My husband and I each opened Chase IHG cards last year. We used our bonus points for the Holiday Inn Old Sydney on our big trip down under this past summer. Our one-year anniversary with the cards was this past week, and we were looking forward to booking a stay with our IHG renewal certs.
Timing of IHG Renewal Certs
Thankfully, we received our IHG renewal certs the day after our card anniversary. We hadn’t yet paid our $89 annual fee. I’m glad we didn’t have to wait 9 weeks to get the renewal certs like we did with our World of Hyatt cards.
When I logged into our IHG accounts, I saw the free nights in our accounts. Booking a hotel online with the free nights was very easy.
Boston or Bust!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, our goal was to use the “free” nights for my husband and son to stay in Boston during an international tennis event. The trick was to find a qualifying IHG hotel (40,000 points or under) with availability. Luckily, we found availability in a Holiday Inn Express & Suites that’s only 1.5 miles away from the event center.
I booked one night in my account, listing my husband as an additional guest. The other night is in his account.
Just for kicks, I decided to see what the cash price would be for those two specific nights. I was surprised to see that the lowest refundable rate was $579 per night, making the two-night stay over $1300! Other hotels in the immediate area are also priced at $500-$600+ that weekend. I’m not sure if the elevated price is due to the tennis event or something else going on in the area.
But wow! That’s not a bad value for only paying $178 ($89 X 2) to renew our cards. And now that I know we can likely expect our certs in late October next year, I already have a solid plan to use them in early 2021. Looks like we will be hanging on to these cards for a while.
What are your plans for your IHG renewal certs?
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I have the legacy IHG card with the $49 fee. Used it to book the HI in SD near the airport which is the beginning of our 10 day California trip next summer which will take us to San Diego, Anaheim (Disneyland) Las Vegas and San Francisco (Yosemite).
@Natasha Sounds like you have a great trip planned! I want to take my kids to LA to see Hollywood and other stuff we didn’t see because we only visited Disneyland last time.
What a sweet deal!!!! I love a great redemption. Just redeemed my 2 IHG certs + 35,000 pts for 3 nights to fly hubby and I to a baseball game next Spring (it’s a combo anniversary getaway) at a Kimpton. I’m so excited!!!!
@Stephanie Sounds like a great redemption for you! Woohoo!
I just booked 2 nights in Aruba at Holiday Inn using certs. Also using some Marriott points and using my cert from Aspire for the Hilton there. I did try to book Hilton and reservation didn’t go through for some reason, but they also LOST my certificate and had to open a case to get it back! When they tried to book my reservation and failed, the cert didn’t go back to my account. Not sure what happened, but they said I’d have to wait before I could book even though it was their fault. Wish they’d make it easier and didn’t have to call in.
@Lynn Aruba sounds fantastic! Sorry about the issues you are having with your Hilton certificate.
You shouldn’t be comparing to just cash rates
Free night via certificate = free night available by booking points
If you were to book points (I assume 40k/night), you can buy points at $0.005/pt sale or $0.01/pt right now? So if you didn’t have the card, you would have paid $200-$400/night for that hotel room, not $600 cash rate
Of course, having card means points don’t expire that easily
@Tony You’re right, if I just purchased the points it would cost less than the cash price in this situation. Either way, I’m happy with the value from the certs. 🙂
My husband and I both signed up for the new IHG card and we both have the old one so I’m looking forward to having 4 “free” nights per year! We’ll probably use them for Disneyland. Other options include Zion National park or Arches National park. We also visit family near Vernal, Utah a few times per year (exotic I know!).
Btw if any readers out there plan on visiting Bern, Switzerland, there is a great (new) Holiday Inn (Bern Westside) we stayed at last summer with our kids. It is right next to a train stop (Bern hotel guests get free local transport passes) and a mall with a water park which is free for guests! Our son loved it. We used our free night certs for part of our stay. Downside is max occupancy was only 2 or 3 people (typical for Europe). Anyway I thought it was a decent value especially for Switzerland!
@Tammie I really want to visit Bern! Ever since I saw it profiled by Samantha Brown on her show, it’s been on my list. Sounds like a great use of the IHG free night!
Woah, wait a sec. My wife and I have the old one, just because its a better value to get a free night for $49 per card per year. You can also sign up for the newer IHG card which doesn’t conflict with the older one? I did not know that. Not that we can anyways, since we’re way over 5/24, but interesting to note.
Yeah, funny how chase lets you have 2 IHG, but only 1 Hyatt.