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Last two days to book IHG hotels at the old rates before devaluation

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This is an important reminder that the IHG Rewards Club devaluation kicks in from Wednesday.

You only have until Tuesday night to lock in one of the 200 hotels which are increasing in price at the old rate.

Take a look here for the full list.

It contains 400 hotels.  200 will require more points from 17th February, 200 will require fewer.

The bad news is that, unless you plan to spend a lot of time in China, Brazil or India, you won’t be benefitting from the 200 being reduced in price.

Two new pricing bands for InterContinental hotels are being introduced – 55,000 points per night and 60,000 points per night.

The number of properties at the 60,000 point level is relatively small, with just 13 hotels.  Unfortunately, they are key properties.   Of the 5,000 IHG hotels in the world, I have probably done 20% of my nights in these nine hotels.

The 60,000 point properties are the IC hotels in Paris (x2), London Park Lane, Cannes (pictured above), Hong Kong, Bora Bora (x2), Monterray, San Francisco (x2), Las Vegas (x2) and New York Times Square.  You can imagine that The Barclay in New York will also be at 60,000 points when it reopens – annoyingly, whilst already accepting cash bookings, you cannot book a redemption yet.

There are some surprising rises elsewhere.  Is the Holiday Inn Camden Lock really worth 40,000 points?  Or Kensington Forum, which is badly in need of help and which I paid £29 for in a sale in 2014?!  Is a Holiday Inn Express in Southampton, of all places, really worth 35,000 points?

The two main Crowne Plaza hotels in London (Kensington and The City) go up to 50,000 points.  The Indigo Earls Court jumps 33% to 40,000 points, correcting what was arguably an anomaly – but it remains 10,000 points cheaper than the other two Indigo hotels.

Holiday Inn Wembley remains at 20,000 points which, compared to the other options in London, makes it a great deal if you are short on points.

You have less than 48 hours to lock in bookings at the old rates.  As you can cancel IHG Rewards Club bookings for no penalty, and get all of your points back instantly, there is zero risk in making speculative bookings today over at ihg.com.

The full list of changes is here.


IHG One Rewards update – April 2024:

Get bonus points: IHG One Rewards is offering 2,000 bonus points for every two cash nights you stay (not necessarily consecutive) between 1st April and 31st May 2024. You can read our full article here and you can register here.

New to IHG One Rewards?  Read our overview of IHG One Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG One Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG One Rewards points, you can buy them here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from IHG and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Comments (22)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Sam wardill says:

    How quick do Virgin miles convert to IHG if you’ve never done before?

  • Concerto says:

    Thanks for the reminder, this one almost slipped by me.

  • Jamie P says:

    Cancelled my original reservation made with cash and now booked 4 nights in the IC Hong Kong for 45,000 + $40 a night, bringing my balance back to 0.
    As an Intercontinental Ambassador, are my benefits still applied despite the reservation being a reward booking?

    • Rob says:

      Under the rules, no. Most hotels still give them however.

      • Jamie P says:

        Cheers for the quick response. Fingers crossed thast the benefits are applied to the booking. Wouldn’t mind a room with a view of Victoria Harbour

        • Will says:

          If your stay includes a weekend aquire a weekend cert and book a harbour view with it.

          The IC HK is possibly my favourite hotel in the world, you simply must have a harbour view.

          Their policy is not to upgrade non harbour view to harbour view.

          If you book a harbour view as a spire ambassador you usually get a lovely 3rd floor exec suite.

    • Kai says:

      IC Hong Kong normally offers no room upgrade on award bookings unless you are Royal Ambassador. However, other benefits like welcome gift and extended check out should be granted per program rules.

  • Jo says:

    Can anyone point me to an IHG property that has the 15,000 points for $90 option using the cash & points refund trick? All those I’ve checked, even the IHG Hong Kong referenced in Rob’s original article earlier this year, are only offering up to 10,000 for $70.

    • xcalx says:

      HIX New York Brooklyn has the 20,000 plus $90 for the 15000 points option for 16th May 2016. In fact search New York quite a few $90 options are showing for this date.

    • Trickster says:

      The CP La Concha in Key West Florida does it.

  • Daz says:

    At least the IC and Crowne Plaza in Singapore are left out of the equation.

    Rob: The HIE at Jcn 7 in Southampton is next to the Rosebowl stadium if I remember correctly so that is probably the reason for the increase in points, I stayed there a couple of years ago and it is a bog-standard HIE.

  • KP says:

    Assumed Intercontinental Ko Samui would be in this list but thankfully not. Looking to book some nights up shortly.

  • giggle says:

    Hi, I had a friend sign up to that last IHG accelerate and they were given two reward nights and not the 100K points. I am presuming they the increase in points doesn’t affect them would that be right?

    • Voldemort says:

      It doesn’t but availability at the top properties is looking worse by the day and the vouchers expedite at the end of 2016. Tell them to get booked soon if they want a top choice.

  • nick says:

    Quick question: do the points from the cash+points booking trick come through immediately? And is there a limit to what I can put through? I need 12,000 points ASAP!

    Thanks!

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