IHG - how evil are you to devalue overnight during the pandemic!
 

I was so excited to have my first vaccine dose appointment scheduled and start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel that I can finally travel soon. All those IHG points that we have saved up for a big anniversary trip that we kept postponing and finally have hope that it can happen, guess what, thanks to IHG devalued overnight without notice, that dream shattered! How evil, heartless, and shameful are you to devalue without notice especially during the pandemic when the world needs hope?

Plenty of comments in this thread

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/inte...l#post33146961

Many think - and not just on flyer talk - that this is an IT glitch - my app has been crashing a lot the last couple of days and so has others for an example - and not an devaluation.

save your anger until we actually know what is happening.

Hope it's a glitch, thanks for pointing that out!

I don't think it's a glitch. But if I'm wrong (and I hope I am), surely once the holiday weekend is over, they should correct it quickly, or at least put out a statement if the fix will take time. I'd say if we don't hear anything by the end of Tuesday, consider this intentional.

But MissVacation's post highlights something. Once there's no official award chart, then travel companies feel they don't have anything to announce. It's not a devaluation, it's just normal price adjustments, right? But that lets them off the hook too easily in that they can make these widespread and significant price increases with no notice at all. Most travel companies have (or used to have) a practice of giving a month or so warning to give their loyal members a chance to book at the old rates. But not IHG, not anymore.

And usually when a no-warning devaluation occurs, the blogs will drag them over the coals for it. And while this devaluation has gotten plenty of notice and criticism from the blogs for the breath and depth of the price increases, , few are taking IHG to task for the lack of any notice.

On you last point Raffles from Head for Points has said he's in the 'glitch' camp and is willing to wait a couple of days to see if it gets sorted.

You can bet that if this is confirmed there would be a post and loads of comments about it. At the moment it's restricted to a couple of comments in other threads. Even in a post about another IHG offer there is little or no gnashing of teeth about this at the moment.


I'd contrast that with the sole US blog I read and there the reaction was anything less than measured. It HAS to be a devaluation and are going on as if it is certain. I remember when dynamic pricing came in and there were some wild pricing then but they soon settled down.

It’s not an IT glitch.Doctor of Credit link has more moaning and groaning than here. They just don’t care. Off to book my Hilton Honors points before the same thing happens.

To my point, the DoC post mentions nothing about the fact that the devaluation was immediate, without notice. The Loyalty Lobby post that DoC uses as it's linked source is really long, with several excerpts fromprior posts and a dozen example screenshots, but it's only in the Conclusion section, way at the bottom, that the mention the increases came without any advance notice.

He's just picked up that from another blog so hardly a fresh source of information on this.

At the moment blogs are merely recycling this 'news'. Another one saying 'devaluation' does not make it a devaluation.

Sorry, but if somebody is dumb enough to continue collecting points with hotel chains officially doing dynamic award pricing, then they forfeit the right to be outraged when the chain does exactly what they said they would do, which is to change award prices whenever they feel like it...

The lack of notice is precisely the point of dynamic pricing, as is the lack of a published algorithm that could be gamed.

OMAAT just posted including a statement from IHG. So, looks like not a glitch.

https://onemileatatime.com/ihg-rewar...b-devaluation/

You may be too late. Hilton also has some crazy pricing. Nicer hotels have single night stays well over 200,000 points now. Marriott has great value again. I will have to strategically use my IHG points and forget about using their CC for the rest of the year.

Those 200k hilton award nights are premium rooms, their standard rooms are still capped.

Except that they are getting creative where a king standard room is 224,000 points and a room with 2 queens is 95,000--like at the Wadorf Beverly Hills when the cash rates are the same.

Yeah when hotels simply don't care they do that. Similar to some Hyatt hotels. And the company can care less.

The OP should look at the bright side: thanks to IHG, you are now going to be in a position to live up to your handle and Miss your Vacation.