It appears that a new IHG promotion has just come live.

I’m expecting an announcement from IHG soon, but here’s what I find:

• Available from October and runs through 2022 and 2023
• Not all hotels / all dates are available
• Fixed reward night pricing for participating properties by brand:
  • Kimpton – 45,000 points
  • Regent / InterContinental – 35,000 points ~ 45,000 points
  • Voco / Even / Hotel Indigo – 30,000 points
  • Crowne Plaza – 25,000 points
  • Holiday Inn / Holiday Inn Express – 20,000 points

Needless to say it’s most worthy of spending your points ta Kimpton, Regent and InterContinental hotels. The InterContinentals at London and Amsterdam cost 40,000 points per night:

The ones at Maldives and Bora Bora are even cheaper at 35,000 points:

I don’t have any travel plans at the moment, but might as well make some speculative bookings just in case.

IHG offers negotiated discount rates to many partners, and you may save quite some money if you dig around a little bit before making a booking. For example, we wrote about two partner rates previously:

• UK Railcard
• Mastercard

A friend just introduced me to another IHG partner program with Wall Street Journal, which I’m gonna look into today.

Basically if you are a Wall Street Journal subscriber, you are automatically enrolled into their WSJ+ rewards program, which comes with member-only access to exclusive offers and events.

One of the offers is a special IHG partner rate.

It appears to be a new benefit that started in April, and is valid until the end of 2023 (for now). Basically this special rate guarantees at least 20% off at participating IHG hotels globally, and:

• You must book at least 5 days in advance
• You can cancel free of charge 3 days prior to check-in
• At least one night needs to fall in Thursday – Sunday

To check the price or book, go to IHG’s website and enter corporate code 787056050. If the partner rate is available for a given hotel, you should see the Your Preferred Rate sticker as in the image below:

For an upcoming Friday, here are some London hotels with their partner rate and Advance rate:

• Crowne Plaza Embankment: £228 / £252
• Hotel Indigo Tower Hill: £167 / £184
• InterContinental O2: £191 / £209

Although not always the case, the WSJ+ partner rate is very often cheaper than the Advance rate, and the latter is non-refundable.

The WSJ+ partner rate can potentially save you a lot of money on IHG stays. Note that however you may be asked to present proof of WSJ membership upon check-in. It appears quite cheap though (at least for the first year / months), as I’m seeing a “£52 for 52 weeks” option on their website, which is a bargain considering the hotel savings.

IHG has brought back its Points & Cash sale, and if you’ve been thinking about topping up your IHG account, you are looking at the right place.

You can read more about the offer here.

• Book by June 24
• Stay by August 26
• Save 20% on the cash portion when making a Points & Cash booking

I saw a mention of my Diamond status when making a dummy booking, although from the terms and conditions the promotion doesn’t appear targeted.

Unlike the similar feature that other hotel groups offer (e.g. Marriott and Hilton), IHG’s Points & Cash works very differently. When making such bookings you are basically just paying cash on the spot to buy the points you need, therefore it’s a pure reward booking by nature and you don’t earn any points for the cash portion.

That said, the offer may bring along a good opportunity to bag some cheap IHG points. The Two InterContinental Alliance hotels at Macau – The Londoner and The Venetian – for example, are “selling” points for as low as 0.5c.

If you cancel a Cash & Points booking, the cash portion won’t be refunded, however the full amount of points are deposited back to your account. Note that however, such bookings may be non-refundable on certain dates, so read carefully before proceeding.

0.5c (or $5 per 1,000 points) is as low as IHG goes when selling points via public promotions. Cash & Points can actually go even lower at times – in fact some hotels in China were doing 0.48c but it only survived a couple of hours. If you are dedicated enough, you can play around a bit and see if you can spot any better deals.

IHG had a reward night sale in January, where you were entitled to up to 20% discount on all award bookings. We knew that it’s coming back on March 22, but what we didn’t know is that it’s actually open to public from the very beginning this time.

Here are the offer details:

• Book by April 5
• Stay by May 25
• Targeted members enjoy up to 20% off all reward-night bookings

You either have 20% off, 10% off or nothing, and it appears to be totally random, or at least we can’t easily figure out the criteria.

The discount kicks in on March 22, hotel’s local time. It’s not live in the UK yet, but you should be able to see it if searching for hotels in China and Japan etc.

IHG’s dynamic redemption system is nowhere near as bad as Hilton’s, and it event has arguably more good deals than it did previously. 20% off on top of that is spectacular.

If you fancy visiting Edinburgh next Month, the Kimpton hotel has many dates priced at sub-40k or even sub-30k points. Note that it’s BEFORE the 20% discount kicks in.

Such promotions are also known as a cheap way to “buy” points indirectly from IHG, as you can make cash & point bookings and then cancel them. You won’t get your cash back, but you get the full amount of points instead.

Here are a few examples in Asia. (Update: they all appear to have gone)

InterContinental Shenzhen Dameisha, May 7, 0.46c

InterContinental Beijing Sanlitun, April 9, 0.46c

Regent Taipei, April 24, 0.49c

I’m sure there are plenty more hotels / dates available. Be sure to check the cancellation policy though – cash & point bookings have the same cancellation policy with best flexible rates, which under rare circumstances may be non-refundable.