For years, PointBreaks has been one of the signature promotions of InterContinental Hotels Group’s IHG Rewards program: a roster of hotels available for award booking for just 5,000 points per night. The list of discounted properties changed quarterly, and at times featured more than 200 participating hotels.
Over time, however, the list dwindled in size, most recently featuring fewer than 100 discounted properties, just 64 of which were in the U.S. And the quality of the participating hotels has eroded as well—fewer (if any) InterContinentals, more Holiday Inn Expresses.
InterContinental must have been aware that the once-popular promotion was slipping into irrelevance because, for the first time, the new PointBreaks will offer three discounted rates: 5,000, 10,000, and 15,000 points per night.
Offer Details
Effective immediately, IHG Rewards members can book PointBreaks award nights at around 200 hotels, for stays through April 30.
Unlike past PointBreaks, discounted stays are offered at three levels: 5,000, 10,000, and 15,000 points per night.
Also unlike past PointBreaks, the latest discounted stays may be booked using either points or a combination of points and cash.
Related:WalletHub Says Delta’s Is the Best Frequent-Flyer Program. Is It?
Deal or No Deal
The new list includes just over 200 discounted hotels, at the following price points:
5,000 points per night – 33 hotels (11 in the U.S.) 10,000 points per night – 133 hotels (76 in the U.S.) 15,000 points per night – 39 hotels (20 in the U.S.)
Here’s how IHG Rewards loyalists reacted to the changes on FlyerTalk, a discussion site for frequent travelers:
You get the idea.
As always, the question with PointBreaks is whether any of the discounted hotels work for you. And whether it’s long or short, the PointBreaks list remains worth perusing. There just might be a hotel that fits into your existing travel plans, or that could be the centerpiece of an opportunistic trip.
No dawdling, though: Room nights available at the PointBreaks rates are limited, so act quickly to lock in a deal that works for you.
Reader Reality Check
Is this the beginning of the end of PointBreaks, or a welcome new beginning.
More from SmarterTravel: Tip Your Uber Driver, or Else Delta Warns: No More Comfort Hedgehogs on Flights You Can Thank United for the Next Airfare War
After 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a thing or two about travel. Follow him on Twitter @twinship.
We hand-pick everything we recommend and select items through testing and reviews. Some products are sent to us free of charge with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions and do not accept compensation to review
The website maxtravelz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
To the list of hotels that offer discounted rates to members of their loyalty programs—Starwood, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, InterContinental, Choice—can now be added the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group (Quorvus Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Park Plaza, Park Inn, Country Inns & Suites).
It’s a fact of loyalty-program life: Airline and hotel programs periodically adjust their award prices. Of course, those adjustments amount to price hikes more often than not. And, all things being equal, higher award prices amount to an overall devaluation of the program.
Starwood’s systemwide “Triple Up” bonus-points offer ends on July 31, and to date there’s been no word of a successor campaign for late summer and early fall stays.
For U.S. News & World Report, the road from weekly news magazine to publisher of company rankings has been a long and winding one. The key, though, to its shift toward data-driven ratings of companies and institutions was its 1983 publication of “America’s Best Colleges.”
Lagging the likes of Hilton, Hyatt, Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Starwood, Omni, Drury, and Nordic Choice hotels, InterContinental will become the latest and one of the last major hotel groups to eliminate adult content from its in-room on-demand TV offerings.
Marriott has just published its list of award-price changes for 2016. As Marriott Rewards members have come to expect from these annual pronouncements, the news amounts to yet another decrease in the value of their points.
There’s nothing new about discounted hotel rates available only to members of the hotel’s loyalty program who book direct. Of the major chains, Starwood was the first to offer member-only rates, beginning last year. And Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, and InterContinental have since followed suit.
InterContinental Hotel Group’s next points promotion, Share Forever, begins next month and features bonuses for both the member’s own IHG Rewards account and to share with other program members.
Update from IHG, including effect date for new prices: “All reservations booked beginning Jan. 16, 2018, will use the new Reward Nights point prices. This is part of an annual review into the number of points needed for a Reward Night, and we’ll communicate to members through our regular channels, including email and our website.”
Raising questions of both ethics and law, the chief executive of Donald Trump’s hotel company, Trump Hotels, has announced plans to significantly expand the company’s presence in the U.S.
Hilton this week posted upcoming changes to HHonors award prices. While such announcements are almost never good news—and are sometimes positively gut-wrenching—this round of changes is so modest in scope that it’s practically a non-event.