This morning, I wrote about (arguably) one of the best awards for airline redemption. Now, we revisit the best award for hotel redemptions – the IHG PointBreaks list.
Prepare For PointBreaks List
The IHG PointBreaks are hotels that are released every two months for only 5,000 IHG points per night. Considering that many of these hotels are at least 30,000/40,000 per night, this is a fantastic deal! IHG selects a limited number of hotels throughout their network and across the globe. Sometimes the offerings are really good while others are a little on the blah side.
Look at the savings – 5,000 points versus spending $100!
The current list is set to expire on July 31. Normally, the new list comes out around the 24th-28th of the month that the list is going to expire. That means that we should expect to see the new PointBreaks list coming very soon.
Now, since these come all the time, why is it important to actually prepare for them this time around? The answer is – the Amex Daily Getaways. American Express ran their annual Daily Getaways and had thousands of IHG point packages available a couple of times. While they did not all sell out, a great many of them did sell and that could be a lot of competition for this next round.
Holiday Inn Express – Rochester
A good thing is that IHG had changed the rules to allow guests to only make two reservations per property. This prevents the massive booking of the aspirational properties by people who, some of them, did not ever end up using it but just thought they should grab it “in case” they were able to go. That should make sure that people have a more fair shot at getting some of the really nice properties.
How To Prepare?
So, what type of preparation should be done? The list will be revealed and then it will become bookable within a day or two. That gives you those two days to check the properties against your wish list so you are ready to pounce when they become bookable.
One of the things you can do is have your dates ready. That will save you valuable time, and may even get you a reservation, because you will not need to go through all of the dates looking for ones that might work for you.
Another thing to do is to collect the points. While they can be transferred from Ultimate Rewards at 1:1, that should never happen except as a last resort! Instead, you can actually buy them for .7 cents each using the method outlined here. To purchase the necessary 5,000 points for a one night stay would only cost you $35. Even at the lower tier hotels, that price can still save you a bundle. But, it is better to get a move on purchasing these points. You can always buy later after you see the list, but you have no way of knowing if the rooms you want will still be available when the points post. It can take a few days for the points to post.
IHG 80K Offer
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Another great way to collect the points needed is to apply for the current IHG 80K Mastercard offer. This link takes you directly to an application page, but applicants have all indicated that it does indeed come with 80,000 points. That gets you 16 PointBreaks nights!
Unfortunately, you will not get those points in time for this booking, but it something that you can get in anticipation for the next round of PointBreaks.
Get ready – the list should be out very soon! This can be a fun way to plan a vacation, just make sure you are prepared to book!
My thoughts exactly! I just got the Chase IHG 80K offer in my last mini churn. One reason to get it that you did not mention is that the IHG card rebates 10% of your points bookings. So after you get those 16 PointBreak nights, you’ll get an additional 8,000 points, good for almost another 2 nights on top of that!
Have we heard definitively that there will BE a new PointBreak list? I am assuming so (As you are) but always get nervous that this will be the month that they’ll decide they’ve had enough of that promo 🙂
I am fairly certain it will return for one main reason – they made some changes to the terms for the last round and I do not think a program would make changes to something like this with plans to end it in the next round. Plus, it is a promo that never goes over capacity – the rooms and hotels they have allotted are booked and that is it. They are never taken by surprise or end up losing a lot of revenue.
Just returned Wednesday from a PointBreak redemption. Stayed @ the Lakewood Ranch Holiday Inn near Sarasota Florida. 5K per night was so good, I booked two rooms. Was treated well w/ side by side rooms on 3rd floor w/ nice water view. My Daughter enjoyed her own room and was nice to have privacy w/ the Wife in our room. Have the SW companion pass so only used points for two seats non-stop from BWI (wanna get away fare). Overall a very inexpensive 6 days in Florida. The savings on hotel & airline freed $’s for splurging on attractions & dining.