A week and a half ago IHG was pricing many of its best hotels around the world for about half the usual points. This didn’t last. I told everyone to book quickly, and many did.
Some people were worried that IHG would cancel the reservations, claiming they were a mistake, but this did not happen. IHG has been silent on what happened.
However this strange pricing is back and in some cases even better than before. (HT: Loyalty Lobby) If last time is any guide this won’t last long.
You’ll find Holiday Inns in big cities for less than 20,000 points, and you’ll find amazing deals on IHG’s best hotels too – across the world from New York to London and Paris and more.
Depending on your dates you may find pricing even substantially lower than this. For instance Loyalty Lobby reports on Intercontinentals as low as 26,250 points.
Since this is happening a second time in a month I’m going to take this as intentional, especially since these deals were honored last time. The head of the program promised regular award sales. Moreover since they devalued points last year discounting redemptions shouldn’t be that hard for them to do.
Regardless do your IHG award searches now.
Thanks for the heads up. I just rebooked a three-night stay and saved 50,000 points.
More thanks. I was able to rebook a 40K FNC from a Holiday Inn Express to a Kimpton.
Thanks Gary! Just saved a substantial number of points for an upcoming trip to Paris.
I’m still thinking it’s simply Dynamic pricing in effect
Every time I review hotels they are up and down daily or weekly so gardening your reservations becomes more imperative than ever before
By checking daily before my trip to NYC I saved 40 K
Other times they are so sky high I book elsewhere
Even then when the hotel doesn’t fill up as projected I see the point rates come
In that regard to some degree the dynamic system is working very well especially with the chase credit card benefits kicking in
I’m not seeing tons of sensational deals, but I’m noticing a lot of decent-but-not-exciting properties are now 20,000 points. Some of these properties (the ones is resort areas and such) are selling for almost $500/night on these days.
The IHG website is acting wonky this morning, but it seems like they pulled the deals. One property I booked for 20,000 points is now 74,000 poiints for the same night. My sense is these “sales” are not intentional.
Man, I looked and found some great deals (London for next summer, Pigeon Forge for this winter), but drug my feet too long and it looks like they are all back to normal pricing.
And now they seem to be discounted again!
Not sure what’s going on there. Book fast if you see something you like. You can almost always cancel later.
Well I didn’t make any new bookings but just checked the old ones. I booked the fiji intercontinental for 35,000 per night. It’s now 90,000 per night. Talk about jacked up rates.
@ Gary — Thanks! I was about to go back and book some more that I missed when the last round ended. Between the two, I’ve gotten in about 2.5 million worth of bookings!! Now to pick which ones to use and which ones to cancel..
Thanks for the heads up Gary. Just got three nights in November at the Intercontinental Kuala Lumpur for 50k total.
@ Gary “I was able to go back” not “I was about to go back”.
Thanks very much Gary, I missed your first alert about this sale but just now I was able to rebook a 4 night award stay at the ANA Crowne Plaza in Kyoto, saving 100,000 points!
Now all we need is for Japan to decide to let tourists come in again…
Was able to get Intercontinental Jo’burg at 40k which I was literally about to book the day before at 70k and never got around to. Thanks for the heads up