Holiday Inn Express Newcastle (Australia)

What is your Priority Club status?
Diamond Ambassador

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Yes!

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
1 Queen Bed Standard Birdwood Park View, received 1 Queen Bed Standard Birdwood Park View (allocated on the highest floor)

How are the rooms?
Just your standard cookie-cutter HIX. Clean, modern, functional. Had everything you would need for a short stay with minimal bells and whistles.

How is the exec. lounge?
N/A

What was good and what was bad?
Location is excellent - super close to Newcastle Interchange with trains and light rail, Coles supermarket across the road. All the staff came across as very genuine, friendly and helpful. Breakfast was good and also had a drink in the lobby bar which is open til late. Hotel was fully booked so I wasn't expecting an upgrade, that said was happy to be allocated a room on the top floor and have the room available at midday, considering I heard other guests arriving after me be told that their rooms weren't ready yet.

Don't really have anything bad to say!

Value for $ or Priority Club Points? Would you return?
Paid 16,000 points which I honestly think was a pricing error since this property is usually around 30,000 points and it did in fact revert back to that when I checked again the morning after booking. Extremely good value for the points considering rooms were between A$250-300.