IHG 2018 Award Changes: 499 Properties Increasing In Price & 192 Hotels Decreasing In Price (New Maximum Now 70,000 Points) – Live January 16th

Update 01/15/18: Today is the last day to book under the old pricing. Book any properties you’re interested that are increasing in pricing now.

Update: 01/06/18. As per Mommy Points these changes will go live on January 16th, 2018. This means you’ll want to book any properties that are increasing in price on or before January 15th to avoid the price increase. Any properties going down in price you’ll want to wait until on or after January 16th, 2018 to make your bookings.

Once a year IHG announces what properties will be changing award category. The full list of properties changing award category can be found here. In addition they are also adding a new award category that will cost 70,000 points a night. Previously the maximum per night was 60,000 points.

Some statistics:

  • 691 properties in total will be changing their award category
    • 499 properties are increasing in price
    • 192 properties decreasing in price
  • 437 properties in the United States are changing category
    • 88 are decreasing in price (all by 5,000 points)
    • 349 are increasing in price
      • 211 by 5,000 points
      • 138 by 10,000 points
  • Last year 650 properties changed award category
  • I suspect these changes will go into effect on or around January 15th, 2018 as they did last year but no official announcement yet

These are some fairly massive changes and this is a significant devaluation. The addition of a new category costing 70,000 points will make properties such as Bora Bora significantly more expensive on points and it looks like most Intercontinental’s in popular locales will fit under the new 70,000 a night category. This also ruins the post I had almost finished on IHG point valuations, but will be interesting to look at the stats pre and post devaluation.

Hat tip to Point Me To The Plane
    William Charles
  • On January 15, 2018, 17:10

View Comments (35)

  • Every year I use IHG points for Mardi Gras in NOLA---40K points for rooms going for $400 cash.
    Also for Crowne Plaza Times Square on NYE.
    Key West La Concha is also good in peak season.

  • Happens we stayed two nights over the Holidays at the HIE Fisherman's Wharf (SFO), using up two Annual Free nights on our accounts....... Yes, great location and yes, one of the few hotels in that area with breakfast included.... two blocks or so from the wharf.....

    But wow, WORST EVER configured hotel we ever stayed in..... They should rename it, "Hotel Alcatraz" -- as in never mind the lying, Trump class glossy promotional photos of the place, 95% of the rooms have windows facing out into totally white, bland narrow, courtyards -- like you'd see in a prison, with a red floor. (and barely 20 feet to the windows on the other side).....

    Cheerful front-desk person put lipstick on the pig a high end hotel with no views by cheerfully noting that ,"Yeah, everybody asks about that -- and we're told to say they were designed that way for earthquakes...." Nonsense. (but she wasn't budging from the balderdash)

  • Is this restructuring/devaluation going to coincide with Kimpton properties finally being brought under the IHG Rewards program?

    • Not sure, that's due for sometime in 2018 but I think it will be separate to this.

  • IC hotels in Europe can still be good values. Just booked IC Madrid for 40k/night which is better than 1 cpp. For US hotels the new rates are ridiculous. again this shows churn and burn is the only way to go.

  • I've always found IHG to have really high point redemptions. The best usage for me is the free annual night from their credit card. And sometimes it's nice when you can capitalize on some of their promotions, such as a nice Accelerate offer or that crazy one a couple of years ago where you mailed in index cards.

  • Just noticed this — why is the time on this blog two hours ahead of CT and CST?! Are you still running EDT in the winter?! Or you based in, like, US Virgin Islands, with Atlantic Standard Time, 1h ahead of the EST?! :) Vacation, vacation, vacation!

    • We are UTC-4 on the blog, I set it up wrong when it first started and don't really want to change it now :)

  • Would be interesting to see if the price in hard currency changes/changed as well, or whether this is a true devaluation not related to inflation.

    Although with the variable dynamic pricing it's probably too involving to make two comparisons, since you'd probably have to take measurements two years apart on same days to know the prices for any day of the year are comparable?!

    • Some locations were routinely underpriced - the Zion Park HIX was one example I saw in my planning. Most weekends it was going for 1 cent a point value, when if all things were fair you should expect rooms to be priced roughly at 0.7 cents per point, corresponding with the cost of Points and Cash.

      • Funny you should mention that Zion HIE (a recently converted Best Western -- and a VERY nice one)..... We stayed there two summers ago, late August -- and got upgraded to the palatial Presidential Palace. (when using our annual Free Night..... first and only time any IHG property over the past six years years made us feel really special for using one of the Free Night awards..... -- everywhere else, we're made to feel "lucky" to be with them -- to get the double beds with no view, etc, etc.)

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