Over 650 IHG Hotels Will Change Points Prices January 15. And Two-Thirds Get More Expensive (Mostly in the U.S.)

IHG Rewards Club has posted a .pdf of hotels that will be changing rewards redemption category on January 15.

  • About 650 hotels are changing category. Of those, about 75% are going to cost more points to redeem starting January 15th.

  • Two-thirds of the hotels that are changing category are in the U.S. Over 90% of those are going up in category and price.

  • Outside the U.S. things are far more evenly split. About half the 230 hotels outside the U.S. changing category are going up and half are going down.

  • Quite a few hotels in the UK are going up or down 5000 points. Unsurprisingly hotels in Turkey get less expensive. The biggest clusters of point reductions are in India and especially in China outside of Shanghai and Beijing.

Internationally most prices go up or down 5000 points, some 10,000 points. But in the U.S. we actually see several 15,000 point increases. For instance,

  • Holiday Inn Express & Suites Woodland Hills Woodland Hills CA United States going from 20,000 to 35,000
  • Holiday Inn Express & Suites Salinas Salinas CA United States going from 25,000 to 40,000
  • Holiday Inn Express & Suites Santa Clara Santa Clara CA United States going from 25,000 to 40,000
  • Holiday Inn Orlando SW – Celebration Area Kissimmee FL United States going from 25,000 to 40,000
  • Holiday Inn Louisville Airport – Fair/Expo Louisville KY United States going from 25,000 to 40,000

The biggest cluster of reductions in the US (if you can call it that, since only about 30 US hotels drop in price) can be found in small town Texas.

New 60,000 point hotels are:

  • InterContinental Los Angeles Century City Los Angeles CA United States
  • InterContinental The Willard Washington D.C. Washington DC United States
  • InterContinental Boston Boston MA United States
  • InterContinental Sydney Sydney NW Australia
  • InterContinental ANA Manza Beach Resort Okinawa Japan


Intercontinental Boston

If a hotel you’re interested in is going to cost more points starting mid-January, book it now!

(HT: Rob F.)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. Gary on a different note. Can I still load a Simon visa gift card into my bluebird account at Walmart? For Christmas I’ve got two cards.
    Thank you

  2. Thank you for posting this.

    As a result of this I now value points well under .3 cents, and will not be inconvenienced with what was a pretty easy accelerate promotion.

    I have almost two million points across various airline and hotel programs. I have enjoyed (?) many hours learning.

    I won’t write that this is the end for me — I know I won’t be stopping — but it stopped being anywhere close to profitable at least a couple of years ago.

    Ihg closed my wife down a couple of years ago without notice on the basis of her having six accounts with them. She had only one membership in a loyalty program — with ihg — and perhaps five nights with them and about fifty thousand points. She stayed In a foreign country , so had to physically be present and show her passport for all stays. How could one have any loyalty to a business that operates in such a manner?

  3. I agree, this 60k properties are insane! Hilton in the making… I wonder how chase feels when they invest in a currency reward and then they become more and more useless… Whos gonna use their IHG card now? Spend $60,000 get a free night at the $160 intercontinental boston… WOW SUCH VALUE! with a 2% card you would have gotten $1,200

  4. Gary, oh-so-thank-U for this heads up!
    Estio, why did IHG mistakenly think your wife had 6 accounts with them?

  5. Thank you for the heads up. IHG has gone nuts! I’ve stayed at Holiday Inn Orlando SW – Celebration Area Kissimmee FL. a few times, and you can often book this place for $80, maybe $100 in high season. I remember when it used to cost 20K points per night, and I thought THAT was too much. Now they want 40K points? Wow. Looks like many hotels I like will be more expensive as well. That’s what happens when you flood the market with a huge quantity of points via various promos. Earn and burn, this rule couldn’t apply more to IHG.

  6. Bibombervb,

    Not sure why ihg thought that she had multiple accounts — but my guess is that I used the same internet connection or laptop to book hotels for herself as I have for myself in the past. Or , it is possible that I used the same credit card — she is an additional user. Or , perhaps because she has the same address as me. Or perhaps because she did one and only one fairly lucrative targeted (for her) promotion. For me ihg is my fourth chain, so I have made relatively few stays — almost all of my points are from the sign up bonus for their credit card, perhaps as long as seven years ago, almost all of my stays are the annual free night.

    It was unpleasant trying to log in and getting an error message with no explanation, as it was proving to ihg csr in the Philippines that she has no other accounts — how can one prove that one has no anything? My wife does not speak English, so I was the one calling ihg as if I was her.

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