Reminder: IHG Rewards Club pricing changes on May 1st and two bargains which may go

When IHG Rewards Club – the Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Crowne Plaza etc scheme – announced changes to its programme last week, most people focussed on July 1st as the key date.  This is the date that the new top tier for people staying 75 nights or earning 75,000 base points kicks in.

What you may have not spotted is that reward pricing changes earlier – on May 1st.  Given all the upheaval about the Avios changes on April 28th, you don’t want to let the IHG changes slip by.

This is what you need to remember:

350 hotels are going up in price by 5,000 or 10,000 points

150 hotels are going down in price by 5,000 points

The 50,000 points cap is NOT changing

All redemption rooms can be cancelled without penalty

IHG is not releasing a list of which hotels will change category

If you think you might need an IHG Rewards Club redemption for later in the year, you have nothing to lose by hopping over to ihg.com and booking it now.

The only exception is if you are booking a 50,000 point per night InterContinental hotel, as you know that these will not be increasing.

To be honest, I doubt that most big city hotels will change much.  We may see some London properties go down – I doubt a Holiday Inn Express at 35,000 points is attracting many redemptions when InterContinental Park Lane is only 50,000 points.

There are two exceptional bargains in London which might disappear on May 1st.

The first is Holiday Inn Wembley.  This is a fully refurbished hotel, adjacent to Wembley Stadium, which is only 10,000 points per night.  I have stayed there and reviewed it here.

The second is Holiday Inn Express Wimbledon South.  This is apparently opposite Colliers Wood tube station.  I have never visited the hotel but it claims to have been refurbished recently.  It can booked for 15,000 points per night.

You might want to spend some time over at ihg.com making speculative bookings over the next few days.  If you change your plans, you get all of your points back instantly when you cancel and there are no fees to do so.

(Want to earn more hotel points?  To see our complete list of promotions from the major chains, click here to visit our ‘Hotel Promos’ page or use the link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)