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Rebook your IHG and Hilton rooms NOW – both will refund cheaper ‘Advance Purchase’ rates

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Both IHG Rewards Club and Hilton Honors have made positive announcements about removing the restrictions on Advance Purchase bookings.

This means there are unintended consequences:

if you have a Hilton or IHG hotel booking made at the Best Flexible rate, it makes sense to cancel it and rebook a cheaper Advance Purchase rate – because the Advance Purchase rate is now fully refundable!

if you have a Hilton or IHG hotel booking made at the Advance Purchase rate, you should check it – you could save money by cancelling and rebooking it if rates have fallen

Before you do this – because I don’t want to take the blame if anything goes wrong! – please carefully read:

the IHG policy on refunding Advance Purchase bookings here

the Hilton policy on refunding Advance Purchase bookings here

What is the new IHG policy on refunding Advance Purchase rooms?

IHG has said that it will waive cancellation fees on Advance Purchase bookings for stays up to 30th April.

The rule applies to both new and existing bookings.

Positively, IHG has said that this policy will also apply if you booked via an online travel agent such as Expedia or Booking.com.  However, you will need to contact the agent to discuss your cancellation rather than choosing the online cancellation option, as this is likely to trigger the existing ‘no refund’ rules.

If you have an existing IHG booking before 30th April at a flexible rate, or where the rate has fallen sharply since you booked an Advance Purchase rate, I recommend cancelling and rebooking at an Advance Purchase rate.

Please double-check the official IHG travel advisory notice, which is here, before taking action.

IHG is also reducing the elite status criteria for 2021

IHG Rewards Club is lowering the criteria for earning or renewing your status for 2021.

Take a look at this chart (click here to see the original):

IHG revised elite status criteria

Spire Elite is cut from 75,000 base points to 55,000 base points, or from 75 nights to 55 nights.

Hilton policy on refunding Advance Purchase rooms

What is the new Hilton policy on refunding Advance Purchase rooms?

Hilton has said that it will waive cancellation fees on EXISTING Advance Purchase bookings for stays up to 30th April.

For NEW bookings, the wording implies that Advance Purchase bookings made by 30th April for ANY future date will be fully refundable.

The only requirement is that you cancel 24 hours before arrival.

Hilton has NOT said if this policy applies to bookings made via other channels such as Expedia.

If you have an existing Hilton booking at a flexible rate, or where the rate has fallen sharply since you booked an Advance Purchase rate, I recommend cancelling and rebooking at an Advance Purchase rate.

Please double-check the official Hilton travel advisory notice, which is here, before taking action.

Hilton has also said that it is working on a policy to deal with status expiry although it is not yet finalised.  In the interim, all points expiry will be curtailed until 31st May.

Remember that Hilton is still offering a status match – this HFP article explains how.

Before you ask, there is no similar news yet from Marriott.  The only waiver on offer is only valid to 31st March and only covers the following countries: Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, French Polynesia, Maldives, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal Bangladesh, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa, Italy.  You can find out more on marriott.com.

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.

Category

Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards

Comments (61)

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

  • Cal says:
    12 Mar12 March 14:40

    Any idea if hotels.com will change their policy to align with this?

    • Rob says:
      12 Mar12 March 14:52

      For IHG, yes. Not clear for Hilton. For other chains, Hotels.com is just an agent remember.

    • meta says:
      12 Mar12 March 16:04

      Call hotels.com. They once did it for me on non-refundable rate even when there was no pandemic. They didn’t refund, but gave me a voucher in the amount equivalent valid for 12 months. I was a Gold member at the time though, so maybe that’s why they were more keen.

  • Roger says:
    12 Mar12 March 14:52

    I have IHG non refundable rate booking.
    I am also spire elite.

    Would I be able to cancel for free?
    The APP still showing as non refundable.

    What are my options?

  • BJ says:
    12 Mar12 March 15:10

    I have bookings I need to cancel on 1st and 2nd May so hoping for an extension.

  • Jean Mob says:
    12 Mar12 March 15:13

    Hi since IHG and Hilton have made concessions regarding flexibility on hotel bookings it’s a shame that Marriott have not done the same we had to cancel a holiday in Mallorca leaving today for one week and Marriott will not budge with rant refund or even a voucher to use at a later time so we have lost it all since we chose to cancel our travel insurance will not pay out!!!!

    • BJ says:
      12 Mar12 March 15:25

      Now you have excellent grounds for a formal complaint, and don’t forget to remind them you have a choice going forward.

  • DK says:
    12 Mar12 March 15:54

    Is the message around the ability to cancel existing Advance Purchase bookings until the 30th of April caveated at all by the listing of specific regions where modification / cancellation policies are in place? For example, both existing and new bookings seem to be open to cancellation until the 30th of April, but bookings made by people travelling between the EU and US can be cancelled between the 13th of March and 13th of April. I’m probably missing something obvious but i’m not sure why you’d need specific waivers if bookings are covered for a longer period by a blanket policy.

    • Rob says:
      12 Mar12 March 15:57

      Those are the old rules, which are now overtaken by the new rule. I know it’s confusing. If you got the email directly from IHG it is a lot clearer.

  • Jil says:
    12 Mar12 March 16:26

    I have a IHG free night certificate that will expire end of April, given the current situation I don’t expect to use it, is there any policy to extend the expiry date of free night certificate, I think IHG did this for China based members.

    • EwanG says:
      12 Mar12 March 16:33

      Free night from the credit card?
      The expiry date is the date you need to book by, i.e. no problem with booking a hotel after that point – I just did this myself.

      If you cancel before the expiry date, the voucher will be returned, after that point you won’t get the voucher back

    • xcalx says:
      12 Mar12 March 16:34

      Called Marriott last week re a May expiring cat 4 7 night cert and was advised to call back when under 2 weeks from expiry and they would look favourably on an extension.

  • xcalx says:
    12 Mar12 March 16:29

    Good news. Albeit nearly a week after Airbnb dropped all cancelation restrictions.

  • Scallder says:
    12 Mar12 March 16:45

    The Drop of IHG status thresholds means that suddenly anyone aiming for Spire Elite from credit card spending needs to spend £10k less now (on the premium card). So if you took the 25k bonus points upon Spire Elite qualificaiton, that’s 100k points from £27.5k of credit card spend, so 3.64 points per £ on the first £27.5k meaning 1.45% return (at 1 IHG point = 0.4p value) on spending which is pretty significant for a Visa/Mastercard.

    • Rob says:
      12 Mar12 March 16:59

      Good thinking!

      • Froggee says:
        12 Mar12 March 17:29

        Would it not be 80,000 points from £27.5k of spending as you only earned 55,000 to get the status plus the bonus 25,000?

        • Scallder says:
          12 Mar12 March 17:43

          Sorry – yes of course it would be…

          so 2.91 points per £ spent (and assuming all UK spend and no FX spend earning 4 points per £), so 1.16% return at 0.4p per IHG point.

          • Scallder says:
            12 Mar12 March 17:44

            at normal 37.5k spend would be 1.07% return (for 100k points) so not that much of an increase, but still a bit…

          • Cam says:
            13 Mar13 March 05:21

            I was thinking along the same lines. It doesn’t make sense for CC spend alone, but with some non-UK and IHG spend to increase earnings, and points from IHG stays, this is achievable.

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

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