Earlier today, I broke the news that starting with the February 2018 IHG Point Breaks, IHG is going to be changing (enhancing? devaluing?) their popular PointBreaks program. Instead of all the hotels on the list costing a flat 5,000 points per night, the hotels on the PointBreaks list will cost 5,000, 10,000 or 15,000 points.
I maintain a map and list of the current IHG PointBreaks and update it every quarter. The current IHG Point Breaks are good through the end of the month, so I’ve been getting ready to update the list when the new one comes out.
Is there a silver lining in the Point Breaks changes?
Ian wrote in the comments on the original post
Not trying to play devil’s advocate for IHG, but in some case I might want to take an IC or a Crowne Plaza over a Holiday Inn, even if it is 10k versus 5k. Looks like they have 3 ICs on the list. Sometimes there hasn’t been one, so that is an improvement.
Which I think is a good point. I think the devil is / will be in the details. As you mention, there are several Intercontinentals on the preview list (something that has been hard to find in recent Point Breaks), but also 7 of the 8 hotels listed were more than 5000 points. Also I’m sure the hotels on the preview list are curated carefully so as to show the “best” ones
The other thing to keep in mind is that IHG is changing Point Breaks to allow Points + Cash bookings on PointBreaks reservations, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out and what the rates will be
Analyzing the 8 hotels on the preview list
So let’s take a look at the 8 hotels that are on the preview list, with their Point Breaks total as well as the “regular”
- Holiday Inn® Kuala Lumpur Glenmarie (Malaysia) (5,000 points; regularly 15,000 points) (pictured above)
- InterContinental® Nairobi (Kenya) (10,000 points; regularly 30,000 points)
- Holiday Inn® San Antonio Northwest (US) (10,000 points; regularly 20,000 points)
- InterContinental® Cali (Colombia) (10,000 points; regularly 25,000 points)
- Holiday Inn Express® London – Newbury Park (UK) (10,000 points; regularly 20,000 points)
- InterContinental® Sao Paolo (Brazil) (15,000 points; regularly 35,000 points)
- Holiday Inn® Helsinki City Centre (Finland) (15,000 points; regularly 30,000 points)
- Crowne Plaza Berlin – Potsdamer Platz (Germany) (15,000 points; regularly 30,000 points)
So just in a quick glance, it does not look like there is a fixed formula for the PointBreaks amount (where a hotel’s category automatically makes it either 5, 10 or 15,000. As you can see the Intercontinental Nairobi and the Holiday Inn Helsinki are both 30,000 points but one is 10,000 and one is 15,000
I will do a similar analysis on the full list when it comes out either Friday or Monday – it will be interesting to see what that shows
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My guess: It will end up being a bloodbath, with far fewer 5k properties than before.
That would be my suspicion as well. We shall see….
Over time we’ll see the list of 5,000 point properties grow smaller and smaller. Need to wait for next recession in order to hit the reset button. Recessions come every 10 years or so according to the history books.
Good for you Dan to be presuming that this is yet another serious blow to the once vaunted IHG rewards program…. Rather “touching” that too many other travel bloggers are going with the “wait and see” routine, to find the silver lining in the very dark cloud…… to avoid at all costs biting the hand that feeds them. Will see the full list I suppose later today — and confirm then just how badly our suspicions were confirmed.
and but of course, we can already hear the refrain from the shills: “OMG, an “intercontinental for just 15k points,” etc. etc.
A metaphor — remember the shills hawking the Club Carlson Card and touting the 9k per night category one properties? And how many category one properties are left? That’s what we can envision for the 5k fare on the point breaks list.
Go ahead Manila, prove me wrong.
I’m pretty sure that most hotel, airline and bank companies have not earned the benefit of the doubt on devaluations… 🙂
When will the full list be revealed ? Will it only be at the time the ‘sale’ goes live for booking ?
I think that this could be a good change for the next few pointbreaks lists as IHG try to reinvigorate interest in it after the last several 5k only lists were pretty rubbish.
Having 10 & 15 levels allows more ICs & CPs to feature, which is good.
However I suspect the 5k level will vanish in 2019 and the ICs will start to drop off the list again to leave us with the same dregs which few people want to stay at.
If the IC Paris, IC Canne or IC Amsterdam featured then that’d create a bit of publicity 🙂
James – likely the full list will come out Monday around noon.