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Update 1/20/23: Today is the last day to book IHG award stays at a 20% discount. This discount applies to almost every IHG property and there are some great deals out there. It’s worth taking a look today to see if there’s anything that works into your travel plans between now and March 10th.
IHG has once again launched an award sale giving a 20% discount on stays of 1-3 nights. This currently is available for cardholders and both Platinum and Diamond members of IHG’s One Rewards program.
While it doesn’t stack with the 4th night free benefit, it does stack with 40k free night certificates and has come at just the right time for me personally as it’ll help us maximize our certificates and save us a bunch of points on those same stays.
The Deal
- Save 20% when booking award stays of 1-3 nights with IHG.
Key Terms
- This discount offer (“Offer”) is available to those IHG One Rewards members who have a Chase IHG Rewards credit card and who have been granted access to the discount when booking a Reward Night at a participating hotel through an official IHG online reservations site while signed into their IHG One Rewards account. (It is also available to IHG One Rewards Platinum and Diamond members.
- The Offer is for a 20% discount off the number of points needed to book a stay using points only. If using Points & Cash, the 20% discount will be applied to the cash portion of each available option.
- Only those Reward Nights booked by 1/20/2023 for stays during the period from 1/9/2023 through 3/10/2023 qualify for the Offer.
- The 20% discount is offered at time of booking as identified on the participating hotel’s booking page.
- The Offer is not available to use along with the “Fourth Reward Night Free” cardmember benefit when booking a stay of four (4) or more consecutive Reward Nights.
- The Offer will be applied for eligible cardmembers booking three (3) or fewer consecutive Reward Nights.
- This Offer is not from Chase. Chase is not responsible for the provision of, or failure to provide, the stated benefits and services.
Quick Thoughts
This is at least the third time that IHG has run this sale and it’s a great way to save on shorter stays of 1-3 nights. The sale gives a discount on all award bookings and the savings are legit. Seeing as IHG uses dynamic award pricing, there’s the potential that they could bump up award pricing ahead of sales such as these. Based on anecdotal experience based on searches I’d done recently though, that doesn’t seem to have happened – you really will get a 20% discount on whatever the prices would ordinarily be.
This award sale can also help your 40,000 point IHG free night certificates go even further, particularly the certificates from the IHG Select card that can’t be topped up. For example, we’re going to be in South Africa next month and are flying back to the US from Johannesburg. We have an early morning flight and so I’d booked a stay at the InterContinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport as it’s right opposite the international arrivals hall and so we can walk over. At the time it cost 46,000 points, so I redeemed a free night certificate from my IHG Premier card and topped it up with 6,000 points.
My in-laws are now going to be joining us in South Africa and they’ll be flying back the same day as us, so just the other day I booked a stay for them at the same hotel. The pricing had reduced to 43,000 points which meant I had to redeem my wife’s IHG Premier free night certificate which was a little annoying because she has an IHG Select free night certificate that ends in a couple of months but which couldn’t be used on this booking due to it not being possible to top it up with points.
This award sale has changed that though. The InterContinental that was previously 43,000 points for the night is now 34,400 points.
That means we can now rebook that property using her IHG Select certificate as I was getting concerned it would go to waste.
I’d not bothered rebooking my initial stay when the price dropped from 46,000 points to 43,000 points, but I think I will do that now because the sale means I can book the stay using solely the certificate, thereby saving 6,000 points on that reservation too.
If you have early access to this award sale, note that you have to be logged in to your account in order to see the reduced pricing. If and when it gets rolled out to all members, I’d assume that the discounted pricing will be reflected on all award searches, but perhaps not.
Also note that even though this award sale is valid on stays through March 10, you have to book your stay by January 20 which doesn’t give you very long to take advantage of it.
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Looks like IHG has already pulled it. Friday evening but those discounts redemptions are already gone. Missed it.
Was just going to say-I was going to do a last minute booking at EZE. But they pulled it… ridiculous it doesn’t go to midnight.
Yeah disappointing. I was able to book a few nights @ VTE though. I did notice a lot of the nights prior to March 10 looked inflated. So, keep an eye on the dates u want.
I came across this problem too. I suspect IHG ends promos at midnight in the local time zone of the specific hotel.
“I’d not bothered rebooking my initial stay when the price dropped from 46,000 points to 43,000 points”
Why not? It takes a minute… I do it all the time.
Mainly laziness, but I’d also not cancelled an IHG stay booked with a certificate before and wasn’t sure how quickly it gets redeposited and I didn’t want to risk any issues. Turns out it was immediate, so at least I know for the future.
To clarify, you did cancel and rebook the stay you’re referring to, and it reposited instantly?
I’ve never had any issues rebooking these, though I do check to see whether a new res can be booked before cancelling the old one.
Correct – I cancelled and both the certificate and excess points showed up in my account immediately.
[…] IHG has an award sale for 20% off of stays between one and three nights through March 10 for Chase IHG cardholders, and reportedly for everyone else in a day or two. (Thanks to FM) […]
I didn’t understand what you meant by the points and money discount. I clicked on it and it said the price was reduced from 7,000 pts and 249 AUD to 1,000 pts and 199 AUD.
That sample makes it really easy to reject all cash. I’ll always pay 1,000 pts to save 111 AUD.
It seems that the cost/point amounts are not being reduced by the corresponding 20%. Cost per point amounts typically run between $0.054 – $0.064 without the sale and that is what I’m still seeing. Was hoping I could pick up some discounted backdoor points… oh well…
Great thinking Jon. Best I’m seeing is .054c too, for example at IC NY Times Square when you buy 25k points for $135.
This wouldn’t be terrible if spend on IHG Premeir / Business also qualified for 10x points, like actual stays do. But I seem to recall that no longer being the case.
I bet another 100% sale will come along before too long!
Stephen Pepper SAVES ME MONEY……………again!
Are folks with only the grandfathered “Select” $49 fee CC also receiving this email & showing the sale?
I only have the grandfathered card and I’m seeing it.
Thanks Jim! Thumbs up 🙂
Can I cancel an existing points reservation, and rebook at the 20% discount?
Yes though if you have the last award night might be small risk it doesn’t come back into reward night inventory
You could also try booking a second room at the reduced rate, then with that in hand, cancel the first room.
Like Dave mentioned, the best course of action would be to make the additional reservation and then cancel your original booking.
If you don’t have sufficient points to do that, make sure there’s still award availability before cancelling your room as I’m not sure if IHG immediately puts rooms back into circulation for award bookings. If there is availability, you should be pretty safe cancelling your reservation and immediately rebooking as IHG does redeposit the points back into your account straight away.
Booking a new reward and canceling the old one worked on one of my stays. On another stay, however, the base points rate had gone up so much since my original booking that even with the 20% discount the original booking was still better. Anyways, thanks for the heads up on this promo.