About a year ago IHG announced that they’d bought Iberostar Beachfront Resorts, a chain of all-inclusive hotels with properties in Mexico, Spain, Morocco, Dominican Republic, Brazil and more.
This was an exciting development and we’ve been waiting for those properties to become bookable with IHG One Rewards points. IHG confirmed yesterday that Iberostar stays can finally be booked with points which was also exciting. However, having had a chance to explore pricing for these stays, you’ll likely be less than enthused. Not only are stays often extremely expensive points-wise, other times they’re a poor use of points, while at some properties award nights don’t get you access to the all-inclusive package and so you’ll still be on the hook for food and drink.
There are 43 Iberostar Beachfront Resorts in seven different countries:
- Brazil
- Iberostar Bahía
- Iberostar Selection Praia Do Forte
- Dominican Republic
- Iberostar Selection Bávaro Suites
- Coral Level at Iberostar Selection Bávaro
- Iberostar Dominicana
- Iberostar Costa Dorada
- Iberostar Grand Bávaro
- Iberostar Selection Hacienda Dominicus
- Iberostar Punta Cana
- Jamaica
- Iberostar Grand Rose Hall
- Iberostar Selection Rose Hall Suites
- Iberostar Rose Hall Beach
- Mexico
- Iberostar Cozumel
- Iberostar Selection Cancún
- Iberostar Grand Paraiso
- Iberostar Selection Playa Mita
- Iberostar Paraiso Beach
- Iberostar Selection Paraiso Lindo
- Iberostar Paraiso del Mar
- Iberostar Selection Paraiso Maya Suites
- Iberostar Quetzal
- Coral Level at Iberostar Selection Cancún
- Iberostar Tucan
- Montenegro
- Iberostar Herceg Novi
- Morocco
- Iberostar Founty Beach
- Iberostar Saidia
- Spain
- Iberostar Selection Anthelia
- Iberostar Cristina
- Iberostar Selection Playa de Palma
- Iberostar Royal Andalus
- Iberostar Bouganville Playa
- Iberostar Playa Gaviotas Park
- Iberostar Selection Lanzarote Park
- Iberostar Selection Sábila
- Iberostar Grand Salomé
- Iberostar Selection Fuerteventura Palace
- Iberostar Ciudad Blanca
- Iberostar Alcudia Park
- Iberostar Selection Albufera Park
- Iberostar Selection Albufera Playa
- Iberostar Club Cala Barca
- Iberostar Bahía de Palma
- Iberostar Selection Andalucia Playa
I haven’t had a chance to explore award pricing for each of the 43 resorts listed above, but did check quite a few of them and what I found has tempered my initial excitement.
Here’s the good, the bad & the ugly of what I found.
The Good
There might be some cheaper properties, but the cheapest I found was Iberostar Herceg Novi in Montenegro.
Even so, calling this “the good” could be overstating things. The lowest pricing I found was at the beginning of April when you can book two adults for a total of 22,000 points per night. This is therefore one of the very few Iberostar locations bookable with an IHG free night certificate from an IHG Select credit card seeing as those are capped at 40,000 points for a free night and can’t be topped up.
You can often buy IHG points for 0.5cpp (cents per point), so that works out to be $110 per night if you don’t already have a stash of points. That’s not bad, with it getting even better if you have an IHG Premier, Business or Traveler card that gives every 4th night free on award stays. That would reduce the cost to 66,000 points for four nights; that’s an average of 16,500 points per night or $82.50 per night if buying the points. If you also have an IHG Select card, you’ll get a 10% points rebate too, reducing the net cost to 14,850 points per night, or $74.25 per night when buying points at 0.5cpp. For an all-inclusive stay in Europe, that’s pretty good.
However, there’s a couple of things that make this less appealing. One is that cash pricing can be low too depending on your dates. In early April when award nights are bookable for 22,000 points per night, you can book paid nights for $85.91 per night if booking a non-refundable rate or $95.44 if refundable. Either way, if you don’t have enough points to book an award stay and so would need to buy points, you’d be better off paying the cash rate unless you can also take advantage of the 4th night free benefit.
The other less appealing aspect is how expensive pricing can get as the year goes on. It starts off at 22,000 points per night in the first half of April, only to rise up to 62,000-65,000 points from late June through the end of August.
The Bad
While that resort in Montenegro can be booked for as low as 22,000 points per night, most other properties that I checked are charging 60,000-100,000 points per night.
On the one hand, that’s not necessarily bad seeing as it includes food and drink for two people. If you can utilize the 4th night free benefit, that gets better still. However, it can still be extremely poor value for your points versus the cash rate.
For example, for a week at Iberostar Bahia in Brazil in mid-June you can redeem 80,000 points per night.
The cash price for those same nights is less than $240 per night though. Ignoring the 4th night free benefit or 10% points rebate for IHG cardholders, that’s a 0.29cpp redemption rate which is less than half the Reasonable Redemption Value for IHG.
The Ugly
About 15 years ago my wife and I visited Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands which are located off the west coast of Africa but which are part of Spain. We loved it there, so it would be nice to return and the Iberostar Beachfront Resorts: Selection Lanzarote Park looks like it could be a lovely place to stay, especially seeing as you can book straight into a Sea-View Star Prestige Junior Suite with points.
Pricing in April starts at 69,000 points per night and drops to 59,000 and then 48,000 points by the end of May.
For a week in mid-April when pricing is at 59,000 points per night, here are the costs for that room type depending on which kind of package you book:
Here’s where things can get ugly if you’re not paying attention when booking award nights. While Iberostar properties are all-inclusive resorts, they’re apparently not always-all-inclusive. With this hotel in Lanzarote, stays booked with points or free night certificates only have breakfast included. No free lunch. No free dinner. No free-flowing drinks. No ice cream. It would suck to rock up at the resort for a “free” all-inclusive award stay, only to discover that you have to pay for additional meals and all drinks.
This hotel has an additional quirk. Rather than booking into a base room, redeeming points means you’re booking into their top-level room. That’s awesome if that’s the room type you actually want, but it doesn’t necessarily provide great value for your points considering it’s not an all-inclusive rate.
If you booked a base room and wanted an all-inclusive package at a refundable rate, that would cost $349 per night. Compare that to the 59,000 point cost for an award night and it means you’re getting 0.59cpp of value when redeeming those points – slightly less than the 0.63cpp Reasonable Redemption Value for IHG points.
That said, this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. Booking with points gets you free breakfast and a Sea-View Star Prestige Junior Suite which has a sun terrace and whirlpool bath. Booking that base room with cash will result in a smaller room, but it does have a balcony, side sea views and has all meals, ice cream and drinks included.
Either way, this might not be great value either way compared to other all-inclusive resorts in Lanzarote. There are many highly rated resorts there that are bookable for less than $300 per night. For example, if you’d rather stay with a Hyatt brand you could book the all-inclusive Dreams Lanzarote Playa Dorada from only $260 per night during those dates.
Another ugly feature at some other Iberostar resorts is how expensive some of the pricing gets. At a couple of resorts in Jamaica, pricing on some dates runs at more than 200,000 points per night.
Other resorts run at well over 100,000 points per night which is extremely expensive. As with other resorts I looked at, cash prices don’t justify award pricing that high, so award bookings would provide extremely poor value.
Question
I struggled to find good value at the Iberostar properties I searched, but there are dozens more of their resorts I haven’t had a chance to check yet. Have you found any hidden gems value-wise, or were your findings similar to mine? Let us know in the comments below.
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Kinda bummed to see this. Husband and I both got the IHG Premier biz card last year with a plan to use the elevated bonus on a specific trip but plans changed. So we now have a stash of about 360,000pts. I really thought Iberostar would be the rainy day special we were waiting for!
who pays $240 USD / night in Bahia, Brazil. Sounds retarded. Even if it’s “All-inclusive”
I’ve seen in person maybe 1 or 2 Iberostars in my life. The first time (and only?) was next to the Conrad Punta de Mita in Mexico. Both next to each other on same beach. But…the Conrad was much better! More $$ I imagine….was there on FNC/pts
Iberostar had a Black Friday sale, when it was my first time browsing their site. Some of their hotels in Mallorca, Cadiz, etc, in Spain were starting around $70 per night refundable rates. If we don’t pick the exact room we want from the floor plan, it’d brought us straight to the payment page. When I tried to pick the room instead, that’s where I leaned those rock bottom rates were B&B rates. All inclusive were significantly more expensive, even half board. Unless there’s few good dining options outside the resort (Cuba?), to me it didn’t make any sense paying fo all inclusive in Spain, especially when I have a lounge membership, which gives me a mini all inclusive experience at hotels with executive lounges.
It would be really helpful if we can crowdsource a list of these properties and show which ones would be truly all inclusive booking with points. I think having some data on that would really slim down the amount of time searching for your next trip. I can take a look and make a post in the FB group.
I looked at something like a dozen of the properties and only that one in Lanzarote provided breakfast only. I imagine there might be more out there, but it thankfully does seem like the vast majority of them are full all-inclusive.
I haven’t looked yet, but I’ve read a few reports of this that all come out the same way. Sounds like Iberostar is a good way to earn points, but not use them. For many of the Hyatt all-inclusive properties on the Yucatan, I thought something similar. But these seem worse. I would imagine that the allure of “all inclusive” is part of why they get bad redemption rates. People that aren’t doing the math will burn more points because it is a “free vacation” with the meals included.
So yeah, I guess just do a cash booking and earn 26x on your entire vacation (with the IHG Premier) for use later at a nice Kimpton property.