Last night, I stayed at the Holiday Inn Club Vacations Oak ‘N Spruce Resort in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. I’ll probably offer a separate short Bottom Line Review of the resort, but I wanted to write a quick standalone post about something that stood out: at the time that I booked, the property was not available using IHG points, but it was available using an IHG Free Night Certificate. We’ve seen that sort of thing happen before, but if you typically search for certificate availability by seeing what is available with points, it’s worth a reminder that you should toggle to the “Chase Anniversary Free night” search now and then.
I made a last-minute decision to stay at the Holiday Inn Club Vacations in the Berkshires. I had booked a Day Spa Package at the Miraval Berkshires for my wife before our Party of 5 trip kicked off (knowing that it might help to know that there was a light at the end of the 15-days-handling-two-young-kids-without-me tunnel). We made a last-minute decision to all head out to Massachusetts last night and I was looking for a hotel where I could easily keep the kids entertained while my other half was at Miraval.
The Holiday Inn Club Vacations Oak ‘N Resort immediately looked like it would fit the bill. This is effectively a Holiday Inn timeshare property, so they have an arcade, 2 indoor pools, 1 outdoor pool, an 18-hole mini-golf course, and assorted other resort-y amenities that I knew would make it easy to keep the kids entertained.
Unfortunately, it was not available using IHG Rewards points.
Funny enough, I didn’t even consider using a Chase IHG Free Night Certificate initially, but as I switched back and forth between the “Points” rate and “Cash” rate to view other hotels in the area to decide whether they were a good value with points, I accidentally selected the “Chase Anniversary Free Night” rate from the drop-down menu in the IHG app. That was a fortuitous mistake because suddenly the Holiday Inn Club Vacations property was available to be booked.
And it wasn’t just the base-level room available, but a two bedroom villa. The rate for a one bedroom villa was $199 plus taxes and fees or the rate for a 2-bedroom villa was $265 plus taxes and fees. I was pretty happy to get a 2 bedroom unit with a full kitchen and dining area using a free night certificate from my old (and no longer available) IHG Rewards credit card that features a $49 annual fee.
The downside of this particular property is that it is essentially a timeshare resort, so there were very limited IHG Diamond benefits (for instance, there is no breakfast to be had….and I had to proactively ask for a late checkout, and that was only extended to 12pm, not the customary 2pm IHG Diamond benefit even when directly requesting that). The lack of late checkout was kind of annoying, but not really a dealbreaker since we were able to stay and use amenities like the arcade and mini golf throughout the rest of the day anyway after vacating our room around noon. And having that full living room meant that I was able to get up and get a couple of posts scheduled before the family woke up this morning.
One interesting note is that it is unclear what point value I got out of my free night certificate since this stay wasn’t actually available with points. This resort appears to be available or 35,000 points per night on other nights when it is available, so I’d guess that’s about what I got — but I guess the ability to book with a free night certificate when a point redemption isn’t available is worth something more? Either way, it’s a good reminder not to limit yourself to finding nights that are available as awards. Since my certificate is capped at 40,000 points per night with no ability to top it off (a feature of the certs from the old $49 card), I often first tick the box to look for points-based award stays to get an idea as to whether there is availability and which hotels might be available to me (in part because I don’t want to use a certificate if I could book with many fewer than 40K points and I can also immediately see if properties won’t be available since they cost more than 40K points. However, I really should always check for certificate availability when I have a certificate to use so that I don’t miss opportunities like this one.
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I’m currently running into the opposite. I have a hotel with rooms at 40k, but I’m being told that there are “no free nights available.” Multiple agents, and I can’t get it to book online.
Great tip and this happened to me too booking via a free certificate when an award stay for points was not available. This is a timeshare resort for sure so no real perks but the Free Cert use is very good value.
Good to know! Thanks!
This happened to me also, a couple months ago on an expiring cert! Also on a HI vacations club property – hmm, I wonder if it’s specific to that context?
I was going to link to my earlier comment but I think it was on Reddit… sigh
Nick,
Please discuss the hotel itself, its condition, the beds, TV, etc. Also, how was the pool and the amentias, e.g., how was the mini golf course, etc. Many thanks!
Like I said, I’ll probably have a separate bottom line review. This was just about using the certificate.
Thx!
I had the reverse a couple of years ago. I could book a room with but not with a free night cert that I had. I called in and they made it work for me.
er…”book a room with POINTS”
This is an extension of the ability to use the certificates for rooms that aren’t available on points. I have found that many times when just a base room is available for points, certificates can book just about any room or suite in the hotel.
That’s interesting. I’ve never seen the ability to book a suite with a 40K IHG Free night cert (unless you’re talking about like a Candlewood Suites or something like that?). Would love to hear of any examples that come to mind?
We stayed at hotel Rachamankha in Chiang Mai last year. The only room available for points was the base room but I booked their best two bedroom suite for two of the three nights. Ended up having to pay cash for the third night because they wouldn’t budge on giving it to me for points and wouldn’t let me book base room on points and cash upgrade.
Edit: Sorry, that was earlier this year. Last year we got a three bedroom in Orange Lake Resort in Orlando with a certificate that wasn’t available for points.
There was a glitch last year with Mr and Mrs Smith hotels where if a base room was available for 40000 pts, then you could use the certificates for virtually any room. I got a room like this on the California coast. Also saw availability at some nice places in Europe using the same trick.
These are the best accidents to have!