Originally Posted by
bob12403
It's the check out date. This is the language on my IHG Rewards Premier Flex Free Night details: "The Anniversary Night must be redeemed, and stay must be completed within the [12 month] booking window dates shown. Ditto for the IHG Select Card Free Night: "Chase Anniversary Free Night is valid at hotels in the IHG® One Rewards Family of Brands and stay must be redeemed and completed within 12 months from date of issue." [My emphasis added.]
Now that I think about it, although the above does read that way, I think in practice, the system lets you book and apply your free night certificate to a reservation on the expiration date. However, if you move that reservation to 1 day after the expiration date of the certificate, it will no longer pick up the certificate to apply to the reward reservation, as I recall.
One should check the above if it permits you to apply your certificate to the expiration date of the certificate and I do not think this is like it used to be when these formerly uncapped certificates could be applied to any date way past the expiration date of the certificate -- when this perk was first introduced -- the fix to that was made long ago.
Thus, I think that the online certificate selection process guides one with respect to how these are supposed to work.