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Earlier in the week IHG Rewards seemed to devalue their points raising the cost of many properties without notice. Indeed, 100,000 points was no longer the most you’d pay for an Intercontinental and it became possible to spend as much as 79,000 points for a single Holiday Inn room night.
The chain explained that this was all part of their dynamic pricing introduced last year, but that didn’t quell the masses. It seemed a short-sighted play to reduce costs at the expense of long-term member value, and it was bad for franchisees as well because it meant they’d see less revenue from fewer award night bookings.
It appears that IHG has at least partially reversed course with properties reverting to the pricing we saw before this week – although this may not be true for all properties or all dates.
Seems pricing as reverted to the old lower pricing at most if not all properties. Something similar happened when IHG first announced the variable point pricing model as well. Let’s hope the lower pricing remains.
There’s speculation that the higher pricing we saw was all just a technical glitch, but that doesn’t make sense to me since IHG confirmed it was intentional. Either way some lower prices appear to be available again.
I don’t trust them still
Definitely not all properties. I have a July booking at a HEX which a couple of months ago cost me 17,500 points a night. A couple of days ago it was around 32k/night. Today it is down to 27,333 a night which is a about a 5k drop from a couple of days ago but still almost 10k/night higher than when I booked. I am glad I locked in when I did because some form of dynamic pricing is still in effect causing much higher rates at some properties.
As usual, bloggers and the miles/points crowd jump to the worst-case scenario at the mere hint of a dropped hat and proceed to freak out before any time is allowed to pass. Why just sit back and calmly wait and see what something actually means or doesn’t mean when we can immediately stir up “the masses” (as Gary insultingly refers to his readers) by putting out all sorts of apocalyptical end-of-the-world click-bait posts and then reflect sagaciously on all those surprisingly stirred-up masses. lol. Welcome to Huckster Media 101: How to get the masses attention even though there’s really no actual news: “IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!”…(later that week)…”Why is everyone so freaked out about nothing?” But it works. Unfortunately.
@Al “As usual, bloggers and the miles/points crowd jump to the worst-case scenario at the mere hint of a dropped hat”
First, IHG *literally confirmed the new pricing was intentional*
Second, it has NOT been fully rolled back, only partially
Third, where do I refer to *this blog’s readers* as “the masses”?
@Al, it was not jumping to conclusion, as I was in the middle of working on a summer booking, AND had already secured another summer booking, so I had that to compare to, as well. One booking in Cairo, which I had secured for 15K a night, jumped to 35K a night. @Gary, it’s back to 15K a night. The other booking made me wonder if I was going to have to give up a trip, but suddenly last night, rooms were back down, and I found–and booked immediately–for 28K a night (a fair price for this property)–4 nights, so paying for three. I need 5 nights, but the 5th will be my Chase free night.
Thus, I can confirm with certainty this all happened, with no drama or hyperbole. I have the bookings to prove it. I also have only ~20K points left now because I’m not letting this happen again–and I just made Globalist with Hyatt 🙂
Really hard to make generalizations about the IHG award changes. There were definitely hotels that skyrocketed in point cost, but there were also many that didn’t. And now there are some “overpriced” hotels where the prices have been reduced, but some where the prices have not been reduced.
In general, though, IHG is still the only program that regularly sells points to its members at a price that make sense. If you;re a frequent traveler, buying IHG points at a half cent each is generally good value — especially if you have their credit cards that they rebate you 10% of your award cost or gie you a fourth night free. I typically save more than $50/night this way even staying at ordinary HIX properties, and that’s before the additional advantage of not have to pay high hotel taxes on my stays.
Why do the travelbloggers keep repeating the same incorrect info? The old values are NOT back. DoC was told that in the comments.
Yes, the crazy valuations, like 10,000 points one night then 50,000 the next, have been removed, but in general current redemptions are still way above what they were last week. Saving up for a vacation is completely useless because future values could change at any time.
But hey, anything for a credit card referral, right?
@Joseph N. – *some* of the old values are back, as I wrote
Incorrect – Devaluation was not reversed. Some increased award pricing has not changed. And some increases were only partially walked back. It is not hard to state such facts clearly and correctly. Can there be some accuracy in both title and substance please. For a leader of thought, you need to back up such ego with accurate stories. Readers have to take your information with a grain of salt. You always walk back your stories and insult readers who point out how your statements are not accurate as written.
Not totally rolled back. Planned a 4 night stay in LA at a Holiday Inn Express near LAX and booked 4 nights for a total of 54,000 points on March 20th (18,000 a night and 4th night free). This was great value (over 1.2 cent a point versus what I would have had to pay for the stay). I just checked today after the increase was supposedly rolled back. The exact same room is now going for 30,000 a night or 90,000 for the 4 night stay which is a 67% increase!
Glad I booked it when I did!