eyuro

I just got home from a 6 night stay IC HK which I booked with points. As an Amb they upgraded me from a Superior to a Deluxe room upon check in. Knowing that my Son came along as a third person I asked for a bigger room. They offered me a Junior Suite for the small add on fee that had been offered thru the app. The room was still quite small for 3 beds so we declined. The person handling the check in then offered me the Deluxe Ocean View Suite with a bedroom and sitting room and the roll away for no charge for a hefty but well worth it add on fee.
Question. Do I get points for the paid portion of my stay? I checked with both the Amb check in counter and the person who originally checked us in and they both said yes. They both confirmed with me upon check out that my card was on file and that I will get credit. Were they wrong? I haven't seen it yet and its about a week since my return.

scubaccr

Probably wrong. F&B would count on award nights but not room upsell areas (room upgrade or lounge access)

My thought are no points for room upsell as it is a points booking. For points/award night you only earn points for f+b billed to rooms

Room upsell at checkin + lounge upsell at checkin are always added to the room rate billing class. On a paid qual night rate you then earn points for the extra spend

Your nights will still post about 4working days after the stay, and your gold/platinum/spire yearly nights counter will increase. You can click to expand the account Line posting to see a breakdown.

Superior Junior Suite is unbookable online room type an RA booking base room are upgraded to. RA booking Harbour View gets upgraded to Deluxe Junior Suite. Deluxe J/S is smaller the Superior J/S room but has the better harbour view.
Exec Suite is central single large 70m room, whilst Deluxe Suite has separate rooms so is probably why you got offered the Deluxe suite to have separate room for your son for sleeping privacy

saint77

IC HK is arguably the best IC anywhere for RA reward night stays

fantastic service, great room upgrade and quality Club lounge

it was cold + rainy the night I was there, so I ordered a Bento box from Nobu to be served in the Club while enjoying unlimited Perrier Jouet champagne, tough life ;-)

on that stay they even gave 1300 reward points

VeryHumerus

Im trying to book this hotel from Dec 29-31st on a mix of free nights and points but its blocked off unless I do 29-1st all at once. Is there a workaround that anyone knows of?

Raynyan

They are blocking this period until 6month before. And probably this period is black out day of point stay.

bob26

What are the breakfast options outside of the hotel? It seems that they want $70 USD per person

Modo

Within about 400 to 600m plenty of options at Harbour City or around Nathan Road. But currently unless you go underground the first 400m is a construction area.

Price for 2 breakfasts today is HK$500. Club lounge access including breakfast is HK$980. If you both drink a few glasses or more of Perrier Jouet and want breakfast it is probably a decent deal.

scubaccr

It is not blocking per se, just the hotel, as many do for peak demand stay windows, setting a minimum nights stay criteria

If some seasonal peak demand is eg expected to be Saturday 31st Dec , New Year's Eve only, then without such minimum stay control , all the Saturday nights would end up sold as 1-night stays, AND prevent hotel selling either adjacent Friday or Sunday nights which would only get booked if connecting Saturday availability existed

I have had success emailing hotels on PAID stays to add an extra night to existing bookings by overriding the minimum stay requirement (after all I am staying that minimum, I simply can't add an extra night)

Hotels will be much less helpful if you request the hotel to manually override to give you an award/cc/free-night that earns hotel only a quarter of the paid night rate.
There are also at least 4x more IHGers trying to redeem on such premium dates, maybe 10x the award demand for such New Years Eve date in premium location like IC-PL

VeryHumerus

Yea its a 3 day min stay. issue was i was trying to use two free night certs and 50000 points, but they wont let me mix and match online. Im using my 2015 cert and my 2016 cert( when it becomes available) from the chase card and I didnt want them to screw up my reservation and drop the 2015 night and have it dissapear.

jacisme

I'm looking at booking four nights for August using:

1st - cash for intercontinental harbor view room
2nd - free weekend night from royal ambassador status purchase
3rd - Chase free night certificate
4th - 50,000 IHG points

Any idea how this collection of nights will be treated for upgrades? Will they let me stay in the harbor view for all the nights?

I'm currently IHG platinum and will be Platinum Ambassador after the ambassador status purchase.

Thanks in advance!

scubaccr

You can't purchase RA, you can purchase regular Ambassador though which also provides a bogo cert.

IC HK treats RA award nights same as paid, this ex-gratia RA treatment does not get applied to Ambassador status Award nights also, to my (limited) knowledge

Nights 1+2 with Bogo, First night Paid, second night free as Ambassador give upgrade 1-level each night, without problems. Nights 3+4 you have no entitlement to upgrade from booked rooms.

Not sure how Chase is treated, it is similar to award and like award nights there is no upgrade entitlement.

At the end of the day ymmv dependent on IC-HKoccupancy rates those 4nights.
You could be unlucky and need to either move room on nights 3+4 or pay an upsell fee (IC-HK allow a 30% discount on rate difference at checkin)

CLG

I was emailing with the hotel yesterday to check about securing a view room and/or club access for my one night stay using the Chase cert. I received back the following two options for up-sell:

• Confirm our InterContinental Harbour View Room (approx 350 sq ft) for your stay, we are delighted to extend a special rate: HK$800 + 10 % service charge per room per night. (~ $113 USD)
  
• Club InterContinental Lounge access at HK$1480 + 10% service charge for double occupancy. (~ $209 USD)

Is this offer of a harbour view room confirmed in advance common, and represent a decent deal, or should I roll the dice and take my chances for a lower $ amount at checkin? I'm going to pass on the Club access, as there's no way I'll get that value back from the benefits as far as I can tell.

Thx,
CLG

Edited to add: The price difference for my night between an entry level room and a harbour view room is, at the BAR basis, HK$720 ($92 USD)

saint77

to get anything these days in HK for HKD 720 seems cheap, seems like a good deal

the Club Lounge is totally worth it if you and a guest will drink champagne for 2 hours in the evening + decent snacks, 1st rate service, afternoon tea, breakfast with a wide quality offering from English breakfast to congee or dim sum

TravelLawyer

They won't give you a lower amount at check-in. That is their standard upcharge and can only increase. In fact, during firework nights (i.e. NYE) they quoted me a charge of $3,000 HKD + 10% for the same harborview upgrade (parents were looking to stay there).

jacisme

Thanks a ton for the info scubaccr! Followups:

When you say "RA award nights" are you referencing RA and A award (bogo) nights? Or just ROYAL A nights?

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From your feedback I currently believe as follows:

1st - cash for intercontinental harbor view room - free one class upgrade

2nd - bogo free weekend night from ambassador status purchase - free one class upgrade

Then I will have to switch rooms, agree to a cash upgrade, or get lucky and get a free upgrade for nights 3 and 4 when using:

3rd - Chase free night certificate

4th - 50,000 IHG points

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Also am I correct in understanding that ROYAL ambassador status gives you club lounge access? Does ambassador status do that (or in my case, Ambassador status with Platinum IHG status)?

Thanks again!