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IHG has brought back an excellent deal that, I think, we last saw towards the end of April so, once again, select IHG One Rewards members can enjoy a 15% discount on award stays made in the next few weeks.
For the first few days, this promotion is only open to IHG members who hold one or more IHG One Rewards credit cards, but it will also open up to IHG One Rewards members with Diamond and Platinum elite status in a few days’ time.
[HT: Frequent Miler]
The promotion
- Book by 30 October 2024
- Check-in by 22 November 2024
- Save 15% on the price of an award booking of 3 nights or less.
Holders of the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card, the IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card, the IHG One Rewards Premier Business Credit Card, and the IHG One Rewards Select credit card (no longer open to new applicants) should be eligible for this offer and if previous promotions are anything to go by, holders of IHG cards issued in other countries around the world should also be eligible.
IHG One Rewards members with Diamond and Platinum elite status should get access to this promotion from later this week or early next week.
Note: The 15% discount can also be used in conjunction with a ‘points+cash’ booking, but only the points element of the price will be discounted.
Thoughts
As usual, there doesn’t appear to be an official landing page for this promotion, but if you’re eligible for the discount, it will appear automatically in your search results when you search for a stay that’s in line with the promotion guidelines.
I hold the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card (as well as the legacy card) and this is an example of what I see when I search for award availability in Los Angeles within the promotion period:
If/when the promotion is live for you, a similar set of search results (with pricing crossed out) should present itself (you can check here).
Clearly, a 15% saving on eligible award bookings is a nice thing to be offered (even if it’s only available for stays being made in the next few weeks), but this promotion could be especially useful to anyone looking to use a free night certificate that comes with one of the IHG co-branded credit cards.
The free night certificates offered by the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card and the IHG One Rewards Premier Business Credit Card are worth up to 40,000 points each and while IHG now allows holders of these certificates to top them up when booking a property costing more than the certificate is worth, the 15% discount that’s currently on offer may bring down the cost of a property that you’re looking to book to within range of your free night certificate (e.g. the first three hotels in the screenshot above). You may not need to use any of your hard earned IHG One rewards points at all.
Here, for example, are a few such deals that I’ve found:
As you should be able to see, without the 15% discount none of these properties would be bookable with a free night certificate alone, but with the 15% discount, all now cost less than 40,000 points (for the nights that I searched for) and fall into a certificate’s range.
The biggest winners in this kind of situation will be holders of a free night certificate from the legacy IHG One Rewards Select credit card because unlike the certificates that are issued by the currently available IHG co-branded cards, this card’s certificate cannot be topped up so, unless a property that a certificate holder wants to book costs 40,000 points or less, their certificate is of no use.
Speaking from experience, I can tell you that it’s getting increasingly hard to find nice properties that can be booked with a legacy card’s free night certificate, but things get considerably easier (if you’re flexible) when there’s a 15% discount on offer.
Bottom line
If you hold an IHG One Rewards co-branded credit card, now is the time to consider if you need to make any IHG award bookings for stays in the coming few weeks as there’s a 15% discount currently on offer.
If you don’t hold a co-branded credit card but hold IHG One rewards Diamond or Platinum status, check IHG.com in a few days time as this promotion should open up for you soon.
