What is your IHG One Rewards status?
Diamond

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Not particularly for a number of reasons. A number of small service related issues followed by significant hardware issues

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
King Classic

Upgraded to 1 king Premium Club Lounge Access only after I emailed front desk asking about their upgrade policy. No upgrade on app prior which I find most IHG hotels pretty good with. ~ 2 category upgrade received. No club benefits as I didn’t make 40 nights last year (mostly had a number of high EQP stays for work)

How are the rooms?
Rooms were very much like a time warp. Literally felt like I stepped into a portal and went back 20-30 years. Very dated furniture. Bathroom taps very dated. Shower was adequate but shower door didn’t close properly. Bed was ok. Lots of ‘space’ in the room of 35-40 sqm but space was not well utilised (lots of pokey dead space corners). Windows looked out at a wall.

I generally stay at the VOCO and usually get a ~ 3 category upgrade from the entry king room up to the king premium corner with city view which is miles better. Nice large windows (which also open!), functional bathroom and nice views of the city.

How is the exec. lounge?
Didn’t use

What was good and what was bad?
Good
- The breakfast spread was reasonable and adequate. Barista coffee included in breakfast (no coffee tax that some hotels in Australia do)
- Bryedo products - the one advantage over the voco

Bad
- when I checked in, it was clear that they tried to avoid offering breakfast. “You can choose your amenity - would you like 600 points or drinks”. I really wish hotels would stop doing this nonsense. I asked for breakfast and the staff member went “oh, ok then”.
- $100 AUD per night deposit hold on top of entire stay. For long stays this could be significant and problematic if not released promptly
- the rooms being from the 1990s with little in terms of functional space
- location - the IC is actually in a relatively annoying corner of Melbourne CBD for me personally. Close to Southern Cross stations yes, but a reasonable 15 - 20 min walk to a lot of the nicer restaurants and a solid 25 min to theatre end of time if you walk instead of taking the tram. VOCO wins out as it is literally 5 steps from emporium/Melbourne central.

Value for $ or IHG One Rewards Points? Would you return?
Probably not - decided to give it a try. However, the VOCO generally offers much better value.
I would stay if I wanted a functional swimming pool