COVID‐19 vaccines, as one of the effective ways of dealing with the COVID‐19 pandemic, can lower COVID‐19 risk and protect against severe disease and death; however, substantial individual differences in vaccination intentions have hindered the realization of a high vaccination rate among the public. To look for efficient strategies to promote vaccination, this study tested whether the protection motivation theory (PMT), a cognitive model based upon threat and coping appraisals, would account for the differences in vaccination intentions under three scenarios (i.e., vaccines in general and with high‐ or low‐ efficacy of lowering the risk of developing COVID‐19). A phone survey was conducted in early 2021 and obtained a probability community sample (n = 472; 49.2% men) in Macao, China. We found that 54.0% of respondents indicated their relatively strong intention to receive COVID‐19 vaccination for high‐efficacy vaccines, compared to 29.5% for low‐efficacy vaccines and 31.0% for vaccines in general. After controlling for demographics, self‐efficacy (i.e., the perceived capability of receiving COVID‐19 vaccines) and maladaptive response reward (i.e., the perceived benefits of not receiving COVID‐19 vaccines) were consistently associated with COVID‐ 19 vaccination intentions under all three scenarios. The perceived severity of COVID‐19 infection and response cost of COVID‐19 vaccination were significantly associated with vaccination intention for high‐efficacy vaccines, while the response efficacy of lowering the COVID‐19 impact with COVID‐19 vaccination was positively associated with vaccination intention for general and lowefficacy vaccines. Given that the relative strength of PMT constructs depends on perceived vaccine efficacy, we recommend taking PMT constructs and vaccine efficacy into account for encouraging vaccination.