I love to book things in early so I have something to look forward to, but in light of IHG’s recently announced changes to their redemption list, it makes sense to do so.

I’ve booked our summer holiday to the west coast of the USA and have tried to maximise points and miles where I can. This includes a night at the SFO Crowne Plaza, 2 nights at the Intercontinental Clement Monterey and 2 nights in points at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, shown below.

This cost me a total of 230,000 IHG Points.

If I were to book these after the 17th February, the same rooms would be an extra 10,000 points each, or 280,000 in total – a significant increase of 20-25%.

There are, of course, some hotels where the price has fallen, but these tend to be at the lower end of the spectrum where people wouldn’t want to redeem points.

If you are planning on redeeming at an IHG Property in the next year or already have a booking, it would be worth seeing if your desired property is affected – you could then book before the 17th February devaluation or cancel and rebook after.

Thanks to magicofmiles for alerting me to this!