IHG Rewards is weak recognizing loyal customers (elite benefits). Don’t expect suite upgrades, breakfast, or even guaranteed late check-out and program terms allow hotels to skip most elite benefits on award nights.
They don’t let you redeem extra points for better rooms like suites, either. Still they used to be a strong earn-and-burn program. Redemption prices were reasonable and stackable bonuses plentiful.
After they eliminated redemption charts, though, they introduced 70,000 point awards and then before the pandemic introduced 100,000 point award nights.
Now that’s not even the cap – Six Senses redemptions aside, they’re increasing the price of some standard IHG brands to levels previously unseen.
Since they don’t public award prices, you have to search hotel-by-hotel, it’s tough to get a clear picture but there are reports of the following:
- Holiday Inn Express properties for 70,000 points a night? You’ll pay that much at the Holiday Inn Express Zion Springdale. The Holiday Inn Express Sequim Washington is up to 65,000.
- Holiday Inns for 79,000 points a night? You can find that at Holiday Inn Bar Harbor in August.
- Kimpton Shorebreak in June up to 85,000 points per night.
- And 100,000 is no longer the maximum price for the Intercontinental, it will sometimes price at 100,000 but will also price up to 120,000 points per night. And variable prices are now the norm at some hotels with the Intercontinental Park Lane in London no longer a 70,000 point property, it may be 82,000 or 85,000 or some other price.
The worst thing of course is that IHG hasn’t communicated anything about this with members. The funny thing is that IHG understands loyalty conceptually but fails to put it into practice.
April 5 Update: IHG offers a statement explaining that the points prices of their hotels now change day-to-day and there are no guidelines or guarantees any longer,
We rolled out our Dynamic Pricing models to our hotels around the world last year which enabled the amount of points required for IHG Rewards members to redeem a Reward Night to flex up and down, just like cash rates.
Previously, Reward Night point amounts were static throughout the year. This model allows point amounts to decrease when demand is lower, providing greater value to our members.
Conversely, redemption amounts may also increase based on demand and other factors and can update as often as daily. Reward Nights are not defined by categories or with minimum and maximum point amounts.
Under our new model, the number of points required for Reward Nights will vary with demand and seasonality.
(HT: Tom in the comments)
They were the first in the early 80s. We would switch Holiday Inn hotels in a city on a three night trip and get 3 points instead of at the same hotel and get 2 points. 75 points got me Aruba one week honeymoon stay 1984. Unbelievable.
About a month ago, I booked a hotel in London for September at an reasonable rate using points. Just yesterday, I tried to make the same booking for a friend, and the point price had doubled.
A week back I booked Holiday Inn Express, Alamosa, CO for June @17500/night. Now the same hotel for the same dates and same rooms going at @38000/night.
Same thing I noticed with other properties in Rapid City Wyoming where I booked for 17500 is now much higher.
Something happened in the last couple of days.
And yet the blogs continue to pump IHG credit cards as if they’re crack cocaine.
Basically, the only programs worth investing are first Hyatt and then Marriott. Radisson and Accor are interesting but seldom covered, though they may make sense for parts of Europe, Asia and the Indo-Pacific.
I’d expect to see this behavior become quite prevalent with both cash and points as “revenge travel” sets in and properties seek to capitalize. I’ve already encountered one property that doubled their cash rates overnight – in a discussion they explicitly said that they had loaded their “post COVID rates” – and that’s off a small sample size. Likely to be an accelerating trend in the coming months.
@BlackHill: I have stayed at those properties. They are horribly outdated. But unfortunately when you’re in small-town Colorado or Wyoming often the only branded hotel with points (besides Best Western) is an IHG brand, like Holiday Inn Express. As bad as IHG is I don’t anyone who would choose a domestic Holiday Inn over a Holiday Inn Express.
I’ve stayed at the Holiday Inn Bar Harbor. It’s not worth 79,000 points. Good thing work paid.
Understand but I can also find Holiday Inn Expresses for 12,500 a night and w 4th night free a 4 night award booking is 37,500 which almost always is great value.
IMHO you should only use points for 4 night stays w IHG and 5 night stays w Hilton/Marriott to get extra night free. Otherwise hardly worth using points – just pay for the room.
Note that Amex Business Platinum now will cover broken or lost cell phones.
Besides the increased point cost, as this settles out, curious to see how many hotels/nights that used to be 40 or less and now over that. This matters since the credit card free nights are now capped at 40K.
Marriott cred card 35K free nights have become a lot harder to use in the last couple of years as hotels move up a category and as peak pricing was rolled out. I’ve still found the IHG credit card nights pretty easy to use, and would hate to see them suffer the same fate.
I totally agree with BlackHill
I booked the Candlewood in Fairbanks AK for 17.5K per night in mid May. Now the same dates are 35K/night but cash rate hasn’t changed. Something happened in the past week
The price is likely tied to the hotel rate. If it’s a 1000 bucks a night expect to pay 100,000 points per night
Something strange does seem to be going on, particularly with HIE. On some days, the HIE in Monterey costs more points than the IC.
I don’t know who would ever redeem points for a Holiday Inn or Holiday Inn Express. Heck, even Crowne Plaza, at least domestically, offers no value. Maybe in Asia. But basically the only brand worth anything –– and even then, it’s with a huge grain of salt –– is Intercontinental. IHG is worthless. I have spire status and can’t even get a welcome note from a GM, let alone free breakfast. I only maintain the status because my wife insists on doing 4-5 nights every year at the Intercontinental Le Grand in Paris.
@Gary – As a very prominent blogger, what actions would you consider taking? Your voice counts a lot more than ours and if you took a public stand, IHG might decide to mitigate their onslaught of customer-unfriendly moves. Over the past five or so years IHG has repeatedly devalued award prices, raising the price of a top hotel from 50,000 points to 100,000+, devalued then entirely killed off point saver awards, and made the free credit card night go from any property to pretty much the ones you wouldn’t want to stay at. I’m about ready to give up on the program and cancel my IHG credit card. The program has gotten so much worse that it’s increasingly not worth the effort to find actual value in the program.
Is there a consolidated list somewhere of what properties were impacted by this?
FWIW, I booked the InterContinental in PhraTamnak Thailand for November a little while back, and got an AMAZING deal – 15,000 points/night instead of the usual 35,000 (and I still got 10% refunded and 4th night free). Checking today, it’s still going for that rate.
Maybe a sign of things to come, like rental car prices. Things will have to shake out eventually.
Or, maybe this is a system error that will be walked back soon …
I checked the redemption rates for a certain Asian destination, and I did not see any increase!
what ever happened to the point break listings? 5/10/15K nights?
I’ve stayed at the Springdale Holiday Inn Express- it was a well-kept former Best Western. The Springdale-Zion area is approaching Jackson Hole level of peak season pricing for properties on the town shuttle route- cash price for that property can run $300+ for holiday weekends and such, which is still cheaper than the Springhill Suites it shares a parking lot with. It used to be a screaming deal at 20K points a night before IHG figured out that chain hotels adjacent to national parks can command Big City award prices and devalued properties like that accordingly- IIRC, it was 40K a night when we stayed there in 2018 when the all-in cash rate was maybe $260 a night.
>>>The worst thing of course is that IHG hasn’t communicated anything about this with members.<<<
Gary, do you remember IHG ever devaluing w/o prior notice to the members? If they had given us notice ahead of time I could understand it, but this is ridiculous. This makes IHGs such a poor value vs Marriott/Hilton that it is easily bad enough to make me leave the brand.
I’m glad I burned only a couple of days ago a pair of Chase IHG certificates for Zion NP in August. I bet there’re a lot fewer places to use these certificates now.
Craig, Just check on quarantine regulations before you rush to Thailand. I live there and quarantine is still in force. The Government cannot make up its mind. SEPT 1st quarantine is supposed to cease for everyone, but that could change. I have rates of THB 1,000 per nt because of Covid.
I have an IC Ambassador reward night that expires at the end of this month. Per the T&C’s, it is good for “Up to 40,000 points”. None of the ICs or Kimptons within 200 miles (and there are many in Northern/central California) have any availability for a reward night for any night in April. Beyond that, many of the lower IHG brands are pricing over 40,000 points. So much for IHG and it’s nonsense rewards program.
Bar harbor Maine is stuck in 1970 Go SOME WHERE ELSE.
Maybe it’s time to end all these point programs.
When the redemption cost is so high why would anyone want to participate in this madness?
Not only IHG but every reward program has one mission…screw the customer.
The cost to implement these programs just adds on to the price of the product.
All good things must come to an end. This is one of them.
We staid at Holiday Inn Express Zion in October with a free night certificate and it was an outstanding value. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they would inflate the point value from 40,000 to 70,000.
@Iolaire — Zion is the most overcrowded National Park in America. It has irrationally captured the attention of every elite in America for their “Covid-safe” vacation. That’s why room rates are high in Springdale. In reality, Zion is not must see, and their bus system and crowds make the park a below average experience. Go anywhere else in southern Utah and you will be much happier. Last fall, we planned to stay 3 nights in Zion at stayed one. Best vacation decision we’re ever made.
I wish you wouldn’t update old posts.
But regardless, I don’t know how IHG can with a straight face claim points needed to increase to match demand (“fluctuate daily”) when we’re in a pandemic and many hotels have no guests at the moment due to travel restrictions. There is no demand to go to Paris right now because nobody is going to Paris. How can rates increase with no demand? And who sets the number of points per night, the hotel or corporate?
Hard to see how this isn’t a violation of some of the credit card laws. If the signup bonus was $500 but they decided to give you $300, that’s not legal even if it says they can do it in the ts&cs. How is this different from offering a massive points dub and the getting its value in half.
I am ready to join a glass action suit against uhh (and drag chase in too)
With Chase Free nights capped at 40K, those CC (even with sign-in bonuses), do not make any sense. The time had come to dump IHC CC and stays in their properties.
It is time to rethink the IHG loyalty program. Spending so much with them are realizing they will not properly reward the loyalty is a huge slap in the face.
Most of the properties I checked are way overpriced for reward stays, the program is staring to not make sense anymore. 🙁
70,000 for a HIX – try 80,000!
Holiday Inn Express Monterey-Cannery Row
July 2, 3
That’s more than the nearby Intercontinental!
The points prices are clearly NOT linked to cash pricing. I see properties where the points price is up to 3x higher on some dates than others, with an identical cash price. Assuming that cash prices are reflective of seasonality and/or occupancy (real or predicted), the points prices seem to be reflective of nothing. I think this a combination of malicious devaluation, clueless or inconsistent hotel policies and/or broken IT. I don’t see how this is completely intentional and if it is it is completely illogical. I don’t like the program to begin with but I now put it firmly at or behind the category with other last resort chains like Choice and Wyndham. Luckily burned through most of my IHG in past year so seems like an excellent time to be done with them.
Holiday Inn Express Edinburgh City Center. Last week it was 17,500 this week 34,500 and the Hotel Indigo – right down the road – is 25,000 points. I had checked on prices, I think Thursday morning and went back to book Thursday night and the price had changed. Also weird is weeknights are higher than weekends. Maybe a Covid travel thing (lower demand by tourists?).
@Angela: That’s just crazy because there is no UK tourism, either domestic or international arrivals, at the moment. So there is absolutely no demand to justify this.
As an ex Holiday Inn franchisee their is no way Corporate should allow individual properties to set the rate for redemption of points…..these are revenue driven reimbursements back from Corporate so why would they leave them low….it all boils down to RevPAR.
RIP to a program that had some defects but also some value.
I cannot understand this desire of driving to the ground a tool that has steered countless people to stay at their properties rather than other hotels.
Once I give up my membership to IHG, they will lose 100 nights per year. I guess some bean counter has calculated they will come out ahead.
They may very well lose some of their most loyal customers.
+1 Angela. I was looking at points-prices Wed. March 31 & Thu. April 1 to help a friend who needed a room in small-town Arkansas. As of Thursday evening, it was like WTF!
“The Holiday Inn Express Sequim Washington is up to 65,000.”
This will go back down after the current season of 90-Day Fiancé ends. Natalie’s driving up the price every time she and Mike break up…
Rapid City is in South Dakota, not Wyoming. Rates for hotels in Rapid City and the Black Hills during peak tourist season, even for a Holiday Inn Express or Hampton Inn, can match New York City rates. Back before hotel programs used floating redemption rates, it was a really good deal to book hotels there on points during the summer.
Yeah. Faithful loyal Priority Club since 1994. I am going to use my anniversary night then cancel my MC IHG. Tired of this. HHonors amex is my also 1994 baby and seems to have better advantages.
It has been all about self preservation, regardless of their and my financial condition. Mb points should be based on income during covid somehow… Grr
IHG points are all over the place and don’t know how they do the points. VA beach Apr30-May 2, Holiday Inn $208 vs Holiday Inn Express $202, the points Holiday Inn 24k points vs Holiday Inn Express 53k points, explain that they are only 4 blocks apart and how can Hol Inn cost $8 more yet only need 45% in points? Because of free breakfast? In the nearby some stay very close to original points yet some like Holiday Inn Exp has jumped over 150% in points, explain that!
I am in the UK and use points regularly, based on hotel stays and the IHG credit cards which both myself and partner have. And always stay at HIE. If they continue to devalue points we will definitely take our business elsewhere.