5X points on stays at participating Choice® hotels
- 3X points on qualifying purchases at gas stations, grocery stores, home improvement stores, and phone plans
- 1x points on all other purchases
- Automatic Gold Elite Status: 10 Elite night credits
Our Verdict
Previously the highest ever was 75,000 points on the Barclays Choice card. It’s hard to know how good this new deal is as it’s possible Wells Fargo will offer a higher bonus in the future and it’s also possible this is a higher launch bonus. Free nights start at 6,000 points per night and go up to 35,000 points per night (properties in Australasia go up to 75,000 points). This could be a good deal if you have a use of the points in mind, otherwise I’d wait it out.
the sign up bonus dropped to 40k and 60k now. 🙁
already met the spending requirement 5 days before the statement, but still no bonus on the statement – any body can lmk how soon the points post? Thanks!
Buckle up. I got approved April 21st. Met spend June 25th. Still waiting for bonus. Called recently, what a twilight zone WF customer service is! 5 calls, transfers to several department, no one knows what to do, most don’t know the card exists, some couldn’t even find my account; finally transferred to executive department who are “investigating” my issue and will take 2 weeks. Bizarre. I don’t know how businesses like this even function.
It’s indeed very strange – it has been 2 statements after the spending done but still no points for me. I’m on international travel, otherwise would have called them! Actually I was counting on these points for my hotels on this trip! LMK if you got any updates, thanks
Frank
Got a call today from WF Executive Department, whatever that means, and they are almost finished with their investigation. I was incredulous. What is there to investigate? I got approved for a card you promised 90k in choice points if I spent $3k in 3 months. Did I meet the spend or not? Are there witnesses to interview, reams of documents to pour over?!!? In one of my 5 calls previously about this I talked to one agent who said WF’s adoption of this account has been a hot mess and no one knows what to do. This is the 4th largest bank in the U.S. Good lordy!
it’s indeed unbelievable! Hopefully they can fix this so we don’t have to go through CFCB? Anybody here successfully got the points?
I met the same issue. Did you receive your bonus?
Thanks Frank for this account! Always good to laugh out loud. I’m glad to hear about their incompetence. A bank of that size with that amount of incompetence will need to continue to pay mightily to attract customers. Thanks for taking one for the team!
So have you got the points? I finally called and was told it will take up to 3 months for the points to post – not sure if I just got a clueless CSR, but the 3 month mark should come up soon so I’ll see
Similar story to sk9879. I had the no AF card (converted from Barclays) and was initially denied for the Select. Canceled the old card, waited a couple days and called back to reconsider the application for the Select.
Denied again (remaining income after debts too low, too many inquiries last 2 years), but called to reconsider and it was approved!
TLDR: If you are holding the no AF Choice card and want the Select, you must cancel the no AF card first.
Wells Fargo only allows you hold one of the Choice cards at a time, so if you already own the no AF card (as I did) your app will be declined (without a hard pull).
When this happened to me, I immediately closed my no AF card, waited a week, then re-applied for the Select card which was again declined (again, without a hard pull). I called CS and was told that the initial decline was still in their system as a pending application that would take up to 60 days before it would clear (hence the second application was flagged as a duplicate). When I explained the situation, they said they would initiate a manual review of my second application, which was approved within just a few hours.
Question..Has anyone gotten the 60000 points on the wellsfargo choice priveleges mastercard that was sent to replace the previous barclay card? I have spent the required $1000 and have not received the 60000 points. I called Choice priveleges and they said if I had previously had the barclay card i was not a new customer and would not get them. I think if it is a new credit card you should get the points not matter what. Has anyone else had any experieence with this… or have you gotten the points when you had the old card? I am not happy with what I was told.
Had Barclay’s card. Got Wells Fargo card. Spent $1000. Finally wells fargo tells me I’m not eligible. Now, I also don’t have my 1000+ points I should have earned by spending $1000. Also, didn’t get my 8000 anniversary bonus points that were due in June. I literally talked to 8 people yesterday. Wells Fargo transfers me to choice. Choice transfers me back. Fighting for anniversary points then canceling this card
lol just got off phone. They found most of my missing points. Still waiting on the 8000 anniversary bonus points that usually arrive in june statement, but so far, no where to be seen.
Wells Fargo is still practicing this automatically transferring the call to Choice Hotels to resolve Wells Fargo issues instead of taking ownership of WF issues, with a ping pong ball effect with Choice then transferring me back to WF repeatedly. I really wish I had known what a headache Wells Fargo was going to be with this card before I applied (first-time Wells Fargo cardholder). Lesson learned.
The view it as a conversion & not a new card. They also do not allow you to upgrade the card to the much better Select card. After multiple transfers to different people IO had to cancel the converted card & apply for the Select Card. I was suppose to receive 20 Elite nights for the new card within 14 days of it opening, didn’t occur. I called about it & spend close to 90 minutes getting transferred back & forth from WFC to Choice, The choice people say the card isn’t leaked to my Choice account & the WFC people are oblivious when asked about anything regarding Choice card they cobranded & why the card isn’t linked to my Choice account, which would trigger the 20 elite night bonus. The entire thing makes little sense since when my 1st WFC statement closed they sent my points to my Choice account, which means they are linked in theory, apparently not. Also, WFC shorted me on my points as 1 hotel stay i was suppose to receive 10X points only received 1 X points. That’s my next battle, after I get my 20 Elite nights, which with my current 25 nights stayed would put me at Diamond Elite & get the 50% base point bonus instead of 25%
Some bad news for Scandinavia lovers – highest earning category for these cards is not available there, according to Eligible location page https://www.choicehotels.com/choice-privileges/earn-points/mastercard-credit-card/eligiblelocations. Also It does not mention South America (minus Brazil and Colombia), and mentioned Australasia does not include the actual Asia (minus China, India, Japan and Singapore as well). Yet redeeming points should not be affected.
The value is redeeming points in Scandinavia not earning them.
I currently have a WF checking account. Approved with $30K CL… 6/24, 3/12, 1/6. They pulled TransUnion.
My application for the Select card was declined due to I’m an existing Choice cardholder issued by Barclay and my account was converted to a master card issued by WF. Just a data point, 1/24, 800+. Disappointed.
I had a similar issue except I had actually cancelled my Barclays card a few days before applying. It’s a bit of a mess. Barclays says call Wells Fargo to confirm that the account has been closed. Wells Fargo said to call Barclays. We then came to to the agreement to call back after May 1st to confirm the transitioned card is no longer active with Wells Fargo and see if the app can be processed. Note that I don’t think I even got a hard pull, it’s like the applications was just rejected.
I also called WF, and the rep said that the old Choice card issued by Barclays had been converted to Choice Privileges Mastercard from WF already. So the reason for the decline of my application was that WF allows only one card per product family. If that is true, I can’t have both choice privileges and privileges select card. I hope there was no hard pull; too soon to confirm. I’m debating whether to cancel choice privileges to apply for Select.
I have the same situation. If I cancel the Choice card, can I apply the Choice Select card immediately and get the bonus?
Yes, you can. I had to do cancel & reapply. If you want it immediately processed I had to have it done manually thru talking to the underwriting department. I needed it all resolved quickly as I had a trip coming up in 10 days.
I got approved for $14K with no current relationship with WF (had a prior relationship). So this could be a backdoor for other cards too.
Same
They do not offer statement credit as redemption option and an amazon gift card is worth $25 for 8000 points, which makes the 60,000 bonus points worth $187.5. So, for the ones who think that the rate of conversion is the usual 100 points for $1, it is not. It may be a worthy card if you travel a lot, which is always tricky to find the real conversion rate, but you do not have any worthy options beyond travel to redeem the points for. I also recommend you always check how do the points get redeemed for either statement credit or most used gift cards like for amazon, which are almost as good as cash. Many times, the redemption conversion rate is much worse than 100 pts for $1, which again I consider the usual cash conversion rate. Do not assume that just because some credit card is offering 60,000 points bonus that is automatically converted to $600 statement credit in the baseline scenario, it could get much worse.
Based on my experience, even if you travel and use a card for hotel stays and airfares, I have found that, with few exceptions which may not be worthy, comparing the baseline cash conversion rates via statement credits or amazon gift cards should tell one if the card is good also for travel purchases as well. Please note that you need to find the exact airfare or hotel stay, in the exact same time and/or route to compare the true travel conversion rate.
Valuing hotel points based solely on their bottom-end cash out rate is just as bad as valuing points based on top-end redemptions at aspirational properties. There are good reasons to use a travel card that has a lower cash out value. Higher status levels are free night certs are two that come to mind. Focusing solely on CPP can sometimes cause someone to skip dollars to pick up pennies
Why on earth would you get a hotel credit card just to redeem points for cash? That’s not how this game works.
Because, on earth, $187 is $187 for FREE which you can spend on earth.
Why would you apply for a hotel branded card if you ONLY want to redeem points for cash?