IHG Cyber Sale: Save 25% when booking through the app

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A couple of weeks ahead of Cyber Monday, IHG has unveiled its Cyber Sale for 2024 and savings are live for bookings made from today. Members of the IHG One Rewards program are being given early access to the sale can save 25% while non-members will be able to save 17% from Wednesday.

Key terms

• Promotional Rates are valid across participating properties in the US, Canada, Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, India, Middle East, Africa and Greater China.
• Members save 25% on bookings made between 18-19 November 2024 in the IHG App, for stays from 21 November 2024 – 30 April 2025, globally at participating IHG Hotels & Resorts (download the app here).
• Non-Members save 17% on bookings made across all eligible booking channels between 20 November – 3 December 2024, for stays from 23 November 2024 – 30 April 2025, globally at participating IHG Hotels & Resorts.
• The Global Cyber Sale Promotional Rates are only valid discounts off a specific participating hotel’s Best Flexible Rate (BFR). The BFR rate is an unrestricted, non-qualified, non-discounted rate.
• Blackout dates apply and rooms are subject to availability. Certain room types may be excluded from the rate.
• Promotional Rates may not be used in conjunction with other discounted rate promotions.
• Promotional Rates are not applicable to group bookings.
• IHG Army Hotels, InterContinental Alliance Resorts, Six Senses and Iberostar Beachfront Resorts are excluded from the IHG Hotels & Resorts 2024 Global Cyber Sale Promotion.
• Bookings must be made at least three (3) days in advance of your check-in date.
• The IHG Hotels & Resorts Cyber Sale Promotion reservations are final, fully prepaid, non-refundable and non-changeable, regardless of whether or not the reservation is used.
• Your card will be charged for the total amount of the reservation at the time of booking.
• For hotels in the state of California only: guests (IHG One Rewards Members and Non-Members) can cancel a reservation for a hotel accommodation within 24 hours after the reservation is confirmed, if the reservation is made 72 hours or more before the time of check-in.

Full terms and conditions and details of participating properties can be found on the sale page in the app.

Quick thoughts

There are three key things to recognize here:

Firstly (and as is common with IHG sales), the discounts on offer are based on the best flexible rate which is often not the cheapest rate that IHG publishes and that means that the savings of 17% – 25% will not always apply.

Secondly, even though the sale prices are based on a discounted version of the best flexible rate, they’re not flexible at all. In fact, a deposit equalling the full cost of the stay will be required at the time of booking, so this isn’t a sale suited to anyone whose plans are not firmed up.

Thirdly, not all properties appear to be participating. The InterContinental London O2, for example, doesn’t seem to have any rooms available at the sale rate between now and the end of April, neither does the InterContinental Los Angeles or the InterContinental New York Times Square and I’m sure they’re not alone. That’s very disappointing.

We haven’t yet had the opportunity (or the time) to do extensive in-depth searches to see what all the savings are like or to see what’s available across the various regions, but based on the few searches that we’ve done, there appear to be some reasonable deals around despite the fact that some high-end properties appear to have opted out.

We’ve seen Kimptons in Dallas, New York, and Los Angeles at under $200/night, the InterContinental Paris Le Grand has a few dates where rooms are under $400/night, the InterContinental Vienna can be booked for less than $165/night, the InterContinental Sydney has rooms at at under €260/night, and the InterContinental Singapore can be booked for under $240/night.

Considering how incredibly expensive a lot of hotels continue to be right now, these are pretty good rates. They’re very inflexible. But the pricing seems good.

IHG’s 2024 promotions

In case you’re planning on booking an IHG stay before the end of the year, don’t forget that the IHG One Rewards has a couple of promotions running:

Promo 1 – Earn 3,000 points every 2 nights

• Register (here) by 31 December 2024.
• Earn 3,000 bonus points for every 2 qualifying nights consumed after registration through 31 December 2024.
• This promotion is valid at all properties participating in IHG One Rewards.
• There is no cap on the number of bonus points that may be earned during the promotion period with this offer.
• For purposes of the promotion, a “Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stay” is defined as a minimum one (1) night stay at a participating hotel booked under a Qualifying Rate, with total spend exceeding US $30 (or local currency equivalent) for each night.
• Stays booked using Rewards Nights or Points & Cash are not Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stays for purposes of this promotion.

We value IHG One Rewards points at 0.4 cents each so for us, this promotion is offering an effective rebate of $12 for every two qualifying nights that we consume. So this isn’t likely to be a promotion that’s going to get IHG fans particularly excited.

Still, some bonus points are better than none, so we should probably be thankful for whatever we’re given and be happy that there’s no cap on earnings in this promotion (other than the natural cap set by the number of nights this promotion covers).

Full terms and conditions (which you should read carefully) can be found on the promotion page.

Promo 2 – The limited brands promotion

This promotion is a lot more niche than the global promotion because it applies to just five of IHG brands … and they’re not the big brands either.

• Register (here) by 31 December 2024.
• Between 1 October and 31 December 2024, you can earn 3x bonus points on all stays made after registration at the following IHG brands:
  • Atwell Suites
  • Avid
  • Even
  • Garner
  • Voco
• There is no cap on the number of bonus points that may be earned during the promotion period with this offer.
• For purposes of this Promotion, a “Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stay” is defined as a minimum one (1) night stay at a participating hotel booked under a Qualifying Rate, with total spend exceeding US $30 (or local currency equivalent) for each night.
• Stays booked using Rewards Nights or Points & Cash are not Promotion Eligible Qualifying Stays for purposes of this Promotion.

There’s nothing that we can see that would prevent someone from earning what both current IHG promotions are offering on a single stay so, for example, if you were to book a 4 night stay at a participating brand at a cost of, let’s say, $700, this is what your earnings would look like:

• Base earnings = 7,000 points (10 points/dollar at all five brands)
• Global promotion = 6,000 points (3,000 bonus points per 2 nights)
• Brand promotion = 14,000 points

Total earnings = 27,000 bonus points (excluding any elite status bonuses).

As we value IHG One Rewards points at 0.4 cents each, a booking such as the one used in the example above would see us earn an effective rebate of $108 or ~15.5% and that’s pretty good going considering we would still have an elite bonus to add to that points total.

Bottom line

IHG is now running its Cyber Sale for 2024 in which it’s offering IHG One Rewards members 25% off the best flexible rates for bookings made by 3 December 2024 for stays completed by 30 April 2025. Disappointingly, not all properties appear to be participating, but some of the better participating properties are worth checking out as there could be a few good deals out there … if you’re prepared to make a non refundable booking.