I was going to write a post about how your hotel points can be worth different amounts at the same hotel. This came about when I was booking a night in for New Year’s Eve. I went onto the IHG app and found, a little to my surprise, that there were plenty of rooms still available for 31st December in Brighton  – I had been expecting to have to pay a lot of money.

Rooms were on sale from £188, up to £254 for and Executive room. The funny thing was that both of these rooms were available for 30,000 points. Obviously I’ve booked the Executive room, with a balcony shown below, meaning that I got 0.85p / point value instead of 0.63p / point.

The following day I went back to write the post and was unable to get screenshots showing this. On further investigation it seems that there was no more availability for the rooms. Whilst this is annoying for the point of view of writing this post, it does serve to remind me that it is worthwhile booking using points even if your plans are not fully formed. Locking in the room means that you don’t have to worry if availability dries up at a later date, but as long as you cancel it before 4pm on the day of arrival then there is no penalty and therefore no risk. 

It is perfect for me as it means that if there is change of plans then I wont be out of pocket.