40% Off Florida IHG Rewards !
 

No idea what or why but today checking IHG's in Florida most seem to be about 40% off their normal award rates, (A couple were even cheaper without the 4th night free). I checked Tampa Bay/Clearwater and Miami hotels. Also checked a few California hotels and no discount there. Something nice is up (or someone made a big mistake). Any ideas?

Chicago is the same. Either a glitch or an unannounced Covid sale?

Deep redemption discounts in some locations & dynamic award pricing
 

Last night, I fired up my IHG app for the first time in weeks. I noticed some deep points discounts in Germany/Austria/CZ/CH/Belgium/NL -- IC Vienna as low as 17.5k points per night, IC Berlin at 20k points, various CPs as low as 12.5k. So I initially thought, nice, an unannounced 50% off sale.

But then I noticed that it appears to be a more significant change. When searching for multiple nights, the average points requirement for some hotels came back as, for instance, 23,571 points. I looked at the points breakdown and saw that while there are discounts, it's not the same for every night, but rather dynamic. For example, here's CP Berlin in October:


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2c3c9d655a.jpg
So some dates come up at regular rates, some are a little discounted, and some severely. I have no idea how deep discount/some discount/regular price is derived (in the examples I looked at, it's not evident from revenue rates for the respective dates).

Certainly some nice deals to be had for now, but I'm sure we might ultimately see some "high season" rates above the normal points requirement for the category.

I found the same thing in certain cites in the United States. NYC and Austin TX for example I checked LAX and nothing so far. So it’s interesting. And some of the prices are truly Hyatt like well your not gonna get 2cpp but I found penalty at 1cpp but then you add the fourth night free and my 10% points back with the IHG select card I’ll have to do the math but there are some sweet deals. Hope they stay but book while you can you can always cancel a few days b4 the reservation.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...259982587.jpeg
As you can see in Austin during Moto go racing time hotel is normally 60k points a night at both intercontinental and Kimpton hotels. But as you can see you can book for about 1cpp and that’s double the valuation. .... u can buy points for .05 cpp right now.

Merged both threads covering the dynamic pricing

FLYGVA
co-moderator IHG Forum

Seems like it’s dynamic pricing being rolled out. Some NYC to be doing the same after a quick check. Oh boy...

At least they are easing us into the madness with some good deals. I guess it is time to burn up my points before the other shoe drops and the program becomes as worthless and terrible as HH.

I'm seeing the reduced rates but it will NOT let me book online for a free Chase CC night even though I can get all the way through the booking process but get an error at the very last step saying to call CS. Was on hold for over 45 minutes with someone at their foreign call center and they couldn't do it either. Put me on hold again and then naturally disconnected me. On hold again now! This is ridiculous! If it is offered it should be able to be booked.

I was looking last night for Europe and saw some of the new rates - initially thought they were a glitch.

Am looking at either a few extra booking or switching my cash ones for points.

Best US property deals outside of FL?

Just booked a 40k night at the Crowne Plaza NYC Times Square at the reduced 40k rate and will fight with them to change over to Chase Free Night certificate later. Tired of being on hold for hours and worried that the reduced rate will disappear.

For some reason I got a couple days where the 4th night free was more expensive than booking 1, 2 or 3 days at a time.

Hopefully this isn't a way to nullify the fourth night free benefit.

Similarly, the Willard in DC is 40k for many nights, but doesn't seem available using the Chase certs. They probably have some fine print that they can point to for not honoring the cert, though in reality, I bet it's an IT issue.

Don't know whether this is good news or bad news. On short term the prices I checked are steal - never seen NYC hotels that cheap, but on long run they might just increase the price like Hilton.