IHG One Rewards Increases Points Costs At Top Properties

The IHG One Rewards program has dynamic award pricing, as is the case with many hotel loyalty programs nowadays. That means the program doesn’t have an award chart that’s updated when pricing changes, and as a result, it can be hard to keep track of devaluations. That being said, it does look like something has just changed…

IHG One Rewards seemingly devalues points

As noted in this FlyerTalk thread, IHG One Rewards has increased award costs at many of its top properties. As an example, up until now, IHG has had an unofficial cap of up to 120,000 points per night for all non-resort InterContinental properties. However, clearly that’s no longer the case.

For example, the InterContinental London Park Lane is now charging 160,000 points on some nights.

Meanwhile the InterContinental Osaka has even higher pricing, and is charging 218,000 points on some nights.

As was the case before, the InterContinental Maldives (a resort, so not subject to that previous 120,000 point cap for non-resorts) continues to charge up to 250,000 points per night.

Meanwhile the Six Senses Kyoto (the most expensive points property in the IHG portfolio), continues to charge up to 500,000 points per night.

That’s just a small sample of award pricing, but I think it makes it pretty clear that something has changed.

IHG offers very few aspirational redemptions

Personally, I value IHG One Rewards points at roughly 0.5 cents each. What’s interesting to note is that the above redemptions aren’t actually that terrible of a value, in comparison to the cash cost of a stay. You’re typically still getting right around 0.5 cents of value per point, if not a bit more. For example, the InterContinental Osaka often charges $1,000+ per night, while the Six Senses Kyoto approaches $3,000 per night.

It seems like IHG is increasingly going in the direction of Delta SkyMiles, in just making each point worth a certain amount toward the cost of a purchase. That’s not the case across the board, but it’s more true than with other hotel loyalty programs.

To me, the beauty of aspirational hotel redemptions is that you can get outsized value by redeeming points at hotels that would cost a lot if paying cash, but the economics work when the hotels aren’t at capacity, so it’s basically another sales channel for filling rooms.

But if each point is just worth 0.5 cents (give or take) toward a redemption, then it’s much less tempting to redeem at a hotel that costs $2,000-3,000 per night. For that matter, it’s much less exciting to earn the points, since you know you’re going to get some amazing value.

Then IHG just has the general issue of poor integration of properties. IHG has now owned Six Senses for several years, yet award redemptions still aren’t possible at many of the properties. That’s despite IHG’s very high award pricing at so many properties, and revenue based redemptions.

Bottom line

IHG One Rewards appears to have increased award costs at many of its premium properties. While it’s hard to know exactly what changed, one thing we can concretely point to is that the unofficial cap of 120,000 points for non-resort InterContinental properties no longer applies.

What do you make of these IHG One Rewards points requirement changes?