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IHG Rewards has just released the latest PointBreaks list which covers stays between 29 January and 20 April 2018 and, alongside the latest list, IHG has announced some changes to how PointBreaks will work going forward.
Historically IHG has released a quarterly list of around 100 of its properties at which IHG Rewards members could book award nights for just 5,000 points each. At one time this was one of the best deals in the miles & points game but, for the past few quarters, the list of participating properties has been pretty dismal.
In fact, the last list was so poor that I didn’t even bother writing about it.
I’m sure the Holiday Inn Chandigarh Panchkula is a perfectly nice property but I doubt it got too many people excited when it appeared on the last PointBreaks list
When a PointBreaks list contains just one property in the whole of Africa, two properties in the whole of South America and just 8 properties in Europe (and that’s counting Azerbaijan as part of Europe!) you know that the list as we know it has had its day…..and apparently IHG Rewards thinks so too.
Changes To IHG PointBreaks
Starting with this PointBreaks list IHG is introducing 3 changes:
- Properties will be bookable for 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 points per night
- Over 200 properties will be participating each quarter
- PointBreaks hotels will accept Points & Cash bookings
I’ve noticed some people calling these changes a devaluation – but they’re not.
You can’t really devalue something which, for most people, already has no value and that’s exactly what the PointBreaks list had become.
Given a choice between a list of 100 Holiday Inn Extra properties located on interstate junctions and in former Soviet republics or 200+ properties where some of the properties cost more but are actually in places people want to visit, I’ll take option two every time.
Of course all of this presumes that IHG’s latest PointBreaks list actually contains some worthwhile properties. If it doesn’t then IHG Rewards will have done the impossible – it will have devalued an offering that already had no value 🙂
IHG PointBreaks List January – April 2018
IHG gave us a taster of what to expect in this list on Friday so we knew before the full list was announced that there would be at least 3 InterContinental properties included….but how many are there in total?
The InterContinental Sao Paulo, a 35,000 point/night property is on the list at 15,000 points/night
Well…I’m not going to publish the entire list because (a) every other blog will do that and (b) it won’t help you guys out in any way at all so, instead, here’s a link to the full list and below are my initial thoughts on the list that has just come out – I’ll publish a fuller analysis once I’ve had time to work my way through the list properly.
- 203 properties are taking part in this IHG PointBreaks Promotion
- 33 properties offered at 5,000 points/night
- 116 properties offered at 10,000 points/night
- 54 properties offered at 15,000 points/night
- Ten InterContinental properties are taking part in total – Seven at the 15,000 point/night level and three at the 10,000 point level
The properties on offer at the 5,000 point level probably won’t be particularly interesting (unless you’re already planning a trip to a town/city where one of these properties is to be found) but there are some at the 10,000 point level that stand out:
- The Crowne Plaza Belgrade
- Holiday Inn Resort Penang
- InterContiental Nairobi
- InterContinental Cali
- InterContinental Medelin
- Crowne Plaza Beirut
Crowne Plaza Beirut – Image IHG
At the 15,000 point level we have seven InterContinental properties….
- InterContinental Cartagena De Indias
- InterContinental Kiev
- InterContinental Le Vendome Beirut
- InterContinental Miramar Panama
- InterContinental Real Santo Domingo
- InterContinental Sao Paulo
- InterContinental Tamanaco Caracas
…and I’ll be taking a closer look at these tomorrow.
Bottom Line
There are fewer 5,000 point hotels that I expected to see but, from an initial look at the new PointBreaks list, there are definitely more properties that look like they may be useful.
Recent PointBreaks list may have offered more properties at a lower cost/night but, considering how unattractive almost all of those properties were, I prefer the list we’ve seen the list released today.
[…] the face of things this may seem like a devaluation but, as I explained yesterday, the old PointBreaks lists were so full of properties no one really wanted to visit that they were […]