New IHG PointBreaks announced; award nights for as low as 5,000 IHG Rewards Club points

IHG Rewards Club runs a quarterly promotion known as PointBreaks where award nights at select hotels start from just 5,000 IHG Rewards Club points. The Autumn PointBreaks has come to an end and IHG Rewards Club is back with its Winter PointBreaks which runs from now until 30 November 2018. All award nights under PointBreaks promotional rates must be booked before 30 November 2018 and your stays have to be by 30 November 2018 as well.

Under PointBreaks rules, each IHG Rewards Club member is only allowed to book two PointBreaks reservations per hotel in the PointBreaks list. This rule won’t really affect you much unless you intend to return to the same property more than twice.

As with previous PointBreaks, IHG Rewards Club has made the PointBreaks list “live” and when a hotel runs out of PointBreaks award nights inventory, it will be blacked out from the list on their website. 

How do I book PointBreaks rates?

PointBreaks rates, if available, are already loaded onto the hotel’s inventory and thus if the hotel is participating in the PointBreaks promotion you will be able to see the PointBreaks rate reflected. Here’s an example showing the Holiday Inn Express Aberdeen City Centre showing that it still has rooms on the PointBreaks rate.

Rooms booked with points under the PointBreak rates are subjected to the same cancellation policies as rooms booked with points on normal rates. You will be able to cancel your bookings with no penalty up to 24 hours prior to check in. This policy might vary between properties so make sure you read the fine print when performing a PointBreak booking at the hotel’s website just to be sure of its exact cancellation policy.

You are also able to book PointBreaks hotels using Cash + Points but it might be cheaper to purchase IHG Rewards Club points outright to make up for the shortfall of points. IHG frequently has sales where you can purchase IHG Rewards Club points at a 100% bonus so do keep a lookout for those.

Plenty of InterContinentals available for booking

As with previous PointBreaks, the list consists mainly of Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express properties. This time around, there are actually quite a good number of InterContinental properties spread between the 10,000 points category and the 15,000 points category.

If you’re looking for InterContinental hotels around Asia, the recently opened InterContinental Hanoi Landmark22 is participating in PointBreaks and it is available for 15,000 IHG Rewards Club points a night.

The bulk of the other InterContinentals are located in Europe and South America and if you’re heading to Ljubljana, the InterContinental Ljubljana is available at 15,000 IHG Rewards Club points a night under PointBreaks. Using points at this hotel is an excellent use of IHG Rewards Club points as revenue rates are hovering around USD273.

Purchase IHG Rewards Club points to unlock nights from just USD25

Purchasing IHG Rewards Club points for stays at PointBreaks hotels are an excellent use of IHG Rewards Club points. The InterContinental Ljubljana is going for 15,000 IHG Rewards Club points at PointBreaks rates and revenue rates hover around USD273.

If you had purchased IHG Rewards Club points at a 100% bonus which translates to a cost per point of just US 0.5 Cents per point, you are looking at booking a stay here for only USD75, which is much cheaper than the quoted USD273.

Here’s how much you’ll be paying for a night at PointBreaks hotels if you had purchased IHG Rewards Club points at a 100% bonus:

• 5,000 points – USD25
• 10,000 points – USD50
• 15,000 points – USD75

Even if you’re purchasing IHG Rewards Club points with a lower bonus, you will still come out ahead than paying the revenue rate in most properties.

Concluding Thoughts

PointBreaks are an excellent way to stretch your IHG Rewards Club points and if you currently have a stash of IHG Rewards Club points and there’s a PointBreaks hotel in the city you’re looking at, you might want to check them out first.

Remember that the list of hotels on the PointBreaks list is ‘live’ and once a hotel runs out of PointBreaks award inventory it will be removed from the list.

If you’re short of IHG Rewards Club points and don’t wish to buy points, Citibank is a transfer partner of IHG and you can transfer your Citi points over to your IHG account. I wouldn’t normally recommend doing this but it might be worth it if you’re looking at using them for PointBreaks hotels.