Bits: IHG 5000 points PointBreaks preview – with a London-ish hotel, HfP on Rip-Off Britain

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News in brief:

Shock as London-ish property hits IHG PointBreaks

IHG Rewards Club will be releasing the list of new ‘5,000 point per night’ PointBreaks redemptions during Friday.

We will run it on HfP on Saturday and the rooms will become bookable on Monday afternoon.

IHG released a teaser list yesterday. There are 120-150 hotels on the list usually, and this time they will include:

InterContinental Bandung Dago Pakar (Indonesia)
Crowne Plaza Johannesburg – The Rosebank (South Africa)
Holiday Inn Manaus (Brazil)
Hotel Indigo Columbus Architectural Center (US)
Holiday Inn Express Buffalo Downtown (US)
Holiday Inn Express Williamsburg Busch Gardens Area (US)
Holiday Inn Clermont – Ferrand Centre (France)
Holiday Inn Express London – Croydon (UK)

Yes, for the first time EVER, a London hotel is included.

Technically, of course, Croydon is not in London. However, I have done a couple of mattress runs at the Croydon hotel in the past (booking, checking in and leaving immediately, to earn promotional credit) and it is as near as you’re ever going to get for 5,000 points per night. It is under 10 minutes walk to East Croydon station where you can get a mainline train every few minutes to London Bridge etc.

It obviously isn’t the greatest place to stay for a London holiday, but come on …. a lot of people would take 12 nights at the Holiday Inn Express Croydon (with free breakfast) over 1 night at the InterContinental Park Lane.

You can book from Monday afternoon. I imagine that these rooms will go very quickly.

Head for Points on Rip-Off Britain

We were in Manchester yesterday to film a segment for the BBC’s Rip-Off Britain programme. This won’t be broadcast for a few months, unfortunately.

The story involves two people who were struggling to use their Avios points. One person was having trouble finding seats to Tokyo – a notoriously tricky route. The second was more complex, because the person involved had spent over £1,500 on 135,000 Avios during a ‘35% bonus’ promotion without fully understanding what he was getting into, especially as he lived in Scotland with few direct BA options.

With Simon Calder clearly on holiday, I was there to help out the two contributors which basically involved defending the commercial strategy of Avios Group / British Airways.

A photo from the session is above. I’ll let you know when it is due to go out.

PS. For anyone who thinks the BBC is blowing your money day in and day out ….. the total budget for this segment (not the whole episode) was £400. That is not a misprint. This included travel costs for all participants plus some home filming for the two contributors. I was not paid.

Category

IHG Rewards

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Jonny says:

28 Jul28 July 16:34

Question on Heathrow parking: Can I easily park in the Premier Inn T5 car park, and then cross the road to take a “pod” to the terminal?

Looks feasible on google maps but not sure if actually possible or not…
- Genghis says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 17:06
  
  You’d have to pay at the Thistle for access or walk the long way round via Longford.
  - Jonny says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 17:38
    
    But would I even get in via the Thistle if i’m not staying/parking there?
    - Genghis says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 18:08
      
      Just cross the road into the Thistle
    - Simon Schus says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 21:39
      
      Yes, you have to go to their reception and pay them the fee (can’t remember how much, it was possible around £5). Saying that, I managed to bag a parking-only package at the Thistle so it made sense to pay the extra £5 given that it was already significantly cheaper than other options (I think I had booked it around 24 hours before departure too, as it was an unanticipated trip).
Fenny says:

28 Jul28 July 18:05

Talking of Rip off Britain, I’ve just had my first statement for my IHG White card. I checked it to see how much I’d spend – a few tickets for the Edinburgh Fringe and my entry for the new Telegraph Fantasy Football season. Seems that Creation class online fantasy games as cash transactions, so my £9.99 entry fee attracted a £5 cash transaction fee and I’m paying interest on it. There isn’t really another way to pay it, but TFF have cleverly stated in their T&C that “some banks and building societies may make an additional charge for playing fantasy games online. Entrants should check with their bank or building society prior to entry.”

When I rang up to query, the CS person said it’s in their T&C, as it’s classed as online gambling and lottery. I’m utterly gobsmacked. I was going to keep this card for ongoing spending, but I’m not sure I want to now. If I keep it at all, it will only be for the IHG status, which isn’t really that much to write home about, and not really worth a £5 fee!

If that’s not a rip off, I’m not sure what is!
- Alex W says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 19:33
  
  Not sure what your beef is there. Sounds like a form of gambling to me, so a cash advance fee sounds reasonable!
  - Aeronaut says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 22:36
    
    Though setting the fee at £5 seems rather less reasonable.
  - Fenny says:
    
    29 Jul29 July 10:28
    
    Having played TFF for the last 5 years, this is the first time I’ve been charged a CC fee. If I’d had any idea, I would have paid by debit card. But I don’t normally spend anything on my debit card.
    
    I’ve never seen the actual FF game as gambling and don’t indulge in any of the additional betting that is pushed as a sideline to the game.
    
    Sadly, I am now older and wiser.
- John says:
  
  29 Jul29 July 02:54
  
  Debit card??
- Andy says:
  
  29 Jul29 July 10:08
  
  I used £1000 from my Black card to fund some a share account. Made a few bob and a week later withdrew to the black card. Withdrawal went through as a purchase and deposit went threw as a refund on a different item. Hit the £300 spend in one go and collected 40k points bonus.
nocnoc says:

28 Jul28 July 18:13

I have an Accelerate target of ‘pay with cash and points’, anyone know if a 5,000 points break would count towards that target? If so, it’s off to Croydon for me but don’t fancy doing a trip unneccessarily
- xcalx says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 18:22
  
  No. Points and cash means instead of paying say 30,000 points IHG offers pay 25,000 + $ 40 or 20,000 + $70 for example.
- Fenny says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 18:30
  
  Be careful. If you do, the stay does not count as a qualifying night for any of the other accelerate targets, eg stay 3 nights. It will ONLY count for the target and you end up losing points – if you pay, say £40 and 20000 points, you will get the 3000 or so for hitting the target, but you’re 17000 points down on the deal for a stay that wouldn’t have cost much more than £40 anyway. If you can hit your bonus without, I wouldn’t do this particular target.
- Rob says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 19:19
  
  No, you can’t do ‘cash and points’ on PB.
Rom says:

28 Jul28 July 18:58

Just seen full list of pointsbreak. What a poor show!!
Paul says:

29 Jul29 July 15:47

Well that’s a pain, the only IC seems to Bandung and I am due to stay there next week!! Hey ho it was only £60 a night for club earlier in the year and I have been upgraded to a villa already. Would probably have spent as much on breakfast each day with a pure points stay.