Stay: July 2023

Paid: Transferred 50,000 Citi ThankYou points at 1:2 ratio to Choice Hotels hotel program, which resulted in 100,000 Choice Hotels points after the transfer. This covered two rooms for two nights at the peak rate (25,000 Choice Hotels points per room per night).

Status: None

Rooms: Suite & Junior Suite

Would I stay again: Yes

Would I recommend to friends: Yes

This might be one of the best points-value hotels out there.

Beautiful hotel, free minibar, free breakfast, central location, and only 12,500 credit card points per room in the absolute peak of Venice summer tourist season? If you can find a better deal than this, I’d love to hear about it.

We had heard about this hotel through the points-and-miles grapevine, and I knew that if we wanted to book it, the most bang-for-your-buck way to do it would be to transfer Citi ThankYou points to Choice Hotels. So I applied for the Citi Premier card with this hotel in mind. (When I applied, the sign-up bonus was 80,000 points, but it’s usually 60,000 points. Still a great deal if you use it for a high-value redemption like this one!)

Check-in/service: Check-in was seamless and the front-desk employees were all friendly and helpful every time we encountered them.

Rooms: The extra-cool thing about booking a Choice Hotel with Choice Privileges points is that you can book any type of room for the same flat points rate. So a suite is the same price as a standard room. We booked a junior suite and a suite, and both are pictured below. Both rooms were impeccably clean, had all the amenities you’d expect in a four-star hotel, and were comfortable.

We magnanimously gave our kids the suite so they’d have more room to spread out (and maybe also so they’d be the ones having to deal with the sit-down shower situation) and we took the junior suite that faced onto the Campo in case there were noise issues with the festival we saw being set up when we checked in.

(I’ve heard that the suite our kids had can actually fit and allow a family of four, if the two kids are fairly small, but that’s something you’d want to email the hotel to ask about to be sure. Because we don’t have little kids anymore and we wanted space (and because the points cost was so low!), we booked two rooms.)

Both rooms included a minifridge stocked with free nonalcoholic drinks (two types of juice, still water, sparkling water, and a Coke). These were very appreciated because it was HOT in Venice when we were there and we definitely needed cold drinks.

Hotel amenities: The hotel features a relaxing courtyard (which is where the bar is located in the summer), an indoor bar area, a large reading room, a huge breakfast room, a gym, and a wellness room where massages can be booked in advance of your stay. The hotel works elaborate Murano glass chandeliers, terrazzo flooring, and traditional Venetian artwork into the rooms all over the property, which gives it a truly Venetian feel. You know you’re in Venice when you stay here, because you really couldn’t be anywhere else.

Food/drink: We didn’t hit up the bar during our stay, so I can’t comment on that, but we really enjoyed the elaborate breakfast laid out each morning in the breakfast room. There were tons of choices of pastries, eggs, meats, fruit, cheeses, breads, jams, vegetables, and two pretty great espresso machines that would make any kind of coffee drink (or hot chocolate) you could imagine, and everything was delicious, fresh, and plentiful. And it was all included in our stay. There’s also a small grocery store just across the Campo, which is really convenient if you need drinks, snacks, or any other supplies.

Parking/transportation: The Hotel Aquarius is in a great central location. Just like anywhere in Venice, your primary method of transport is going to be your feet, followed by water taxis/vaporettos/waterbuses, and the hotel is pretty close to the Grand Canal, where all the boats stop. There is no parking in the main part of Venice. (You probably already knew that, but hey, just so there’s no ambiguity.)

My take: I loved this hotel and would stay here again if I was headed to Venice, no question. It’s such a great value with points!

Additional important information: If you’re using points to book a Choice Hotel like the Hotel Aquarius, you can only book 100 days in advance. This is a marked difference from most other major hotel programs, which usually allow bookings around a year in advance. When we booked, we booked at exactly 100 days out from our stay, and one of the other suite-type rooms had already been booked—someone else was even quicker than we were. If you intend to stay in this hotel, I’d try to book as close to 100 days in advance as possible. (Because we’re Type A and the idea of waiting so long to book gave us anxiety, we also had booked a refundable hotel stay elsewhere in Venice just in case this hotel didn’t have available rooms, and then once we got the Hotel Aquarius booked, we canceled that reservation.)

How you can stay here: The best value is to transfer your Citi ThankYou points to Choice Hotels at a 1:2 ratio (i.e., 50,000 ThankYou points = 100,000 Choice Privileges points). You can also transfer Capital One Venture Miles and American Express Membership Rewards points to Choice Hotels, but both of those points transfer at a 1:1 ratio, so you’re getting half the value from your points compared to using ThankYou points. (In the right circumstances, that could still be a pretty good deal.) We paid 25,000 Choice Privileges points per room per night, and that was the peak rate; it’s cheaper during the non-peak seasons. (I think it’s 20,000 points per night then.)

Options to earn Choice Privileges points: These first eight cards all earn points that transfer to Choice Privileges and a bunch of other airlines and hotel programs. Transferable points are the best kinds of points to earn because you retain valuable flexibility; not being tied to one rewards program is key to getting high-value redemptions. The last link earns only Choice Privileges points (and is not an affiliate link), and those points can’t be used for any other type of travel.

Citi Premier (personal card)

Capital One Venture X (personal card)

Capital One Venture (personal card)

American Express Gold card (personal card)

American Express Platinum card (personal card)

American Express Green card (personal card)

American Express Business Gold card (business card)

American Express Business Platinum card (business card)

Choice Privileges cards (personal cards)