2015 Pointbreaks discussion
 

Fellow flyertalkers,

discuss and guess when we will see pointbreaks in 2014 as suggested by valdor in his post. A new thread seems better than to continue the old one.

Our goal is to keep this thread helpful and informative. Therefore I ask you to post in this thread only question related to point breaks such as (but not limited to):

• practice
• information about hotel appearing and disappearing on the list
• booking (and maybe cancelation) questions
• link to hotel reviews
• ...

If you have indication, when and if pointbreaks will be available, please give details for the source (e.g. was told (i.e. yestersday / on July 25th) by (the front desk / lounge agent / member of staf) of the (HIX City / a Holiday Inn in London) ...). I am fully aware that a reference to the source should / must be avoided, on the other hand, an indication is needed, that there was such a statement. It is a matter of trust and for us moderators difficult to differentiate between a joke post / rumor / trustd source.

Rumors, if the Point breaks are discontinued should only be posted, if you have a source for it and can name it (e.g. someone mentioned it in a hotel and you trust this source, etc.). Question, which hotels will be on the next point break list, could not really be answered. You might check the pointbreak hotel list thread about the history of CP and ICs on the pointbreak list.


All other discussions are not very helpful for person, who are new to this forum and do not know how to understand this discussion. I therefore aks you to post this kind of discussion in our Lounge Thread . I will move all non-topic discussions to this thread, so they are still available, but keep this thread a bit more useful.

Thank you very much for your cooperation and sorry for being once again the fun stopper - but such is life as a moderator.


FLYGVA & szg
co-moderator IHG Forum

It is the same reason airlines don't release all the seats on a flight to award booking.

I am pretty sure there are award nights at this specific hotel for full rate.

I would like an award model like the AA Citi discounted awards. If there is award inventory, you can use the discount.

Can someone plz post the Pointbreak booking dates from 2014 plz?

Here is the history of Pointbreaks during 2011-2014:

2/28/2011 list for redemptions through 4/30/2011
4/25/2011 existing list extended thru 5/15/2011
5/9/2011 new list through 7/30/2011
7/18/2011 new list through 9/30/2011
9/19/2011 new list through 11/30/2011
11/22/2011 new list through 1/31/2012
1/23/2012 new list through 3/31/2012
3/30/2012 new list through 5/31/2012
5/22/2012 new list through 7/31/2012
7/30/2012 new list through 10/15/2012
10/8/2012 new list through 12/10/2012
12/3/2012 new list through 1/31/2013
1/28/2013 new list through 3/31/2013
3/25/2013 new list through 6/30/2013
6/27/2013 new list through 8/31/2013
8/26/2013 new list through 10/31/2013
10/30/2013 new list through 1/31/2014
1/27/2014 new list through 3/31/2014
3/24/2014 new list through 5/31/2014
5/27/2014 new list through 7/31/2014
7/28/2014 new list through 9/30/2014
9/29/2014 new list through 11/30/2014
11/24/2014 new list through 2/28/2015

If IHG continues their same pattern of posting PB on the last Monday of the month in which the current list expires, we can expect a new list on February 23, 2015; and a preview list on February 20.

I think it will be more likely in January.

I think not given that the current list ends on 2/28

I agree with this.

IHG was rather consistent in 2013 and 2014 with the new list coming out on the last Monday of the expiring month. Most lists have lasted two months, but about once a year the list lasts 3 months.
Considering that there are still dozens of hotels available right now, I would be surprised if a new list comes out this month.

Best Way to Shorten a PB Stay and Not Lose Points?
 

I have a 3-night PointBreaks stay reserved for later this month, but circumstances have changed and I plan to leave after the second night.

Should I cancel the third night now, or when I arrive at the hotel, or never? My concern is to not lose the PB rate for the two nights I will be there...and I hope to recover the 5000 points that would have been used for the third night.

I think that you'll find that experience has varied greatly in how people have handled this vs the outcome. I'll provide one data point, I had a PointBreaks stay recently in Boston for 3-nights, 15,000 points total. I wanted to cancel the final night so upon check-in I explain the situation to the front desk, they messed around with the booking for 10-15 mins and finally checked us in for just the 2 night stay. He ensured me that the 5,000 points from the final night would be redeposited back into my account. The actual outcome was that all 15,000 points went back into my account and we still stayed the first 2 nights.

I'm sure others will have horror stories about canceling specific nights with the property directly but it worked out well for me.

Jeffrey

I did the same a few years ago with no problem. The 5000 points were back in my account immediately. I recall that I have done it online and on another occasion I did it thru the specific hotel. Both ways worked. I see no reason to wait until your stay to cancel.

Are you volunteering to move into a PB property booking one room per family member?

AFAIK, changing/cancelling PB stays can be a mess, and that's why we used to make single day bookings because we don't have to risk loosing the whole thing if our plans changed. With the new rules this is no longer doable anymore.

We stayed at a PB property last week and we booked 2 rooms (1 member each), and both rooms had bad smell and we asked to change room. FD said that they are all sold out due to a dog show, but we really don't want to stay in rooms that smells of a locker room. After a while she came up with a solution that we all stayed in a kids suite instead of 2 rooms (she said it's a room that they never get to sell). She agreed to refund the points for 1 of the rooms.

It has been more than a week and no points yet - I wrote to the hotel and they said they will do it. That's the problem with IHG - if the hotel would work with you, things will turn out fine, but if they refuse then don't count on the corporate to do anything to help you.

It's new years. Requests are being processed slowly at IHG.

I've got two reservations at the Abu Dhabi HI for February. The problem is that the first reservation's terms state that I can cancel by 6pm the day of with no penalty, but the second reservation's terms state that I'd need to cancel by 6pm a full *month* before my check-in date :confused:

Assuming the terms on the second reservation were somehow generated incorrectly - any suggestions on how to get them fixed without breaking my pointbreak stay?

I don't think you can do that, except by calling IHG and see what happens.
But it's not necessarily incorrect. If there is a special event, they can change the cancellation time for some dates.

Just completed a point break 1 night stay, at checkout my bill stated direct bill $26. That is a pretty low sum for the hotel to charge IHG. Would have thought it was more.

You'd be surprised just how little hotels get for award nights if occupancy is low. I've had award stays with other chains where they were only billing corporate in that same ~$30 range so it's not that uncommon.

:rolleyes:If the IHG hotel is 95% or more occupied, they get the average rate for the night. Less than that, it's normally $25. They don't get any tax. I had this discussion with a manager of an IHG hotel I am friends with just last week.

Just to chime in, I had a 12 night stay show as $87 total on the bill. Occupancy was clearly low as I was given the top floor 19th without any questions asked what so ever. At the moment and I do need to update my status I am a lowly club member.

Anyone stay at the Holiday Inn Abu Dhabi or Crowne Plaza Doha yet and care to share their experience? Definitely looked like two of the nicest properties on the list.

I got the same bill recently at a Hyatt. It was about $15.

The incremental cost of the hotel for this room is even lower.
I'm told that even 5* are sold to tour operators in bulk at 30$ or less.

Never receive a bill from PB stay. Long time ago when they still offered CB on point stays I saw from $25 to $150/night.

You'll find a few of us have posted our Crowne Plaza Doha experiences in the Crowne Plaza Doha thread!

One time I had a 3 night point stay in Paris, peek summer season, got a suite upgrade, the bill was Euro2K! and it was direct bill to HH. That is the only time that I had seen a bill like that. So I assumed full suite price when above 95% capacity. Would that not be an incentive for the hotel to upgrade you, so they can bill corporate the most? I was lucky to get all the points (plus promo points) for that Euro2K.

Average daily rate invariably means

1. Sum total $$$'s income for all rooms that night
2. Divide Sum by number of rooms in hotel

That is then then average daily rate used by IHG, Hilton corporate in the 95%+ occupied scenario

Upgrading you (at no charge) to a room usually sold at higher rate will not change the result of the above calculation.

You had a point stay and you got points credited? This happens often?

The normal (room rate times multiplier) points? No, not often at all. (It's a mistake when it does happen.)

But an IHG Platinum getting credited check-in points (500 flat points per stay) on a points stay (or on a free night certificate stay), yes, that now happens often.

I felt sorry when I saw the bill for my PB stay. And then, I found all my award stays regardless of how many points were redeemed, bills say $25 all the time. So don't feel sorry. It's not PB - it's IHG.

95% occupy rule mentioned above is interesting, though.

Plat got 300 pts per stay in Germany (tried HI and HIX) both award and paid stay.

man i just reallized that they killed that ihg community site..

http://loyaltylobby.com/2014/11/21/i...previews-gone/

Hoping for a preview soon...
Have some holiday trips coming in next 3 months where I would love to save some points...:p

Didn't they at least last time give some previews

For the past two years or so previews have come out on the Friday before the Monday that the list comes out. If IHG continues their same pattern, a preview will be out tomorrow and the list will be out on Monday, Feb. 23.
But remember there may be discrepancies between the preview list and the actual list.

thanks! been wondering what the pattern was.

Tomorrow or next week.

Will there be a preview, given that the community site is gone?

I guess we ll know more in +24h

There was a preview in November, even though the community site was gone then. I forget who got the preview - info is in the 2014 pointbreaks thread.

I think it was Loyalty Lobby.