IHG has announced they have entered into a joint-venture agreement to purchase a 51% stake in Regent Hotels for $39 million in cash. There is also an option to purchase the remaining 49% in phases until 2026. Regent Hotels is a luxury brand of hotels and IHG will place it above their Intercontinental brand. Regent currently has six properties in the following cities:
- Beijing
- Berlin
- Chongqing
- Porto Montenegro
- Singapore
- Taipei
They have plans to add a property in Jakarta in 208, Harbin in 2019 and Phu Quoc in 2020. IHG has further plans to grow their global footprint to 40 hotels in total. Fingers crossed when these get added to the IHG system they will be eligible for the free night certificates Chase cardholders receive annually.
Funny seeing this right now. I’m staying tonight at the Kimpton in West Hollywood on my free reward night (along with my S.O’s). Rack rate was $549 per night when we booked. Brand new hotel and it’s ridiculously impressive. The rooms, the location, the staff, the amenities…everything. So, I’ll be that guy and say the free reward night is really awesome.
OK, so if I am planning on going somewhere in the US to the 7 new Kimpton hotels listed at https://www.ihg.com/kimptonhotels/content/us/en/stay/new-kimpton-hotels then I will probably have a great redemption, seeing as they are new and will have more availability in the beginning. It will be interesting to see which are actually newly built and which ones are refurbished older hotels.
I do actually see one on the list here that is worth me checking out, so that might solve my current redemption problem. So, targeting the new Kimptons if they align with your travel plans is not a bad strategy, but a limited one. Overall though, the arguments about IHG redemptions still hold.
Ok. If they make it part of their rewards program, they’re probably going to require what 80k or so points. I dread seeing the blog posts about how valuable the IHG card anniversary nights.
I still haven’t redeemed my bonus points (& now the free yearly night) yet because it is so difficult to book anything remotely desirable (meaning, not the worst properties in terrible locations) on any reasonable dates. On top of this, they require an obscene number of points for them. 40K for a Holiday Inn Express with really bad parking/service & reports of prostitution, homeless, & drug addicts closeby on the next corner? 70K for one night at Intercontinental with mediocre reviews? IHG severely restricts booking rewards rooms to a very small number of rooms per hotel to make it either near impossible to get them or require you book something months in advance. I question whether the IHG card is even worth holding.
Yet, I was able to book an excellent redemption luxury Marriott in a highly popular tourist spot during peak summer season one week in advance on points without issue. Same with Hyatt & Hilton.
Seriously, if you have any booking tricks for IHG, let me know so I can redeem my points before they lose any more value.
All true. I’m Hawaii be prepared to be searching every date if you want to find one. If you want two beds good luck finding one.