New IHG 5,000 point ‘PointBreaks’ list announced – book from Monday

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• James67 says:

  25 Jan25 January 08:10

  After the bookinh shambles they had by preannouncing list last time you would think they would not have done it again. I missed out on chance to get Phuket costing me about £600 as a result. Previously I never failed to get a pointsbreak I wanted. It is good practice to book reward nights one at a time however if the last PB shambles is repeated then doing so at the morepopular hotels may mean you will not get all the nights you require.

• Volker says:

  25 Jan25 January 08:58

  “You will be able to book these hotels for dates up to March 31st.”

  I need to book a number of nights in April. A loyal Hilton guest, I never paid much attention to these PointBreaks, but as I’ve earned a number of IHG points through their recent promos, I wanted to stay in some of their properties for a change (sorry, Hilton…).

  Now it turns out that I would have to wait for the next PointBreaks list which will hopefully cover April – is that going to be published at the end of March?

  • Rob says:

    25 Jan25 January 09:31

    Yes, will be the last week of March

    • Trevor says:

      27 Jan27 January 15:27

      Are the PointBreaks time periods consistant, or do they frequently differ, ie last time it was for a 3 month period, Nov, Dec & Jan. This release is only for 2 months – Feb & March. A shame as I was hoping to get something now for April 🙁

      • Rob says:

        27 Jan27 January 15:59

        It is usually every 2 months.

        • Trevor says:

          27 Jan27 January 16:51

          Thanks, I thought they’d be quarterly when the previous one was, and I hadn’t looked at them before the 1st Big Win since I had so few points.

• Irena says:

  25 Jan25 January 14:52

  I have a question about the IHG price guarantee they offer. They say:

  “Every hotel reservation booked through an IHG web site is guaranteed to have the lowest room price (room rate) or total room cost (including all taxes and fees) publicly available on the internet or IHG will provide the first night’s room price free and match the lower average nightly room price found for that stay for the rest of the nights of that stay (subject to the Terms and Conditions of the Guarantee).”

  But Expedia constantly has better rates for IHG hotels than the IHG website. Am I missing something here? Is there something in the small print that will make my claim void?

  What if I’m only staying one night? Do they just give it to you free?! Surely not.

  • pauldb says:

    25 Jan25 January 16:56

    I’ve not often found cheaper rates than IHG’s own site. Do you have example? Expedia 10% voucher discounts wouldn’t count but otherwise, if the conditions match, yes they do honour it without being difficult.
    Last month we stayed 1 night in the CP Kensington for free and still got a Platinum upgrade to a duplex suite.

  • Rob says:

    25 Jan25 January 17:33

    Yes, they give it you free. I know someone who has booked £30,000 of IHG free nights for himself and others, seriously.

    The reason I don’t write about it is that there is small print and if you are not 100% on the ball you get caught out. Even trickier, you now have to claim by email (you could previously call and get an on the spot comparison) and by the time they look at your email the comparable rate may have gone.

    I doubt those Expedia rates are lower. Expedia adds taxes and fees. It is almost unheard of to get best rate guarantee claims via them. It is usually via smaller websites like hotelhippo or some of the airline-run hotel sites. You will ONLY find a BRG when a hotel has broken the terms of its agreement with IHG and is secretly sneaking out rooms at a discount – this is why IHG gives you the room free, to punish the hotel. It is NOT a consumer friendly feature, IHG is paying you to do its dirty work for it in tracking down rogue properties.

    • John says:

      25 Jan25 January 19:35

      Because you don’t pay IHG, you pay the hotel, and the hotel charges you in its home currency.

      If you must pay in £, you could always ask the hotel to use DCC… which is going to be more expensive even if you have to pay a 3% forex fee to your card.

      • Irena says:

        25 Jan25 January 19:37

        I’m now looking at a pre paid rate with no cancellation (which of course is lower). So I’d be charging my debit card up front for it. I’m ok with this except for the tax issue.I can’t get a clear answer out of their chat support. Does anyone have experience with this?

        Booking a hotel in say Chile, but you’re a foreign national, the way it reads you shouldn’t have to pay the 19% tax. Is that correct in practice?

        • neuromancer says:

          25 Jan25 January 22:41

          It was correct as of 3 years ago, and I’m not aware of any changes. But you have to pay in foreign currency, not chilean pesos, and they may reprice it from pesos using an approximate rate, certainly not a big loss compared to 19% tax.

        • John says:

          26 Jan26 January 09:59

          One of the rare situations when DCC is desirable!

        • Irena says:

          26 Jan26 January 15:02

          Thank you for the info. I’ll probably book this through the IHG website as I’ve got a new member bonus thing on there, and I’ll let you know what happens with the tax.

          As it happens, I have a visa debit card which has no currency fees on it and no fixed charge either. So it’s probably better for me if they just set the currency and charge my card directly in it.

• Phil says:

  25 Jan25 January 16:55

  Rather surprisingly the Holiday Inn Darlington-A1 Scotch Corner is a fantastic hotel. Great rooms, recognition of status and facilities

  • mitpat447 says:

    26 Jan26 January 10:58

    Agree really nice and new hotel – exec rooms are well worth it

• Rob says:

  25 Jan25 January 17:29

  Does anyone know what time on Monday the pointbreak sales normally start?

  • Rob says:

    25 Jan25 January 17:43

    Sorry – just saw the answer in the article! (mid afternoon UK if anyone else missed it!)

• pazza2000 says:

  25 Jan25 January 18:02

  Pretty poor list for this time of year.

• Trevor says:

  27 Jan27 January 15:32

  Anyone have any experience booking PointBreaks for more than 2 in a room? I’m looking for a family of 4, yet while they advertise 5,000 points or £xx for the room, when it comes to checking availability, they have it if you pay, but not if you point. Do they only ever offer the max 2 people rooms in these offers, making them mostly pointless for me?

  • Rob says:

    27 Jan27 January 15:58

    Most hotels only release standard rooms for awards, standard rooms usually only take 2 people (or fire regs stop them putting in more people). The normal thing to do is to book 2 rooms and ask for connecting ones, after first checking that the hotels does actually have connecting rooms. We have done this numerous times with no problems.

    (Once a hotel chose to upgrade us to rooms which did not connect, but they were happy to downgrade us again when asked!)

    • Trevor says:

      27 Jan27 January 16:55

      Thanks, Raffles. A shame it’s generally only the smallest options. But after this posting, I did search some more and found some room for 4 or even 6 in Staybridge and Candlewoods, and even an HI that did take 4 – but they were all in the US. Don’t seem to have decent size rooms or even PointBreak options where I wanna go. Oh well, if I’m gonna use these points, I guess it might have to be 2 rooms at double the cost (which makes the big Win only half as worthwhile), but without connecting rooms, it’s not really an option with 2 small kids.

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