Originally Posted by
hhoope01
IHG used to be my main secondary chain. While even today, they provide very limited elite benefits, they used to have very good redemption prices to go along with their better promotions.
But over the last 10 years or so, they've pulled in the reins on some of the promotion opportunities while at the same time sky-rocketing a lot of the hotel redemption prices.
I used to be able to get oceanfront hotels for 15K/night then over a few year basis those prices went up to 45K/night. For me, now, IHG redemptions cost a whole lot more than they used to, I can't take advantage of as many bonus promotions as I used to and they still don't provide hardly any elite benefits. This is why I dropped from Spire to Plat this year. I moved my secondary program to SPG (with Marriott being my primary).
IHG is still my secondary program; however, I have noticed the same redemption point cost inflation as hhoope1 noted. In major cities I am finding the IHG point cost to be higher than the Marriott point cost for the equivalent property class. In those cities, I am also finding many of the properties limit the availability to single bed rooms even when rooms with two beds are still available for cash at standard rates. That doesn't work well for me as a family of 3. Mom and Dad like a separate bed from our pre-teen daughter and vice versa.
In less urban areas, especially along highways, I am finding plenty of availability at HIX and HI properties though the average point cost per night is still higher than Marriott. Even though Marriott coverage along highways and less urban areas has improved greatly over the past 3 to 5 years, IHG still has much better coverage there.
So why stay with IHG as a secondary program? Hilton's point redemption costs are even worse than IHG, Hyatt doesn't have enough presence and they also recently totally redid and devalued their program. So even though I am getting less value out of IHG than I had hoped, it is still my best option for a secondary program. If they add in Kimpton properties and revise the redemption policies to universally include the option for rooms with two beds, the value would be substantially better. Point cost per night is still a concern, but at least as of the moment, the IHG promo's are both more numerous and more generous than Marriott's which helps to balance the equation. YMMV....
--Jon