IHG Rewards Club has stealthily decided to change reward prices in a week from now, on January 14, 2019. They have not communicated the changes to members, but there is a website page up and running which talks about the IHG Rewards Club changes at 700 hotels.
IHG has about 5500 hotels, out of which about 700 are undergoing a change in pricing, which means about 13% of their hotels are witnessing a change in pricing this year. This is not the first time IHG has readjusted pricing, but this is an annual exercise. Here are the 2018 changes for instance.
82% of the price revisions in points terms are upwards. Most hotels going up in prices are in the US of A. About 29 InterContinental Hotels are also going up in prices in terms of redemptions, including the InterContinental Dublin, which is one of my favourites.
But there are some mighty creeping escalations as well. For instance, the Indigo Paddington hotel in London just used to cost 25,000 points back in the day, and now is going up to 55,000 points. Phew!
Since the pricing of the redemption is based on when you book the hotel rather than when you stay, it means if you are planning to make a stay at some of these hotels which are going up in prices and you have enough IHG Rewards Club points, you should go for those redemptions right now. Only if you change after January 14, will the redemptions be at the new cost, else they will be honoured at the old pricing.
There you go then guys, the clock is ticking, and your time started many hours ago!
Are there any IHG Hotels which you wanted to book in 2019, and are now being affected by these changes? Tell us in the comments.
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