(EXPIRED) IHG Rewards: Save 20% On 1-3 Night Award Stays, Makes Free Night Certs More Useful

IHG Rewards has launched an award sale that’s currently only available for credit cardholders, but it sounds like it’ll be available soon for all IHG Rewards members.

Even better, the discount is making many IHG properties bookable with free night certificates that would otherwise have cost more than 40,000 points.

The Deal

• Save 20% on IHG award stays lasting 1-3 nights.

Key Terms

• This discount offer (“Offer”) is available to those IHG Rewards members who have a Chase IHG Rewards Club credit card and who have been granted access to the discount when booking a Reward Night at a participating hotel through the IHG reservations site while signed in to their IHG Rewards account.
• The Offer is for a 20% discount off the number of points needed to book a stay using points only.
• The cash portion of Points & Cash will also be discounted by 20% for each available option.
• Only those Reward Nights booked by 2/8/2022 for stays during the period from 1/26/2022 through 3/13/2022 qualify for the Offer.
• The 20% discount is offered at time of booking as identified on participating hotel’s booking page.
• This Offer and any redemption of points for Reward Nights are subject to the general IHG Rewards Club membership Terms and Conditions.
• The Offer is not available to use along with the “Fourth Reward Night Free” cardmember benefit when booking a stay of 4 or more consecutive Reward Nights. The Offer will be applied for eligible cardmembers booking 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

The email from IHG states that having an IHG credit card is giving us early access to this offer, so hopefully this promotion will be opened soon for all IHG Rewards members.

There’s limited usefulness for this offer seeing as you have to book by February 8 and it’s only valid on stays through March 13, but it’s a decent discount if you need to book short stays during that time.

For example, let’s say you want to visit Montrose, CO (recommended due to its proximity to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Telluride, Curecanti National Recreation Area and more).

There’s a nice Holiday Inn Express in Montrose that would normally cost an average of 19,333 points per night for a three night stay in February.

Quick side note – this property has suites (albeit junior suites) bookable with points in addition to regular room types, something that’s not often possible at IHG properties.

Ordinarily that three night stay would cost a total of 58,000 points – 20,000 points for the first night and 19,000 points per night for the second and third nights, hence that average of 19,333 points per night.

When logging in to my account, that pricing drops 20% as expected to only 46,400 points.

As noted in the terms, the IHG Premier card’s 4th night free benefit won’t stack with this seeing as the promotion is only valid on award stays of 1-3 nights. However, if you have an IHG Select card you’ll get a 10% rebate in addition to the 20% discount. Using the example above, that 10% points rebate would reduce the 46,400 points cost to 41,760 or only 13,920 points per night on average.

More Properties Bookable With Free Night Certificates

Nick asked an interesting question over email before I published this post asking if the discount made more properties bookable with free night certificates seeing as the award cost would be reduced below the 40,000 point threshold necessary to redeem the certificates.

Good news – it does!

For example, if you try to book the InterContinental Washington D.C. The Wharf using a free night certificate for the night of March 17 (just after this 20% discount promotion ends), it’s not possible to use your certificate. Instead, it displays the cash price.

The reason it’s not bookable with a free night certificate on that date is because an award night costs 42,000 points, so more expensive than the 40,000 points threshold to use the certificate.

However, look at what happens if you try booking that same property the night of February 9 which is during this 20% discount promotion period. It would normally cost 42,000 points on that date which is reduced to 33,600 points from the award sale.

Thanks to the award price dropping from the usual 42,000 points to 33,600 points, it’s now bookable with a free night certificate that night.

That should mean that any property that would normally cost up to 50,000 points on any given night will be bookable with a free night certificate during the promotion period.

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