serpens

Well, one reason. It confers a 10% points rebate, up to 100,000 points per year, unless things have changed. My math says that I would break even at about 82,000 points per year redeemed, so that would almost be sufficient reason for me to keep it. (Sure, I'll show my work. $49 / $0.006 = 8,167. To get 8,167 points worth $0.006 each, I would need to redeem 81,670 points, which I called 82,000.)

jn in ca

I noticed on the Chase sign up page, after the part where Chase tells people how many free nights they can get by signing up for the IHG Mastercard, it now includes the disclaimer "Point redemption values may vary depending on demand."

It's pretty misleading to show these photos of hotels, telling potential cardholders they can get this many nights at this Kimpton and that many nights at that Indigo, then in the fine print include "Point redemption values may vary depending on demand."

MD/DC Flyer

I think the "backtracking" was just a normal fluctuations.

In several places I'm following the prices jump like crazy - rooms that were 34,000 yesterday are 64,000** today (for hotel that historically was 50,000 max); rooms that were in the 25,000-30,000 rate are now 60,000 (for hotel that historically was 40,000). Other hotels shows little increase (1000-2000 a night).

In short there is no predictability what so ever which makes the point useless for most people. Then again there is a business opportunity for programs that scan the prices on a regular basis and send alerts or rebook.

Oh well, the writing was on the wall when they started dynamic pricing.

** I was looking at average rate (the real prices are 61,000 and 67,000).

jn in ca

I'm seeing the exact same thing. Local IHGs jumped two weeks ago then went back down to reasonable redemptions last week. Today I looked and they are through the roof again.

Like you say, no matter what the redemption cost ends up being, these daily (or at least weekly) fluctuations make it impossible to plan ahead for a vacation. I'll do much better to go back to booking IHG hotels through hotelsdotcom, where the prices and rewards program are somewhat stable. It isn't like I'll give up very much by foregoing my Spire benefits.

SteveOh

I just got an email to apply for the IHG card with a 160,000 point bonus. I've never seen it that high before. No such thing as a free lunch (or free night ;-) I suppose.

Fanjet

Yeah. I got that email as well. Usually, they plug these credit card offers first, then eff with the award redmptions later. Now it appears that has been reversed. Maybe they should tag in the line "these added bonus points will help cover the newly-implemented, over-inflated award rates."

Runner123

The Atlantic Avenue Ocean City MD Holiday Inn is up to 90,000 points a night in late August!! 90,000 points when it was 50,000 3 weeks ago and you can book it for $363 a night!! In contrast, the point hotel rates in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bali aren't jacked up this high! 90,000 for a Holiday Inn-not a IC-when there are ICs going for 30000 and less. This is nuts, and IHG is just trying to steal points from Americans because of COVID!!

ninjalad

They are hardly aimed at Americans! Rates in some European hotels have also jumped up .
I suspect that they will go higher still once normal people are allowed to stay again (biz travel only at moment)
Singapore, Bali and HK have no one staying as most cannot travel there so no reason to put up the rates

jpdx

Just played around a little bit with various locations and dates. Still scratching my head what IHG did here and why.

Some of the excesses we saw a couple weeks ago have been smoothed out, but there are still lots of ridiculously priced ICs and especially Kimptons in places like Paris and London. Especially Kimptons are bizarrely priced -- IF it is true that this new pricing scheme is indeed intended to avoid high reimbursement payouts to hotels, perhaps these sky-high Kimpton point requirements indicate that Kimptons are subject to a different compensation scheme?

Of course IF minimizing payouts to hotels is the objective, the algorithm will need some fine tuning. Sure, charging 47k points for a HIX will make it unattractive to redeem there, but it's not exactly unlikely that such pricing will make the nearby Indigo priced at 13k even more attractive. Such nonsensical pricing seems to be the rule rather than the exception in larger cities like Berlin, HK, etc.

One thing that has been mentioned above is that pretty much every hotel that is priced "around 40k" will be slightly above 40k, rendering free night certs useless. That has been evident in my searches, so I'm inclined to agree that this is by design.

All that said, there are still lots of great deals to be found, especially when searching further out. Not compared to a year ago, when this thread started and top ICs like Osaka and Danang could be had for less than 30k, but still: very solid deals, all over Europe and Asia. For example, I booked the Indigo in Berlin for 13k, Indigo Antwerp for 17k, a number of CPs in Japan at 9-13k (in some cases, Saturday nights during cherry blossom season -- likely to go for >20k yen even at mediocre CPs), plus lots in small town Europe at 10-20k. Some ICs in Asia remain reasonable (e.g., Osaka and Beppu at 60k for the vast majority of nights I searched), and some are a lot lower (for most dates) than in the days of fixed redemption categories (e.g., IC GS HK at 30k, ICs in Tokyo in 40-50k range).

I'm sure dynamic pricing will not work in our favor in the long run, but for now, I think it's still possible to do exceedingly well with IHG for frequent world-travelling FTers -- i.e., assuming you have some flexibility in dates and locations, and don't focus on a single program. For those who save up points for one or two vacations on high demand dates in popular locations, I think these changes sting rather a lot.

pazza2000

I’ve given up trying to work out their award pricing! I think the suggestion is it’s part dynamic, I don’t even think it’s that. It’s almost sporadic.

Raffles

Unless you quote cash rates too, these are not hugely helpful comparisons. I can see Indigo Berlin at 12k in July but the cash rate is only €70. This means it is only a bit better than my target return for an IHG point, and a decent IHG promo could easily make cash a better deal.

Tilto007

Revisting this thread to say that now the pricing has adjusted down to very low valuations. When the dynamic pricing started it was possible to get many hotels at .8 to even as high as 1 cent per point. Now I see valuations mostly around .3 to .5. I cannot see any reason to try and collect IHG ponts at these redemption valuations.

Runner123

I can say that in Miami, hotels were priced pretty high-both point wise and price wise. Just yesterday, some of the hotels dropped considerably in price, and today, a couple dropped even more. The Angler's Beach Kimpton, which had been running at 47,500 at night went to 27,500, and today 21,500, and the Surfcomber, which was over 60,000 is down to 43,500. The Epic is down to 54,750. I rebooked, as I was booked at the Palomar, which isn't very close to a beach, and you must take a shuttle to a beach club-the Surfcomber's, I think.

tassojunior

Unless you have the cards that give the 4th night free and 10% rebate on points. I have a lot of points so i keep both the Premier card and the old Select card for those 2 discounts and the free night certificates on each. It's like a 1/3 discount on points and i use IHG enough to where i always use the free nights. Also, remember, as opposed to cash, you're saving local sales tax too, which is usually 10%.

But from city to city it's a total crapshoot with IHG. No sense to it at all about when points rates go up or down. Like a lottery.

Concerto

Actually, it's extreme. I'm looking at 0.18 cents per point (2.8 in another case) for redemptions in Nice in August, with high cash prices and even higher points prices. IHG points are annoyingly useless these days and I'm not redeeming at those rates.