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While researching my accommodation options for Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam for our Million Mile Madness challenge, I came across an interesting phenomenon – the ability to book any room type at an IHG property using a variable number of points.
Hilton has long provided the ability to book any room type using points, offering standard award pricing for base rooms and Premium Room Rewards for other room types. There are a couple of problems with Hilton’s Premium Room Rewards though. One is that the pricing for slightly upgraded rooms is often absurd, with the other issue being that you can only redeem Hilton free night certificates for rooms that are at standard award pricing.
With the Holiday Inn & Suites Saigon Airport though (an IHG property), neither of Hilton’s downsides apply. On a random date in December, you can redeem 15,000 IHG One Rewards points for a 1 King Standard City View, 2 Single Standard City View or a Standard Room. For just a little extra – 17,000 points for the night – you can book a 1 King Standard Pool View or 2 Single Standard Pool View.
If you’d like a larger room, there are suites bookable with points too. A 1 Bedroom Suite City View or 1 Bedroom Suite City View Sofa Bed cost 24,000 points for the night, while a 1 Bedroom Suite Pool View is 26,000 points.
Last, but not least, you can book the hotel’s Presidential Suite. This is a little more pricey redemption-wise though – 95,000 points for the night.
I mentioned earlier that Hilton only lets you redeem free night certificates for standard room awards and not Premium Room Rewards. With this IHG property, you can book any of the room types using a free night certificate provided the points rate is 40,000 points or less.
What I was a little surprised by is that I wasn’t given the option to redeem a free night certificate from an IHG Premier card for the Presidential Suite and top it up with 55,000 points, but it’s not like that’s a big deal breaker seeing as I wouldn’t have expected being able to book any of these premium room types using points nor a free night certificate.
Question
Have you seen this ability to book premium rooms for a variable number of IHG points at other properties? Let us know in the comments below.
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I’m just happy the IT infrastructure allows it. It would make a rollout easier if they want to do it.
What about the cents per point please
It depends on the type of cancellation policy you’d want and which room you’d book, but it looks like it’s ~0.5cpp or better for the most part.
I was able to book a king suite with a balcony for the same number of points as a standard room at the HIE Ajaccio Corsica last month. The option wasn’t available when I first booked. But when checking to see if there was a change in the number of points per night a few weeks after booking, the suite was an option.