IHG

Tag Archives for IHG.

IHG PointBreaks Changing, Some ‘Discounted’ Hotels Will Cost 3x As Much

by Gary Leff

Jan 27 2018

IHG Rewards Club has been offering discounted hotel night redemptions for just 5000 points per night for more than a decade.

At the beginning there were some high value hotels included in the discount properties list. Over time there have been fewer and fewer premium hotels. The ‘good ones’ are almost always swept up and disappear from the list within a couple of days. These deals have been so good that in China people were automating PointBreaks bookings and reselling them.

Continue Reading »

Travel Companies are Running Scared of What’s on Their Websites Because China

by Gary Leff

wall of china
Jan 13 2018

IHG Rewards Club has issued an update to its terms and conditions. And there’s only one change, repeated a few times in a few different ways. They want to make very sure you know that Taiwan is part of ‘Greater China’.

China’s civil aviation authority demanded a public apology from Delta and changes to its website for listing Tibet and Taiwan as countries.

Continue Reading »

Redemptions for Kimpton Hotels Now Live at IHG Rewards Club

by Gary Leff

Jan 10 2018

IHG folded Kimpton and its Karma Rewards program into IHG Rewards Club. In the process they sanitized the benefits offered to elites, although they’re maintaining Kimpton’s top ‘Inner Circle’ level as an invitation-only program similar to Intercontinental properties and Royal Ambassador, with no public criteria for how members will earn it.

The upside to all of this is supposed to be for IHG Rewards Club members generally, more nice and interesting properties to use there points at. And that is now live on the IHG website.

Continue Reading »

IHG Guts Best Rate Guarantee, Eliminates Free Nights, Gives 24% Back in Points Instead

by Gary Leff

skyscrapers in city
Jan 10 2018

Hotel Best Rate Guarantees are mostly vaporware. Hotel chains want you to book directly through them because it costs them less to make a reservation themselves than it does to pay a commission to Expedia or other online travel sites (or travel agents). So they want you to believe you’ll get the best rate booking direct.

Best rate gurantees are largely a marketing claim rather than a promise, and they generally contain so much fine print and so many hoops as to be meaningless (on purpose).

Continue Reading »